A Warriner to Seduce Her

by Virginia Heath

  ‘Miss Blunt is not the sort of woman one rushes.’ Because she saw right through flannel. ‘I flirted with her tonight at the opera.’ Well, he’d gazed longingly at her. ‘And thanks to subtle enquiries—’ which involved flirting outrageously with several well-connected society ladies ‘—I’ve managed to piece together most of her engagements for the next few weeks. She will be attending the Renshaws’ Ball on Friday.’ Where he fully intended to sweep the pithy Miss Blunt off her canny northern feet.

  ‘Engage her in conversation about Rowley’s business interests. See if she’s heard any mention of canals over the dinner table.’

  Jake rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, that ought to do it. Nothing says seduction like talk of barges.’ Although with hindsight, that might have been better than waffling on about birds of paradise. Anything would have been better than waffling on about those damn birds. ‘Leave Miss Blunt to me. By the time I’m finished wooing her, she’ll sing like a canary.’ Another crass bird analogy! Good lord, he was doomed.

  If only he’d been able to stop thinking about the delectable Miss Blunt, then Jake would be more on his game. But there was something about her which had got under his skin and, even when it shouldn’t, his mind kept wandering back to her. It wasn’t just her beauty which appealed, although there was no denying the physical attraction he felt. Tonight, he could barely take his eyes off her. From the moment she had appeared in Rowley’s box, he had been transfixed.

  She had looked stunning with all that honey-gold hair piled loosely on top of her clever head, outshining every other lady in the opera house. When the done thing was to appear bored, Miss Blunt had flown in the face of convention and been utterly charmed by the occasion. Openly smiling at the actors on the stage and swaying in time to the music. To do that when all around you were people behaving properly showed a tremendous amount of confidence. That confidence, that comfortable sense of self, made Miss Blunt very alluring indeed. The way she had closed her eyes in bliss at the taste of the champagne had done peculiar things to his nerve endings, creating all manner of unwelcome images of the vixen in the grip of pleasure. Images which resolutely refused to leave his mind now, when he was supposed to be concentrating.

  Of course, it didn’t help that the copper-silk gown had shown off her magnificent figure to perfection. Cut to sit off the shoulder, the acres of creamy peach skin had tormented him each time the lights went up and haunted him in the darkness. Skin he now knew blushed more beautifully than any skin had blushed before—and from something as simple as a cheeky blown kiss when nobody was looking. A kiss he had every intention of delivering properly, in person, at the first available opportunity. And not because he’d been told to.

  Flint’s fingers snapped in front of his face and Jake realised he’d missed an important part of the conversation. ‘Sorry. I was...’

  ‘Daydreaming about your conquest, if your expression was anything to go by.’ Flint grinned. ‘I said you might have some competition for Miss Blunt’s affections, dear boy. The word among Rowley’s crowd is he has her earmarked for Redditch.’

  ‘The Earl of Redditch!’ The very idea was disgusting. The man was in his sixties and smelled like feet. ‘I sincerely doubt I’ll have much competition from that quarter. Miss Blunt wouldn’t entertain an obnoxious fellow like him.’ Or at least he hoped she wouldn’t. Not that imagining her in the throes of passion with the aged Earl was any more distasteful than imagining her in the throes of passion with any other man. The mere thought made him strangely jealous and, if he was entirely honest, a tad nauseous.

  ‘Perhaps not—but her uncle is keen to make a match. I’ve heard he fetched her to town with the express intention of presenting her to the Earl. Redditch is recently out of mourning and has been quite vocal about his desire to marry again. His first marriage was barren, so it stands to reason he wants a wife young enough to give him heirs and he is as rich a Croesus. Despite his stinky disposition, he’s still quite a catch and one Rowley seems intent on catching. Miss Blunt does make attractive bait.’ Flint and Leatham shared a knowing, wholly masculine look which made Jake yearn to punch the pair of them for the heinous crime of having perceptive eyes.

  ‘Miss Blunt is a woman with her own mind and well past the age of majority. I wish her uncle all the luck in the world trying to bring her around to his way of thinking.’

  Lord Fennimore frowned. ‘This is a dangerous and unforeseen complication.’

  ‘Hardly.’ Jake made a show of adjusting his cuffs. ‘I’m easier on both the eyes and the nose, and much more appealing than the Earl of Redditch.’

  ‘Not all women’s heads can be turned by a handsome face, Warriner. In case it has escaped your notice, most of the ton marries for status and wealth. As an earl he has the status—and he certainly has the wealth. The girl has nothing aside from her beauty to recommend her and now that we know she has been on the shelf gathering dust you will need to act fast. An earl on the hook usurps a rake. Especially if Miss Blunt is as clever as you say.’

  The words unsettled him far more than Jake was prepared to admit. ‘She’s too clever to settle for an old letch like Redditch.’ Surely? Although she had told him she also had a pragmatic attitude towards men. A dyed-in-the-wool pragmatist might well see the benefits of marrying a rich old earl. She would outlive him, for a start, and enjoy the rest of her life as a very rich woman. Completely independent and free to do as she pleased. Maybe speed was of the essence after all.

  Chapter Four

  Bored, in Uncle Crispin’s dining room before the Renshaw ball

  This was the second night in a row that the Earl of Redditch had been invited to dine and the second Fliss had had the misfortune of being seated opposite him. Just as he had during yesterday’s dinner, the Earl had slurped his soup, chewed with his mouth open and used his hand to cover said mouth only after one of his many belches had escaped. Meanwhile, her uncle fawned over the fellow as if he were visiting royalty, while Daphne and Cressida quaffed the wine like it was going out of fashion.

  For the sake of family harmony and out of ingrained politeness, Fliss had put on a brave face and made a concerted effort to engage with the dull conversation about canals right up until her uncle had begun to extoll her virtues to the fusty old Earl in the same way one would list the attributes of a fine horse up for sale at Tattersall’s. ‘As you can see, my niece is a sensible girl. Well read and not prone to the silly behaviour many of the younger debutantes display. The extra few years of maturity set her apart from the rest.’

  Why on earth was he giving her indirect compliments when he could barely tolerate to be in her presence most of the time? Unless he was attempting to project an aura of the doting uncle? Fliss pasted on a smile and tried to think of a suitable response. She was spared the effort by the Earl.

  ‘I approve of sensible gals.’ He said this with a spray of pastry crumbs from the apple tart he was in the process of demolishing. ‘Can’t be doing with chits who have no common sense.’

  ‘Felicity has more common sense than most, my lord. She is also blessed with good health as well as a fine figure.’

  Unless her ears deceived her, which she sincerely doubted as she had always enjoyed excellent hearing, she had a sneaking suspicion Uncle Crispin was doing a bit of matchmaking. Very unwelcome matchmaking. The Earl’s eyes dropped to her bosom, another one of his odious habits which made her flesh crawl, and he leered.

  ‘Yes, indeed. A very fine figure. So far, I find very little about Felicity which I do not approve of.’

  ‘My name is Miss Blunt until I give you leave to call me otherwise, my lord, and while I appreciate your approval, it is wasted on me.’

  ‘She’s feisty too, Rowley.’

  ‘Too feisty.’ Her uncle shot her a warning look down the table.

  ‘I like a feisty gal.’ Now the old fool was positively ogling. To her horror his wrinkled face scrunched unattra
ctively as he winked at her. This needed to be nipped in the bud.

  ‘Sir, I sincerely hope you are not flirting with me. I take a very dim view of flirting at the best of times, but you are far too old to be engaging in such nonsense.’

  ‘Remember your manners, Felicity.’

  ‘My manners? Surely it is the height of bad manners to discuss a lady’s figure at the table as if she were an item available to purchase from a shop?’ She turned to the Earl and bestowed him with a sugary, insincere smile. ‘Unfortunately, I am not for sale, my lord. Not now, not ever.’

  ‘I like a woman with spirit.’

  ‘And I prefer a man with all his own teeth.’

  ‘Felicity...’ her uncle practically growled as his cold, silver eyes bored into hers. ‘Be pleasant to our guest.’

  ‘A lady shouldn’t drink spirits,’ Aunt Daphne said, waving her wineglass in the air. ‘They don’t have the constitution for it. Could you pass that bottle of wine, please, Felicity?’ Her aunt was blissfully ignorant of the tension between uncle and niece. ‘I must say, Crispin, your staff are very lax at topping up the glasses. Guests shouldn’t have to resort to serving themselves.’

  ‘Nor should they be insulted by members of my family.’ Uncle Crispin glared, then turned back to their guest. ‘Perhaps now is the opportune moment for us to retire with our port and cigars. It will give my niece’s hot temper a chance to cool down.’

  Fliss grabbed hold of the bottle and considered smashing it over her uncle’s head, before banging it down on the table in front of Daphne and biting back the angry words on the tip of her tongue while both men stood. She waited until they had closed the door behind them before venting her anger out loud.

  ‘How dare he try to broker a match between me and that awful man!’

  Aunt Cressida turned and blinked at her tone. ‘What awful man, dear?’

  ‘Weren’t you listening? Uncle Crispin has decided upon the Earl of Redditch as a potential suitor.’

  ‘Surely not. The man is old enough to be your grandfather. I was of the belief you didn’t want to hunt for a husband.’ Cressida appeared dumb-founded. Or wine-addled. Either way she was clearly not complicit in the matchmaking.

  ‘I didn’t come here to hunt for a husband! I’m quite capable of selecting my own suitors should the sudden urge appear. Uncle Crispin barely knows me, so what makes him think he will know what will make me happy or lure me to give up my position at the convent? I’ve told him as much, too. It hasn’t deterred him.’

  ‘Men always think they know what’s best for us, dear—’ this came from Daphne ‘—yet they rarely do. Ignore it.’

  ‘Difficult to do when it is happening right in front of me and Uncle Crispin appears determined to be persistent. He knows my feelings on the subject and understands I will be returning to Cumbria as soon as the Season is done. I’m not sure what he thinks he’s playing at. It’s as if he hasn’t listened to a single word I’ve said.’

  ‘That’s where you’re going wrong.’ Daphne sloshed more wine into her glass and over the tablecloth. ‘You used words. Words are largely wasted on males and one should never try to reason with a stubborn man. They simply dig their heels in further. Men respond better to visual stimulus than anything audible. If he’s selectively deaf, which Crispin most assuredly is, deliver the same message in other ways.’

  ‘Are you suggesting I mime it, like charades?’ Unfortunately, the only gestures she knew for mind your own business were those deemed too unsavoury for a gently bred lady to use, but she treated her incorrigible aunts to a few of them just the same.

  Daphne cackled with delight. ‘If only! You shall just have to be more devious in future. The key to manipulating the simple male mind is to appear to be compliant, but to behave in a manner quite the reverse. They soon get the message you are not to be trifled with. Show my supercilious nephew you cannot be swayed. Remember, Felicity, a lady’s actions always speak louder than words.’

  Surprisingly, it was a piece of advice sound enough to have come from the wise lips of Sister Ursuline and Fliss decided it did have some merit. So much so that when her uncle and the Earl returned she held her tongue in check and proudly showed her frosty indifference until she climbed in the carriage taking them to the ball.

  * * *

  Jake found himself a secluded nook in the alcove and watched the proceedings from a distance. The trouble with having to socialise while working meant you were denied the opportunity to arrive fashionably late in case something happened, which inevitably left lots of time to twiddle the thumbs. He was hiding out of necessity. There were several eager young ladies and several more mature ladies who were always desirous of his company, yet he could hardly be seen flirting with one of them when he had to seduce Rowley’s niece. From his first impressions, she wasn’t the type of woman who would accept playing second fiddle and would regard evidence of his obvious philandering in a very dim light after calling him one.

  Not that he was in the mood to philander. Since he had first seen her at Almack’s, the indomitable Miss Blunt had rather taken over all his romantic thoughts and, until he had slaked the powerful desire he had for her, frankly no other woman would do. Normal rakish business would doubtless resume straight after. Jake’s attention span for an affair was akin to a bumble bee’s attraction to nectar. As a bee blithely buzzed from flower to flower, Jake hopped from bed to bed. He preferred things that way. No commitments, no expectations and definitely no complicated and messy feelings to contend with. Much calmer and less problematic all around.

  While love had apparently worked out remarkably well for his three brothers, Jake knew in his heart it wasn’t for him. The elder three Warriners deserved to find lasting happiness with the women of their dreams. They were good men. Worthy men. Men who had found the right path to travel and had marched down it with single-minded determination and all had reached the destination they had intended against all the odds. He admired them for that. Jake’s path meandered, largely because he had no idea where he was going. Never had. Therefore, his dreams were filled with transient lovers and as he was never quite good enough, and had been that way since birth, it was probably for the best.

  He excelled at ultimately disappointing everyone he came into contact with as a matter of course—from his parents, to his brothers, to all the women he had charmed. He was the reliably unreliable Warriner, yet quite comfortable in that skin. On the exterior at least. Inside, he wasn’t as blasé about it, but then he knew bits about himself which, with hindsight, he would have changed had the die not been cast a long time ago. Once a disappointment, always a disappointment and rightly so...

  Good lord, he was getting maudlin. Another irritating side effect of twiddling one’s thumbs was excessive time for introspection. Something he staunchly refused doing for exactly this reason. It served no purpose. The clock could not be turned back, but he could do everything in his power to avoid becoming his father, even though those character traits were as imbedded in his body as firmly as his identical bright blue eyes and jet-black hair. He used those characteristics to do good rather than wreak havoc, although lying to women and using his innate charm to seduce information out of them was perhaps not the dictionary definition of good. But he was working with the limited arsenal of attributes God had given him. Attributes which would rapidly deteriorate with age. A depressing thought indeed.

  At this rate, he would sour his mood, which would seriously impair his ability to be charming and seductive, two things he did excel at and always had. Two things he now used for the good of King and country to great effect. That thought cheered him slightly. Jake was about to risk a quick dash to the refreshment table, when the air in the ballroom shifted. That was the only way of explaining the peculiar sensation which directed him to turn to the staircase the very moment Miss Blunt sailed down it. And, by God, she looked stunning. So stunning he forgot to breathe until the a
ir he had been holding in his lungs all came out at once.

  Had that ever happened to him before?

  Jake couldn’t recall it if it had.

  Miss Blunt was a vision in forest green. A dour choice for most women, but a statement on her. The plainness of the colour was lifted by the daringness of the cut. The bodice clung to her upper body and hung off her shoulders. One single, fat, jewelled pendant rested above the tantalising glimpse of cleavage on display. Once again, there was a faraway look in her eyes as she floated into the ballroom, almost as if she didn’t care where she was or who was around her.

  His throat clenched when he realised his wasn’t the only head that had been turned. Every man she floated past gazed appreciatively at her, not that she appeared to notice, a few young bucks even going as far as nudging their companions and hungrily grinning at the sight. Jake wanted to throttle every one of them.

  Her chaperons appeared at her elbow and then Crispin Rowley materialised and took up the rear as the party moved to a free spot in the furthest corner. Jake had to crane his head to keep watching, something a man trying to be inconspicuous shouldn’t be seen doing, yet he did it anyway. He couldn’t help himself. Jake could watch her all night and never get bored.

  Rowley left to fetch the ladies’ drinks. When he returned, he handed Miss Blunt a card along with her glass. Words were exchanged and her expression changed from faraway to annoyed. She went to say something to her uncle, but he marched away mid-sentence, leaving her glaring after him as he disappeared into the crowd. The Sawyer sisters appeared to sympathise. They patted her arm and tried to distract her, but for the next twenty minutes Jake was forced to suffer seeing her distressed when she should be smiling and he willed her to break free of her charges so he could seek her out and make it all better.

  Being rebellious at heart, she eventually did slip away and backed herself into the opposite alcove and out of his eye line. Like a man possessed, his feet began to move instinctively and he found himself skirting the perimeter of the room to find her. She was hidden behind a pillar. Well hidden, yet his intuition pulled him to that exact spot without any trouble. Her back was turned away from him and she was staring intently at the card. His eyes devoured the expanse of golden skin on her back; the loose honeyed tendrils of hair which curled seductively at the nape of her neck. The rest of her glorious hair was casually piled on top of her head, giving him the distinct impression that the removal of one or two strategically placed pins would send it tumbling around her shoulders. Enjoying himself far too much to interrupt, Jake rested his own back against another pillar close by and savoured the beautiful sight.