The Trouble With Seduction (29 page)

Mrs Billings did not wear gowns that swished. Nor did anyone else at the mission.

A prickle of foreboding crawled up Sarah’s neck. She knew how an expensive gown sounded. For a number of reasons, few women in this neighborhood wore them. If it had been anyone she knew, they would have announced themselves. She slowly turned.

Not four feet away stood a woman dressed all in black silk with a black hat and heavy black veil.

“The mission is closed.” Sarah stood and picked up the blackboard pointer, gripping it authoritatively with both hands.

“We talk about Ravenhill,” the woman said in a low, accented voice.

She realized this was the same woman she’d seen loitering in the shop across the street from the perfumery, who’d waited for Mr Ravenhill. “What about him?”

“Bad men hurt him.”

“I hope so,” Sarah growled.

“Men say we must give them plans or they hurt you, Ravenhill, me, and baby.” She said each word carefully as she rubbed the front of her shapeless gown with a black, lace-covered hand.

Horror quivered through Sarah. “Whose baby?”

“Mine and Ravenhill.” She continued to circle her stomach protectively.

The chalkboard pointer cut into her fingers. “Mr Ravenhill is your husband?”

“No. Find plans. Then marry.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. “You must help him get the plans before he’ll marry you?”

The woman’s hat tipped forward and back, nodding in the affirmative. “Da.”

Sarah never swore, but the baseness of Ravenhill’s coercion of this woman nearly forced an oath from her mouth. She pressed the chalkboard pointer tighter to her waist in order to quell the nausea roiling in her stomach.

Since the first, he’d made no secret of wanting to get his hands on the drawings. He’d said locating them might solve her husband’s murder and find the men who attacked him. And all the while, he and this woman were working together?

How could Sarah have been so gullible? He’d used both her and this woman like Piccadilly prostitutes. Seduced them with well-concocted lies. Used amnesia as an excuse to keep secret his wickedness and deceit.

Did this pregnant woman know of his engagement to Eugenia Lambert? Sarah’s stomach clenched in disgust. How could she have been such a dupe? The warning signs had all been right in front of her, and she’d refused to see them.

“I do not have the plans.” She practically spat out the words. “We have looked everywhere, as you probably already know. If my husband made them, he either destroyed them or made sure no one could find them. I’m sorry for your situation, but there is nothing I can do. My manager will see you out. Do not call on me again.”

Sarah nearly doubled over when the woman left the classroom. She couldn’t admit to herself she was burning with jealousy. Ravenhill had told Sarah he loved her in the midst of the most passionate lovemaking she’d ever experienced.

And she’d believed every last word.

Then, like an idiot, she’d whispered her love for him, as well.

***

That afternoon, the day’s drizzle turned into heavy showers. Damen ducked under a store awning to keep dry. In the window, he saw his reflection with Cory’s flamboyant clothes. The same ones he’d worn to the Crystal Palace.

His attention turned to the display cards in the window. Out of the blue, a memory lit up in his mind. At long last, he remembered where he’d seen Professor Bodkin’s name. It had always sounded familiar. Now he knew why.

Rather than send Sarah a note, he hastened to Strathford Hall to tell her the good news. He couldn’t wait to see her face light up, feel her body against his, and taste her warm, soft lips.

As he stood waiting in her parlor, everything in him stirred with anticipation.

The door handle finally made a quiet click and his pulse skipped a beat.

Sarah stepped into the room and closed the door. “Mr Ravenhill.” An uncharacteristic edge marred her velvety voice. The room temperature seemed to plummet at least twenty degrees.

Damen stepped toward her holding out his arms so she could walk into his embrace. “I finally remembered where I saw Professor Bodkin’s name. It was at the Crystal Palace on one of the exhibit cards.”

He’d thought such a revelation would be welcomed with at least a smile. Instead, she didn’t look at him at all.

“My lady?”

Her head whipped in his direction as if a filthy mongrel had wandered into her home and she intended to chase him off with a stick. He couldn’t help thinking things were about to turn very bad, very soon.

“I had a visitor at my mission today,” she said in clipped consonants. “You might know her.”

Her?
Damen couldn’t breathe.
Which her?
Cory’s women’s names flashed through his mind. He lowered his brows as a talon of dread scraped up his spine.

“She covers herself in black silk with a thick veil.”

“Ah, yes. Mrs Ivanova.” He exhaled, somewhat relieved. “She’s approached me several times.”

“According to her, you are working together to find the plans.”

This was not good. Ivanova had contacted Sarah herself? He rubbed the twitching muscle in his neck. “She told me they were the reason I was attacked.”

“Is that all?” Her lips curved into a dangerous smile.

If she wanted him to admit Ivanova suggested he seduce Sarah to get the plans, she’d have to drag it out of him word by word. He’d been the one seduced. He was the one who’d fallen in love. Still, he couldn’t help being curious about what Ivanova had said. “I hardly know the woman, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Is that so? She says you will not marry her.”

Damen gazed at her incredulously. “Of course I won’t marry her. I don’t know her!”

“She said she is carrying your child, and you refused to marry her until you found the plans.”

“What! A child? I know of no child.”

“I assume she’s your mistress?”

“I have
no mistress
!”

“She says if I don’t give her the plans so she can convey them to the dangerous criminals looking for them, they will hurt you, me, her, and the baby.”

“That is beyond preposterous!”
A baby? Marriage?
If that were so, why would she encourage him to seduce Sarah? Mrs Ivanova had always seemed a strange one. This latest revelation only made things more bizarre.

He ground his back teeth and fisted his hands. He felt cornered. “I don’t know the first thing about her.” He’d begun to doubt she was even Cory’s mistress. Had his brother truly impregnated her? Damen wanted to ring his neck. The philandering, irresponsible scoundrel.

“Yes, preposterous,” Sarah said, drawing herself up in a way that somehow had her looking down her beautiful nose at him. “I would have discounted her claims about you two working together had I not seen her approach you on Bond Street and give you a note. Further, I might have said she was lying about you not wanting to marry her, had I not received an invitation this very morning regarding your and Miss Eugenia Lambert’s upcoming nuptials.”

“Our wha…?” Damen’s mouth fell open. He thought Cory’s fiancée had been totally put off by him… and the dogs. She was going through with it, after all? She must really hold a powerful grudge against Cory. “As God is my witness, I will not marry Eugenia Lambert.”

“So you see, Mr Ravenhill, I’m inclined to believe you are the one full of lies.”

“But you just met Mrs Ivanova. How can you take the word of a total stranger? Did she even show her face?”

Sarah’s lips thinned. “No.”

“Don’t you find that odd?”

“Too much of what she said rang true.”

“She uses half-truths to suit her purpose.”

Sarah threw her arms into the air. “Enough! I will no longer play the fool. You are a lying, philandering, irresponsible scapegrace, and I want nothing more to do with you!”

How he wanted to tell her – yes, his brother Cory was all of those things. He, Damen, was the responsible one.

For over two decades he’d prepared for the title he’d one day inherit. He’d always been the serious, committed brother, forgoing youthful diversions to get firsts in school. Always nose to the grindstone. Now he’d authority over countless workers, managed properties, and was in the process of rebuilding the family fortune. Work and responsibility so filled his days, he’d little time for entertainment – even women.

Until now, he’d never truly been in love.

Her words felt like red-hot pieces of metal, stabbing him in the chest. Disappointment and frustration coalesced into a fierce temptation to tell her he was Damen,
not
Cory. But if he told her that basic truth, it would only verify he’d deceived her since the first day they’d met.

The game was up.

Somewhere inside, Damen mustered a last bit of dignity. When he finally opened his mouth, he spoke as himself – the responsible, resolute, if not steadfast, heir to a viscount. “I’m very sorry for any inconvenience I may have caused you, my lady. Please believe one incontrovertible truth. I care for you… deeply.”

***

When Sarah finally heard the front door close behind Mr Ravenhill she almost doubled over. How could she love him and hate him at the same time? He’d played her false with a fiancée
and
a mistress. Edward’s secret passages suggested he’d been unfaithful as well. She’d trusted them both without question – naïve idiot.

She trudged up to her room. Fever and weakness assailed her.

“Are you unwell, my lady?” Gracie said worriedly, as she helped her disrobe. “May I get you some hot tea, or a doctor, perhaps?”

“Please close the curtains, Gracie.” Sarah nearly moaned as she crawled into bed. She’d not suffered such crushing misery when either of her husbands passed.

Discovering Mr Ravenhill’s treacherous betrayal and duplicity was worse than death. It tore at the very fabric of her being.

He’d initiated their alliance by proposing they help one another find the plans. How was she to know he’d so easily charm his way into her heart and bed? When they’d been intimate, he’d said he loved her.

Of course, it was a lie. He wanted the plans. Bedding her was a bonus and a way to discover secrets. With her prompting the ultimate joining, it absolved him of responsibility. What a fool she’d been, falling for such a scoundrel.

He was young and handsome and she’d imagined an unlimited number of bright, wonderful days ahead of them. She’d begun to believe she’d found happiness when all she’d found was a rat.

Even worse, she’d purposely ignored Niles’s warnings.

Everything was coming apart around her – her home, her mission, her life. Her heart felt as though it had been battered along with the rest.

As the tears finally leaked out, she pulled the covers over her head. She couldn’t take one more disappointment. How she wanted someone to step in and make it all better.

***

Damen left Strathford Hall in a daze. His love affair with Sarah was over. Dead.

The pain he felt rivaled his mother’s death and the unbearable helplessness and anguish. He’d been all alone with her when she’d passed. Cory had gone with their father on a business trip, leaving Damen to assist with the chores around the Painted Lady.

His mother often comforted people who were sick in the neighborhood. This time she became ill. Within hours she went from being a strong, amiable woman to faint with weakness, finally collapsing into bed.

She’d moaned and thrashed with pain. Her appearance changed dramatically almost before his eyes. Within hours her skin began to shrivel. Her eyes sank into their sockets and her lovely creamy skin turned a strange blue.

On his trip to the chemist the next morning he saw yellow quarantine flags hanging from nearly every building.

Handbells rang from the street below. “Bring out your dead.”

Someone banged on their door. “Medical inspector! We’re here to take your sick to a special hospital.”

His mother pleaded with him in a strange, rasping voice. “Damen, my son. Don’t open the door. Promise me you won’t let the inspectors in. They will take me to one of their plague hospitals and kill me. Then they’ll use my body for medical dissection.”

So Damen promised. All alone with her, afraid to open the door, he did what a nine-year-old could – urge her to drink water, eat a little bread, neither of which she could stomach. Within a day and a half, she was dead.

For two days he sat with his mother’s body, willing her to wake up, his sorrow and uselessness turning to impotent anger, building until fury raged inside.

When his father finally returned Damen lashed out, pummeling him with his fists. “Mum needed you and you were gone!” His father immobilized him in a tight hug. He could hear his uneven breathing, but not once did either of them cry.

Damen and Cory were allowed a few moments to say goodbye to their mother and then whisked away. They were to take nothing. Damen only had time to grab her shawl and stuff it under his shirt, the only keepsake he had to remind him of her.

Cory sobbed for a week.

Damen never shed a tear. But at night, when all was dark, he hugged his mother’s shawl to his heart, breathed in her soapy scent, and seethed at an elusive enemy he could not fight.

He felt that way now, unable to defend himself against the subterfuge that would for ever keep him from the woman he loved. Anger boiled inside at the hopelessness of the situation.

When he reached Falgate Hall he marched up to Cory’s room and stood at his bedside gazing at him with malice. “You miserable blackguard… impregnating your mistress and telling her you would only marry her once those damn plans were found.

“I assume you were counting on them bringing you a large bounty? Then, for some quick cash, you engage yourself to one of the wealthiest harridans in the city. What has happened to you, Cory? You never used to be so mercenary.

“Don’t count on Miss Lambert crying off, either. It appears she intends on marrying you, and has made you lists of retribution to keep you busy for the rest of your days.”

First, Cory’s finger and then his hand twitched.

Damen gazed at the jerking appendage. “Oh, now you have something to say? Don’t stir yourself. I’m not in a listening mood.”