The Seducer (2 page)

She shook her head.

“I did not think so. It was the other one, wasn’t it? The one more than happy to leave you alone with me.” He speared her with those eyes. “Tell me now.”

She hesitated. He really didn’t care about her. This was the first time in years that he had even really looked at her.

He was definitely doing that. Sharply. Deeply. It made her uncomfortable.

He had helped her that time when she complained. Maybe if she told him, he would agree to keep silent and things could continue as before. Or perhaps if he complained, Madame Leblanc would believe him, and Madame Oiseau would be dismissed.

There was something in his expression that indicated he would have the truth, one way or another. Something determined, even ruthless, burned in those devil eyes.

She much preferred him bored and indifferent.

“It belongs to Madame Oiseau, as you guessed,” she said. “There is a young girl, no more than fourteen, to whom she has been showing it. The girl told me how Madame Oiseau described the riches to be had for a woman who did such things. I went to Madame’s chamber and took it. I was looking for a way to bring it down to the fire, but Madame Oiseau claimed a brooch had gone missing and all the girls’ chambers were searched. The book was found in mine.”

“And the brooch never was found, was it?”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully while his gaze moved all over her, lingering on her face. He was trying to decide if she spoke the truth.

“How old are you now?”

The annual question, coming now, startled her. “Sixteen.”

“You spoke of your friend who is fourteen as a young girl.”

“She acts younger than that.”

He scrutinized her. He had never looked at her so long or so thoroughly. No one ever had.

“I brought you here, what, ten years ago? Twelve? It was right after . . . You were a girl then, but not a little child.” His gaze met hers squarely. “How old are you?”

Her foolish plan was unfolding in spite of her cowardice.

Only she did not want it now.

“Sixteen.”

“I do not care for young women trying to make a fool of me. I think if we let down your hair from those childish braids, and see you in something besides that sack, that we will know the truth.”

“The truth is that I am sixteen.”

“Indeed? Indulge my curiosity, then.” He gestured at her head. “The hair. Take it down.”

Cursing herself for having attracted his attention, she pulled the ribbons off the ends of her braids. Unplaiting and combing with her fingers, she loosed her hair. It fell in waves around her face and down her body.

His sharp eyes warmed. That should have reassured her, but it had the opposite effect. Caution prickled her back.

“How old are you?” His voice was quieter this time, with no hard edge.

He had her very worried now. “Sixteen.”

“I am sure not. I suspect that you concluded it was in your interest to lie. But let us be certain. The gown, mam’selle.”

“The gown?”

“The gown. Remove it.”

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he faced him, with her chestnut hair pouring down her lithe body. Her lips parted in confusion and her soulful eyes widened with shock. With that expression she looked almost as young as she claimed to be.

“Remove it,” he repeated.

“You cannot tell my age from . . . At sixteen I already . . .”

“A female does not stop maturing so early. There is a difference between the voice of a girl and that of a woman, and yours has a mature resonance. There is also a difference in their bodies, especially in the hips. The ones that I just saw struck me as too rounded for sixteen. Remove your garments so that I can check if my fleeting impression was correct.”

Her face flushed a deep red. Sparks of indignation flickered in her dark eyes. He half-expected her to start disrobing and call his bluff.

Then the fires disappeared and her gaze turned cool.

She suddenly reminded him of her father. There was no reason why the hell that should bother him, but it always had, and he abruptly lost interest in the game he had initiated with her.

“I am twenty years old.”

She did not sound like someone who had just been outflanked. Her tone suggested that she had made some decision.

A tiny spike of caution stabbed him.

“Does Madame Leblanc know your true age?”

“She never asked my age when I came. I was small and unschooled and put with the youngest girls. However, she can count the years.”

“But she never raised the question of your future with me.”

“It was not in her interest to do so. You continued paying the fees. I progressed through the curriculum quicker than most. Three years ago I moved to the front of the schoolroom and began teaching what I had been taught.”

“Very convenient for Madame Leblanc. However, you also never raised the question. In fact, you have lied to me about it before, and just did again.”

“I have seen girls leave at eighteen. I did not think you would let me stay here if you knew I had come of age. So when you asked, I gave you the same age for several years before getting older again.”

She had been very clever, Daniel realized. More clever than one expected of a young girl.

He made the annual trips to this school with dark, soul-churning resentment. They served as sharp announcements of duties delayed and hungers unfed, of time passing and of quests unfulfilled. His responsibility here only reminded him that there would be no peace until he finished what he had started years ago. Even as he talked with her each year in this study, he blocked most of his mind to her.

She had seen his self-absorption as indifference and taken advantage of it.

She blushed prettily at her admission of guilt. “I apologize for the deception, but this is the only home I have known. I have friends here, and a family of sorts.”

Home. Family.
A small, wistful smile accompanied those words.

She had been willing to take a whipping to keep what little she had of both those things.

He instantly wished that he had not let curiosity follow its course. Looking at her pretty face, he had forgotten whom he dealt with. For a few moments there he had been a man toying with an attractive woman and enjoying her dismay far too much.

“We will forget this conversation, mam’selle. You can indeed stay. We will say nothing about your true age, and I will continue sending the fees. In time, Madame Leblanc will probably begin compensating you for your duties and you will officially move to the front of the schoolroom.”

She strolled around the chamber, absently touching the glassed bookcase and the velvet prie-dieu. “It is tempting, I will not deny it. But the book . . . Madame Oiseau . . . It cannot be the same now. Sometimes events conspire to force one to do what should be done.” Her ambling brought her back to the desk. “No, it is long past time for me to leave here. I must ask for your help, however. Very little, I promise you. I am a good teacher in the subjects expected of a governess. If you could aid me in securing a position, I would be grateful.”

“I expect that is possible. I know some families in Paris who—”

“I would prefer London.”

She said it quickly and firmly enough that his instincts tightened.

How much did she remember?

“I think that I can get better terms in London,” she said. “They will think that I am French. That should count for something.”

They will think that I am French.
Clearly she had remembered the basics.

“Paris would be easier.”

“It must be London. If you will not help me, I will manage on my own.”

He pictured her arriving in London unprotected and unsupervised. She would get into trouble immediately.

And get him into trouble eventually.

“I cannot permit that.”

“What you will permit is not of consequence, m’sieur. I am in this school by your charity, I know that. But I am of an age when I daresay that you have no further obligation to me, nor I to you. If events have forced courage on me, then I shall be courageous. I must find my life, and I intend to go to London.”

I must find my life.
His caution sharpened to a sword’s edge.

As often happened, that produced a mental alertness that instantly clarified certain things. His mind neatly transformed an unexpected complication into an opportunity. One that might salve the hunger and finish the quest.

It stood facing him, waiting for his response. Proud. Determined. But not nearly so confident as she posed. Not nearly so brave.

Sometimes events conspire to force one to do what should be done.

How true.

How much did she remember? It would not matter. And if, as he suspected, she hoped to learn all of it, it would be over before she even came close. In the meantime he could keep an eye on her.

He studied her lithe frame and the body vaguely apparent beneath the sack. He pictured her in a pale gown of the latest fashion. Something both alluring and demure. Her hair up and a single, fine jewel at her neck, with those soulful eyes gazing out of her porcelain, unpainted face. Lovely, but young. Fresh and vulnerable, but not a silly schoolgirl.

Yes, she would do. Splendidly, in fact.

“I will speak with Madame Leblanc and explain that you will leave with me today. We will discuss the details of finding you a position when we get to Paris.”

Diane folded her few garments and stacked them in the valise that Monsieur St. John had sent up from his carriage. They were all too childish for a governess to wear. She would have to find some way to rectify that.

From the small drawer of her tiny writing table, she removed an English Bible. It was one of two remnants of her life before this school.

She thrust her hand to the far back of the drawer and grasped a wadded handkerchief. She let it unwrap and its contents fall onto the desk. A gold ring rolled and rolled before stopping, poised upright. A scrap of paper fluttered down beside it.

For several years she had worn the ring on her thumb every night when she went to sleep. Then the day had come when her tenuous hold on childhood memories failed, when they became fractured snippets of images and sensations. The ritual of putting on the ring no longer made sense and she had ceased doing so.

She did not have to read the words on the paper. They were from the Devil Man, the only note he had ever sent her. It had come with this ring one year on the feast of the Nativity, explaining that the ring had been her father’s and that he thought that she might like to have it. She doubted that he even remembered making the gesture.

It had been years ago. The second or third Nativity that she was here, perhaps. She couldn’t remember exactly.

She tucked the ring and note into the valise. She would have to ask Daniel St. John how he came to have it.

And her.

The door to her chamber opened and Madame Leblanc entered. She marched to the window and peered out with critical eyes. “Take your time. Let him wait.”

“If he waits too long he may leave without me.”

“He will not leave without you. Trust this old woman when she says that. I am not ignorant of the world, or of men.” She turned abruptly and pointed to the bed.
“Sit.”

Diane sat obediently. Madame paced in front of her, shaking her head.

“Sometimes this happens. One of my orphans leaves to be a governess or to live with a relative, but I know that there is more. I can sense it. Holy Mother forgive me, I do not welcome giving the advice that I am about to impart, but I would fail in my duty to you if I did not.”

“There is no need, madame. Your training has been most thorough.”

“Not in this.” She crossed her arms over her substantial chest. “Property and jewels, secured to you. That is what you must demand. Legally secured, so there can be no misunderstanding.”

“He has no reason to be so generous.”

“He will have a reason. He has realized that you are of age . . . and that book. Now he thinks that you are amenable. . . . I should have considered that, but in my disappointment at your sin, I did not.”

“You distress yourself for nothing. He has agreed to help me find a position and I will be safe.”

“He intends to find you a position, Diane, but not the one that you think. He wants you for a mistress.” She looked down severely, but her expression instantly softened. “You look at me so blankly. You do not even know what that means, do you?”

She could believe that she looked blank, for she wasn’t very clear on what that meant, except that it was sinful.

“The book, Diane. The terrible images in the book. Those are the duties of a mistress, and with no benefit of marriage.”

The odd engravings flashed through her mind. She felt her face turn hot. “Surely you misunderstand.”

“I have over fifty years on this earth. I know a man’s sinful interest when I see it. Oh, his cool demeanor hides it better than most, but hear what I say to you now. You must protect your future. Property and jewels. Make him pay dearly for every liberty that you grant him.”

Diane wiped the pictures from her thoughts. Madame might have fifty years, but they had not been very worldly ones, and she always spoke badly of men. “I am sure that you are wrong.”

“He is rich. He will seduce you with luxuries and kindness, and then . . .”

Diane rose. “I thank you for your concern, but my association with Monsieur St. John will be brief.”

Madame helped buckle the valise. “Do not forget to say your prayers. Every night. Perhaps then, when the offer comes . . . Maybe.”

Diane lifted the valise. It wasn’t very heavy. All the same, carrying it out of this chamber would not be easy. Nor would leaving Madame, for all of her strictness.

“I thank you for your care, madame.”

Impulsively, the formidable woman enclosed her in an embrace.

She had never done that before. No one had, for as long as Diane could remember. It evoked ghostly sensations, however, of the security and comfort of other, long-ago embraces.

It took her breath away. The warmth and intimacy astonished her and moved her so much that her eyes teared. The human contact both salved the odd hollow that she carried in her heart and also made it ache.

The little cruelties over the years did not seem very important suddenly. Madame had been the closest thing to a mother.

The moment of tenderness made Diane brave. She turned her head and spoke in the older woman’s ear. “The book. I stole it from Madame Oiseau. She shows it to the girls.”

She broke away and turned to the door quickly, catching only a glimpse of Madame Leblanc’s shocked face.

Madame Oiseau waited for her down below. She slipped an arm around Diane’s waist and guided her to the door.

“I underestimated you.” She smiled slyly, as if they had suddenly become great friends. “Who could have guessed that such a shrewd mind worked beneath that demure manner. Well done, Diane.”

“I think that you overestimate me now.”

“Hardly. But you are too young to appreciate the victory waiting for you. Too ignorant to reap all that you can. You must write to me for advice. We can help each other and grow rich from your cleverness.”

“I do not want your help.”

“Still proud. Too proud for an orphan with no past. Much too proud for the bourgeois merchants and lawyers to whom most of the others have gone.”

They passed out to the portico. A crisp wind fluttered the edges of their muslin caps.

Daniel St. John lounged against the side of the carriage, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Madame cocked her head. “An exciting man. Maybe a dangerous one. Not born to wealth. Beneath his elegant and cool manner there is too much brooding vitality for that. He has managed to be accepted into the best circles, however. The women would permit it, to keep him nearby, and even the men would be intrigued.” Her eyes narrowed. “Make him wait.”

First Madame Leblanc and now Madame Oiseau. “Since I am already out the door, it is too late to try and do that now.”

Madame laughed. It brought those devil eyes up, and on them.