Beguiling the Beauty ft-1

by Sherry Thomas

  She smelled the lilies as soon as she opened the doors to her suite. A large peach bloom vase that hadn’t been there before occupied the center table of the sitting room. From the vase, aggressively tall stalks of white calla lilies and orange gladiolus shot toward the ceiling, their petals glaring in the electric light.

  Her family would never send her calla lilies, a cascade of which she’d carried when she walked down the aisle to marry Tony. She plucked the card from the fronds that buttressed the flowers.

  The Duke of Lexington regrets his departure from New York and hopes for the pleasure of your company another day, madam.

  The gall of the man. The extravagant bouquet was nothing but an announcement that should they meet again, he’d like for her to be waiting in bed, already naked. So he despised Venetia Easterbrook’s soul, but liked her backside well enough when he didn’t know to whom it belonged.

  She tore the card in two. In four. In eight. And kept tearing, choking on her impotence.

  Helena’s words leaped to mind. Avenge yourself, Venetia. Make him fall in love with you, then give him the cut.

  Why not?

  What would it be to him? Merely a dalliance gone wrong. He’d hurt for a few short weeks—a few months, if she was lucky. But she, she would go through the rest of her life oppressed by the weight of his disclosure.

  She telephoned the concierge and asked for a first-class stateroom on the Rhodesia, as close to the Victoria suites as possible. And then she sat down to write Helena and Millie a note concerning her sudden exit.

  It was only as she sealed the note that she thought of the specifics of her seduction. How would she manage to breach his defenses when he had such entrenched preconceptions about her? When he’d take one look at her face, otherwise her greatest asset in a quest of such nature, and turn away?

  No matter. She’d have to be creative, that was all. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And with every fiber of her being, she willed that the Duke of Lexington would regret the day he chose to stick a knife into her kidney.

  CHAPTER 4

  Lexington stood at the rail and surveyed the hive of activity beneath him.

  Carriages and heavy drays drove on and off the dock, their procession surprisingly speedy and orderly. Trunks and crates, hefted by stevedores with meaty shoulders and bulging upper arms, slid down open chutes into the cargo hold. Tugboats tooted at one another, readying themselves to nudge the great ocean liner’s nose around—for her to head toward the open sea.

  Up the gangplank came the ship’s passengers: giggling young women who had never before crossed the pond; indifferent men of business on their third trip of the year; children pointing excitedly at the ship’s smokestacks; immigrant workers—largely Irish—returning to the old country for a brief visit.

  The man in a hat too fancy for his clothes was likely to be a swindler, planning to “aggregate funds” from his fellow passengers for an “extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” The lady’s companion, plainly dressed and seemingly demure, examined first-class gentlemen passengers with mercenary interest: She did not intend to remain a lady’s companion forever—or even for much longer. The adolescent boy who stared contemptuously at the back of his puffy, sweaty father appeared ready to disown the unimpressive sire and invent an entirely new patrimony for himself.

  But what hypothesis should he form concerning Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg, for that was her coming up the gangplank, was it not? He recognized her hat, almost like that of a beekeeper’s, but sleeker and more shimmery. The day before, the veil had been creamy in color. Today it was blue, to complement her blue traveling gown.

  Logically, a woman shouldn’t need to don a traveling gown for the two and a half miles between Hotel Netherlands and the Forty-second Street piers on the Hudson River, where the Rhodesia was docked. But he’d long ago given up trying to apply logic to fashion, the offspring of irrationality and inconstancy.

  The degree of a woman’s devotion to fashion frequently corresponded to her degree of silliness. He’d learned to pay no attention to any woman with a stuffed macaw in her hat and to expect shoddy food at the home of a hostess best known for her collection of ball gowns.

  The baroness was certainly highly fashionable. And restless: The unusual parasol in her hand, white with a pattern of concentric blue octagons, twirled constantly. But she did not come across as silly.

  She looked up. He could not quite tell whether she was looking directly at him. But whatever she saw, she halted midstep. Her parasol stopped spinning; the tassels around the fringe swayed back and forth with the sudden loss of momentum.

  But only for a second. She resumed her progress on the gangplank, her parasol again a hypnotic pinwheel.

  He watched her until she disappeared into the first-class entrance.

  Was she the distraction he badly needed?

  A hush always descended in the final moments before departure, quiet enough to hear the commands issued from the bridge and passed along the length of the ship. The harbor slipped away. On the main deck below her, the crowd waved madly at the loved ones they were leaving behind. The throngs on the dock waved back, just as earnest and demonstrative.

  Venetia’s throat tightened. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such unbridled, unabashed emotions.

  Or when she last dared to.

  “Good morning, baroness.”

  She jerked. Lexington stood a few feet away, an ungloved hand on the railing, dressed casually in a gray lounge suit and a felt hat that had probably seen service on his expeditions. He regarded the waterfront of New York, its piers, cranes, and warehouses sliding past, and displayed no interest in her whatsoever.

  It was as if an iceberg had come to call.

  “Do I know you, sir?” He’d spoken in German; she replied in the same language, surprised to hear herself sound quite calm, almost unaffected.

  He turned toward her. “Not yet, baroness. But I would like to make your acquaintance.”

  They’d been in greater proximity in the hotel lift. Yet whereas the day before his nearness only angered her, today she felt as if she were balanced on a high wire over Niagara Falls.

  Was she ready to play the game?

  “Why do you wish to know me, Your Grace?” No point pretending she didn’t know his rank—the hotel staff had not been reticent about it in her hearing.

  “You are different.”

  From the greedy whore you held up as an affront to decency?

  She fought down her agitation. “Are you looking for a lover?”

  Know the rules before you play the game, Mr. Easterbrook had always told her.

  “Would that be agreeable to you?” His tone was utterly unexceptional, as if he’d expressed nothing more untoward than a desire for a dance.

  After the flowers, she shouldn’t be surprised. All the same, her skin prickled hotly. Thank God for her veil—or she would not have been able to hide her revulsion. “And if I say no?”

  “I will not impose on you again.”

  She’d dealt with men wanting her favors her entire life. She could recognize feigned nonchalance from a furlong away. But there was no affectation to his dispassionate stance. Were she to turn down his overture, he would simply turn his attention elsewhere and not give her another thought.

  “What—if I am not sure?”

  “Then I’d like to persuade you.”

  Despite the brisk breeze on the river, the veil threatened to asphyxiate her. Or perhaps it wasn’t the veil at all, but his words. His presence. “How would you do that?”

  His lips lifted at the corners—he was amused. “Do you wish for a demonstration?”

  She’d known only his sharp mind, his arctic demeanor, and his limitless capacity for slander. But now, with the almost playfulness of his tone, the lean strength of his build, and the sight of his fingers absently stroking the railing, she became conscious of his sensuality, her awareness dark and potent.

  It was too
much. She couldn’t. Not in a million years. Not if he were the last man alive. Not even if he were the last man alive and the guardian of the last store of foodstuff left on Earth.

  “No,” she said, her voice seething. “I do not wish for a demonstration. And I would be grateful should I never see you again.”

  If her sudden rejection took him aback, he did not show it. He bowed slightly. “In that case, madam, I wish you a pleasant voyage.”

  Bridget, Millie’s maid, came back from the hotel clerk’s station with the news that Mrs. Easterbrook had not yet checked in.

  “Do you think she might have gone to a different hotel?” Millie asked Helena.

  Helena felt uneasy. “But Lady Tremaine’s driver said he’d brought her here yesterday.”

  “I’ll speak to the clerk myself,” said Millie.

  She approached the counter, Helena in tow, and made her request. The clerk checked the register again.

  “I apologize, ma’am, but we do not have a guest by that name.”

  “What about a lady by the name of Fitzhugh or Townsend?”

  Helena could not see Venetia ever using Tony’s name again. On her calling cards she was simply Mrs. Arthur Easterbrook.

  The clerk looked up apologetically. “Not those, either.”

  “Did anyone here see a singularly beautiful lady arriving by herself?” Helena asked.

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am.”

  “Very well, then,” said Millie. “Do you have the suite reserved for Lady Fitzhugh? I am a day early. I hope that will not present a problem.”

  “No, ma’am, not a problem at all. And we have a message for you and Miss Fitzhugh.”

  The handwriting on the envelope was Venetia’s familiar scrawl—thank goodness. They opened the message as soon as they were inside their suite.

  Dear Millie and Helena,

  I have decided to take an earlier steamer out of New York. Please do not worry about me. Am in robust health and tolerable spirits.

  I will be waiting for you in London.

  Love,

  V.

  Helena bit her lower lip. If it hadn’t been for her, Venetia would not have gone to his lecture.

  Before she’d taken up with Andrew, she’d considered all the possible outcomes of her action—or so she’d thought. But she had not remotely prepared for such unintended consequences.

  Worry gnawed at her. Even for one who’d contemplated and accepted the likelihood of the worst, it was still unnerving just how quickly and unpredictably things could go so wrong.

  Christian worked steadily through the two packets of letters that had caught up with him in New York. The sea, smooth as a tablecloth when the Rhodesia passed Sandy Hook into the open Atlantic, grew noticeably less level as the day wore on. He stopped reading reports from his agents and solicitors when the rocking of the ship made it unprofitable to continue. A walk on the decks required frequent use of the handrails, as the ship rocked from side to side. In the smoking lounge, where the gentlemen made their customary bets on the ship’s daily progress, he had to chase after his ashtray.

  The rain began at tea, gently enough at first. But before long each drop slammed into the windows with the ferocity of a thrown rock. He watched the rain and thought again of the baroness.

  It was possible that she still distracted him because she’d spurned him and he was not accustomed to rejection. But he did not believe so. He was concerned less with his own sentiments and more with the seething intensity of hers. She was ferociously aware of him, yet even more ferociously offended by his attention. And that intrigued him more than her identity or the reason she kept her face concealed.

  A strange but not altogether unpleasant sensation, being preoccupied by a woman who was not Mrs. Easterbrook.

  Too bad the baroness would have nothing to do with him.

  In theory, repudiating Lexington to his face should have afforded Venetia a modicum of satisfaction.

  But the truth was she hadn’t dismissed him. She’d fled from everything that was masculine, confident, and powerful in him, the way a very young girl might run away from the first boy who challenged her to do more than just flirt.

  For the rest of the day, instead of congratulating herself on knowing when to cut her losses and abandon clearly demented goals, she stewed in frustration. Was she truly so useless a woman? Had Tony been correct when he’d told her that everything she was, she owed to her looks? Without the advantages conferred by her face, did she have no hope of holding her own with Lexington?

  She stared at herself in the mirror. The stewardess she’d selected to help her dress for dinner, Miss Arnaud, had coiffed her hair into a sleek chignon that left her face quite bare. “It’s better this way,” the girl had said. “Madame is so beautiful; nothing must interfere.”

  Venetia could not judge. She saw an assembly of features that were often a little odd: Her eyes were very far apart; her jaw was rather too square for her own taste; her nose was neither diminutive nor pert—it went on and on, in fact.

  But none of it mattered here. To conquer him, she would have to wage her campaign with an arsenal that did not include beauty.

  If, that was, she had the guts to go back to him.

  The thought of his hands on her—she shuddered. But not entirely from revulsion. As much as she despised him, he was a handsome man. And a part of her found his nerve and sangfroid utterly riveting.

  She must come to a decision soon. She’d dismissed Miss Arnaud a long time ago. In the dining saloon they would be serving the final courses of dinner now. If she missed him tonight, quite likely by tomorrow he’d have found himself another lover.

  She shuddered again, a mixture of fear, loathing, and a fierce, perverse need to bring this man to heel.

  Her hand reached toward her veiled hat.

  Her decision, it appeared, had been made.

  The going was more difficult than she’d anticipated.

  She knew, of course, that the Rhodesia had run into a fairly significant storm. But sitting in a bolted chair, alternately questioning her sanity and raging at her cowardice, had not given her a proper appreciation of how animated the Atlantic had become.

  But out in the mahogany-paneled corridors, she tottered as if drunk, lurching from bulkhead to bulkhead. It wasn’t so bad when the floor rose to meet her. But every time it dropped away, there was a moment of disconcerting weightlessness.

  The ship’s lights flickered. It plunged at an angle that would have served for a young children’s slide. She gripped a nearby doorknob to keep her balance. The Rhodesia, reaching the trough of the wave, began to climb again. She grabbed onto a sconce so she wouldn’t tumble backward.

  The dining saloon was reached by a grand staircase adorned by a frieze of Japanese gold paper. There were also carved teak panels, but she could not see them very well, for the steps were packed with ladies in feathers and gentlemen in tails heading out, everyone hanging on to the banister.

  Panic assailed her. Had dinner already concluded? Was she too late after all? But Lexington was not among the departing diners, so she pressed forward, descending the stairs against the exodus of passengers, ignoring their stares of curiosity and disapproval.

  The dining saloon was a hundred feet long and sixty feet wide. The ceiling opened at the center into a rectangular wall that rose two decks to a glass-covered dome. On a clear day, sunlight would spill down this well and illuminate the rows of Corinthian columns and the four long tables that ran nearly the whole length of the room, each capable of accommodating more than a hundred diners.

  On this stormy night, a bright if quivery light still cascaded from the well, its source the large, silver-branched electric chandelier that swung with the pitch and roll of the ocean liner. Had Venetia arrived an hour earlier, the sound of silverware and muted laughter would have greeted her, the familiar murmurs of privilege and satisfaction. But now the dining saloon was largely deserted. Two of the long tables were completely empty, all the dishes
and cutlery cleared, all the bolted chairs turned out. A few hardy passengers still lingered, their plates and glasses held in place by a special wooden frame set on the table. A middle-aged, robust-looking woman loudly discussed her experiences with past nor’easters.

  Lexington, in evening formals, sat by himself near the windows, a cup of coffee before him, his gaze on the storm outside. She prayed for no abrupt changes to the rhythm of the Rhodesia’s movement—she did not want to stumble along the way, but cut through like a shark, sleek and dangerous.

  He glanced in her direction. With her veil on, it was difficult to judge his expression, but she thought she caught a flicker of surprise.

  And anticipation.

  Her stomach tightened. Her face heated. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears.

  He rose as she approached the table, but offered no greeting. A waiter emerged from nowhere to help her with her chair, another presented her a cup of coffee.

  Lexington retook his seat. Without taking his eyes off her, he lifted his coffee and drank. It would seem he had no intention of making this easy for her.

  She spoke before she could change her mind again. “I have reconsidered your proposition, sir.”

  He made no response. The air between them all but crackled with charge.

  She swallowed. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that I am open to persuasion.”

  The steamer heaved. Her hand shot out to protect her coffee cup; his did the same. His finger wrapped around hers. She felt the shock of it deep into her shoulder.

  “I was about to go back to my rooms,” he said. “Would you care to join me?”

  For a long second, her voice refused to work. Her lips trembled. The thought of being alone with him squeezed the air from her lungs.

  “Yes,” she rasped.

  He set down his cup and came to his feet. She bit her lip and did likewise. Their exit garnered inquisitive looks from the remaining diners. Lexington took no notice of them. Strange how on her way to him, she’d been equally heedless of the unwanted attention she’d attracted. But now she felt as if she were about to be pilloried.