The Seducer

by Madeline Hunter

  “The countess is very generous,” she said. “I think that I will be imposing. I do not belong at her dinner party, and everyone will know it.”

  “It will not be as you expect. The countess is a bit outrée. That I am her friend shows that,” Daniel said. “She prefers the more democratic circles to the strictly fashionable ones, which is just as well, since the best ones do not accept her.”

  “Why not?”

  “She separated from her husband.”

  “Insufferable hypocrites,” Jeanette snapped. “A woman leaves a disreputable husband and she is punished. Not even for another man did she leave. And the women who cut her by day are jumping from bed to bed by night. The English are such a people. It still astonishes me that you can live among them, Daniel. At least in France we do not use this pretense of high morality to wound others when we are no better ourselves.”

  Daniel ignored his sister’s outburst. “The countess is one of several women of her standing who have a very mixed group of friends, Diane. You will find your evenings diverting enough, even if you never get into Almack’s.”

  Jeanette rolled her eyes. “Thank God for that. The worst of the worst.”

  “Perhaps the countess was correct, mam’selle, and you will agree to accompany me some of these evenings,” Diane said.

  “I do not care for English society. There is no reason for you to suffer because of my whims, however, and my brother has seen that you will not.”

  He had not only seen to her diversion. He had seen to it that she would be paraded about, to attract the men who could benefit him.

  Diane was determined to keep the reasons for all this generosity in mind.

  Jeanette appeared agitated. She had been out of sorts since they set sail from France on one of Daniel’s ships. It had gotten worse when they arrived at this London house a day ago.

  “Perhaps you would like to get some air in the garden, Diane,” she said. “I wish to speak with my brother about something.”

  It was the most direct dismissal that Jeanette had ever given. Diane excused herself.

  Something had changed since coming here. The relationship between brother and sister had gotten brittle.

  “Do not ever do that again,” Jeanette hissed.

  Daniel heard the scathing tone and saw the fiery eyes. He regretted her distress, but could not help thinking that Jeanette in high dudgeon was better than Jeanette floating through life in a haze of Parisian memories.

  “Do not ever invite your friends to call on me like that. Receiving the countess in Paris was one thing, but this is another. I agreed to come here, after all these years, for Diane’s sake and yours, but I made very clear that I would not leave this house. I will not have these women cajoling me, be they countesses or wives of shippers or your lovers.”

  “There is no harm in accepting calls, even if you do not go out. It is not healthy for you to become completely reclusive.”

  “Do not tell me what to do. Do not dare. Never forget that I am the one woman in the world who is not in awe of you. Paul and Diane will be company enough.”

  “And when someone calls on Diane? It is bound to happen eventually.”

  “You swore that Tyndale would not come here.”

  “He will not, but I expect others will.”

  “Then I will be the gray presence in the corner, reading a book.”

  He had asked a great sacrifice of her, in demanding that she come this time. It pained him to see her grappling with the emotions that England evoked.

  He went over and laid his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him. The anger slid from her face, revealing the real emotions that absorbed her.

  He patted her shoulder in reassurance. She tilted her head until it rested on his side, and his touch became an embrace.

  “I am not being fair,” she said. “It has all fallen on you, and I should not complain of a bit of discomfort. I only hope that it will be finished quickly.”

  “As quickly as it can be, darling.”

  She sniffed. He was glad that he could not see her tears, or her attempts to swallow them.

  “There is one thing, Daniel. I said it at the beginning, and I say it again now. I will not have her harmed in any way. She has become quite dear to me. And I know that you want her, but it cannot be.”

  It cannot be. He had not needed Jeanette to tell him that. It chanted in his head by night and day. Mostly by night.

  In Paris it might have been, and almost was. He had been sorely tempted to put aside everything else to make it so. He still was, sometimes, when he saw her as he had today, entering the drawing room, so delicate in her soulful beauty.

  It was easy to forget everything then. Who she was and how he knew her and that she might be the means for quickly fulfilling a lifetime goal.

  He left Jeanette and went to the garden, seeking Diane even though he should not.

  There was no point. It could not be.

  He went anyway.

  The garden was larger than the one in Paris, and less formal. It suited the house and the Mayfair street lined with other impressive facades. Its plantings, natural and free in the English style, pleased him.

  There were neighbors on the street who did not like that he occupied this premise. Those who, unlike the Countess of Glasbury, cared a great deal about how he came to afford it. He knew that he had appeared a parvenu when he took possession of this house, a case of a shipper plopping himself among his betters where he was not wanted.

  He did not care about such things and would ignore them even if he did. He was here for a reason.

  He found Diane sitting on a bench under a leafless tree, wrapped in her old school cloak. She owned better ones now and he wondered why she had called for this one instead. It did not even cover her properly, and only reached halfway down her legs.

  He paused and watched her. She should have had a cloak at school that fit her better. He had left money every year for her care, but had never investigated if it actually was spent on her comfort. Apparently much of it had not been, if at twenty she still wore a cloak probably bought when she was thirteen.

  Welcomed or not, she had been his responsibility. He had not taken care of her very well.

  Which was another reason why it could not be.

  He strolled toward her.

  She watched him approach, with eyes that appeared almost as accusing as Jeanette’s had.

  “You forced her to come here, didn’t you?” She hit him with the question even before he got to her. “I am not here to accompany her. She is here to accompany me.”

  After an attack like that, sitting beside her was out of the question. “She is here because I needed Paul with me, and she has grown dependent on him.”

  “Then Paul must be more than a manservant who helps an infirm woman.”

  He had anticipated some pleasant conversation and the guilty pleasure of her company, not this incisive probing. The same notion struck him as it had at the opera, that, despite her inexperience, her perceptions were very sharp.

  “Paul is much more than a manservant. I have known him for years, and on occasion he performs other duties than aiding my sister. He is one of the few men whom I trust completely. In fact, I would never let a mere servant assist her as he does. Now, are there any more questions or accusations that you want to pose?”

  She cocked her head. “Yes. What is that noise?”

  She spoke of a low, distant rumble that emerged on the breeze periodically. It had become so commonplace that he did not hear it anymore.

  “A demonstration. They happen with some frequency now. There is dissatisfaction with government policies.”

  “It must be a very large one if we can hear it. The ones in Paris were not so loud.”

  “In Paris there was an occupying army to make sure they were not.”

  She glanced away, to a prickly hedge that cut the garden in half. “The countess appeared very familiar with you. Is she your Margot? Do not worry that your a
nswer will shock me. Paris, and the gossip of Jeanette’s friends, jaded me very quickly.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I am curious.”

  “Why are you curious?”

  She shrugged.

  “If I say that she is, will you be jealous?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I can think of no other reason for the question, Diane.”

  She blushed deeply. He watched the flush lower and thought it would be very nice to follow its path with his lips.

  She noticed his gaze and that wary look entered her eyes. It was not as cautious and innocent as it had been during the first days in Paris.

  She gave an almost coquettish smile. “I would not be jealous, but reassured.”

  The bold reference surprised him. He expected her to never again mention her suspicions of his intentions.

  He came very close to telling her that it did not work that way, that a man could have ten Margots and still pursue another.

  “The countess is only a friend. As for reassurance, my word will have to do. Now, if your questions are finished, allow me to pose a few of my own. Is your chamber adequate? Are you content?”

  “Do you have any complaints? Are you learning your lessons?” She used his own inflections as she repeated the old school questions, and even dared to mimic his voice.

  She glanced at him with an impish expression that made him laugh.

  She laughed too.

  It was an astonishing moment, a little slice of euphoria. He did not doubt that she poked fun at more than his questions. She saw the deeper absurdity. They maintained these little formalities of host and guest, of guardian and ward, to contain the danger.

  But she was drawn to the danger. With her impertinent question she had fluttered around its fire, not even realizing how flirtatious her reference and her smile and her laugh had been.

  “My chamber is quite adequate and I am content enough. I am curious about this social life that you have planned for me, however. A mixed crowd, you called it. Not a small circle, I hope.”

  “Not at all. Why do you ask?”

  “A small circle would not suit me, nor would one that was only composed of the highest society. I am here for a reason besides being a companion for your sister and a lure for your business.”

  “What reason is that? To make a marriage?” He said it lightly, hoping she would laugh again.

  “To find out about my family.”

  That was not something he wanted to hear. He might have even preferred to hear she looked for a husband. “I thought that you had concluded there was nothing to find.”

  “My parents may be gone, but my history is not. I intend to begin searching for it tomorrow.”

  Hell. He imagined her polite questions to all those people in that mixed, fluid circle of the Countess of Glasbury. Possibly, eventually, she would get enough of an answer to cause the very problems he hoped to avoid.

  “For example, Mister Duclairc said that if my father was a shipper, his ships might have been insured. I intend to find out if they were. Where would I go for that? As a shipper yourself, you should know.”

  Was it his imagination that she watched him very closely as she waited for his answer? Maybe so. Maybe not. For an instant her eyes reminded him of her father’s. That had not happened for a long time.

  The flirtatious pleasure he had been taking in their exchange died. Seeing the resemblance brought down a wall that laughter could never scale. Even desire could not.

  He welcomed the barrier. It was good to be reminded of the primary reason why it could not be.

  “Certainly I know where to go. If you can wait a few days, I will take you to the offices of the insurance brokers myself, so that you can make your inquiries.”

  Her expression lit with delight. “You will help me?”

  “Of course. You had only to ask.”

  She had never appeared so happy. He half-expected her to embrace him with gratitude. It both relieved and disappointed him when she did not.

  He took his leave, and she favored him with a dazzling smile full of newborn trust and belief. It provoked vague considerations of ways to make her look at him like that forever.

  Paul was waiting for him inside the house. He handed over a letter that had come.

  Daniel read the message. “I will be riding out to Hampstead this afternoon. I want you to stay here with my sister, Paul. It will be some time before she is comfortable here without one of us nearby.”

  “She may never be comfortable without us. Not here.”

  No, not here. Daniel looked out the window. Diane still sat in the garden, lost in her thoughts. He wondered what occupied her mind. Dreams of triumph in London society? He doubted it was that.

  “Remind the servants here about Diane’s chamber, Paul. It is to be the same as in Paris. The fire is to always be built up during the day, even when she is out. She is never to return to a cold hearth.”

  The two men went at each other with sabres, performing a rigorous dance of danger.

  Daniel watched from the threshold of the Hampstead dining room. Stripped of furnishings and rustic in its Tudor charm, the chamber rang with the clash of steel.

  He did not much observe the tall, thin, graying swordsman, the one dressed in old-fashioned breeches and a waistcoat of blue silk. That one’s moves created fluid lines of poetry, and his cool dark eyes remained impassive.

  It was the other, the one with fashionably cut blond hair, who riveted his attention. Dressed for fighting in only a shirt and trousers, he slashed so viciously that an unpracticed eye might assume he would win. His expression reflected determination and nuances of ferocity. Daniel suspected that if an accident occurred in this practice, and blood was drawn, this man would not mind. As long, of course, as the blood was not his.

  The practice ended. The blond man wiped his brow with a towel and walked toward Daniel.

  There was no acknowledgment, because they had never officially met. The brother of a marquess and a member of Parliament, Andrew Tyndale arranged private times for his practices so that he would not have to mix with the assortment of younger men and arrivistes who frequented the Chevalier Corbet’s fencing academy.

  Daniel subtly examined Tyndale as he passed. The man owned a face that inspired trust. A face that made powerful men listen, and bishops nod in agreement, to the considered opinions that uttered from its mouth. That face had guaranteed Tyndale an unassailable reputation. If rumors ever started about him, one had only to see those honest eyes to know the rumors were untrue.

  That was what had happened two years before, when a Scottish farmer accused Tyndale of violating his young daughter. Before a scandal could develop, Tyndale had convinced everyone who mattered that he had been on a shoot twenty miles from the girl’s farm.

  Daniel did not doubt that the accusation had been true, however. He knew that Tyndale had a taste for innocent girls. It had come to his attention that the respectable member of Parliament made use of a scrupulously discreet procuress who found him virgins on a regular basis. Daniel also knew it was not a fear of disease that caused Tyndale to favor innocents.

  Unsheathing his own sabre, he approached the chevalier.

  “He is good,” he said, gesturing in the direction that Tyndale had gone.

  “Too hungry, however. A cool head is everything in a real duel, when life hangs in the balance.”

  “So you have always taught, Louis.”

  “Skill is not enough. The mind plays its role, and sangfroid is essential.”

  “A very French sentiment.” Daniel swung his arm to limber up. “Very ancien régime.”

  Louis smiled. “What do you expect?”

  “Nothing less. Have you thought about going back now, what with the restoration and Louis Philippe on the throne?”

  “It has been too many years. An old French chevalier can do better in England. Assuming, of course, that we do not see a revolution here now. That would be comic, no? For m
e to escape one as a young man, only to die in another when I am old.”

  “There is unrest, but I doubt that revolution threatens Britain.”

  “I am not so sure. This government is stupid. This Corn Law, for example. It is never good policy to starve the poor. Does the world never learn?” He gestured, waving politics and the world away. “Enough. Let us begin. I am a bad philosopher but an excellent teacher of the sword. I will stick with what I know.”

  Daniel prepared himself. Louis was being falsely modest. He was quite the philosopher, and his mind could slice to the heart of a problem as quickly as his sabre could destroy a man’s arm.

  Daniel was glad Louis would not join the French aristocrats flocking to Paris to reclaim their rights now that Bonaparte was gone. Over the years Louis had become both a counselor and a conscience. He would want his friend nearby in the weeks ahead.

  Louis handed over the box containing the pistols. His expression spoke his distaste of them. “Horrible things. Crude and unsatisfying.”

  “True,” Daniel said. “But also effective and useful.”

  As Daniel carried the box out to the park behind the old house, a rider trotted up the lane. Daniel recognized the young man with the English face and the dark, foreign eyes.

  He had last seen him in Gustave Dupré’s study in Paris.

  “What are you doing here, Adrian?”

  “Vergil and the others are supposed to meet me here.”

  By Vergil and the others he was referring to the aristocratic young men who congregated at Louis’s for practice before heading back to London for gambling and drink. They had dubbed themselves the Hampstead Dueling Society and Daniel had become something of a peripheral member.

  “I did not mean what are you doing here, but in England. We agreed that you would remain in France for at least another month.”

  “Dupré let me go. He decided he does not need a secretary at the moment.”

  Daniel continued into the park with Adrian in step beside him. “That is convenient. Now he won’t become suspicious when you eventually leave on your own.”

  “I thought so, although it leaves me without employment.”