To Seduce a Lady’s Heart (The Landon Sisters)

by Ingrid Hahn

  And her husband’s large hands were beginning to roam her body as if he wouldn’t mind doing so again.

  “Good morning, Eliza.”

  Daisy had come up from the end of the bed and was now trying to wedge herself between them. When that failed, the dog happily settled in the crevice between them both.

  “Good morning, my lord.” Eliza idly stroked Daisy’s ears.

  His hand found her backside and squeezed. “You’re so lovely and generous there. It’s quite a delight.”

  “My lord!” Cheeks hot, she squirmed out of his embrace and sat up. Daisy yipped at the sudden upset in her arrangement.

  Eliza found him staring at her, wearing a devilish grin and nothing else. A wicked heat burned from the depths of his bejeweled eyes. “You can’t mind so terribly if I admire your body, can you?”

  A slant of lemony-yellow morning sun cut across the bed.

  “I never thought about it.”

  “That I don’t believe for an instant. Those deliciously low-cut bodices on evening gowns can’t be for any other reason than to allow men to enjoy the view.”

  “Enjoy the view, indeed.” She tsked. “The door is unlocked. You should go back to your own room before you’re caught.”

  “It’s early yet. I doubt very much there is any danger of that.” His grin widened as he sat up. “I have a few other ideas on enjoying the view I’d like to explore. I’m a very hungry man before breakfast, you know.”

  The double meaning of his words was not lost on her.

  He kissed her, hands settling upon her arms. “Do you want to try something? I think you’ll like it.”

  Yes. “I—I suppose.”

  “Can I touch you?”

  “You are touching me.”

  “No, can I touch you…everywhere. Would you like that?”

  “Oh.” A rush of heat to the place he no doubt meant told her that yes, yes, she would very much like to have him touch her there. She gave a careful nod.

  But instead of touching her, he pushed from the bed. The sheets were rumpled with a ghostly imprint of his body.

  Her mouth dropped open at the sight of him. The grace of his defined form as he plucked Daisy from the bed, sauntered across the room, put the dog next door, and came back again. Naked. And in quite the state of arousal.

  He smiled when he caught her staring. “Like that bit, do you?”

  Her cheeks burned. “Don’t tease, my lord.”

  “I’m sorry.” Back in the bed, he pulled her close. “It’s all right if you do, you know.”

  “If I do what?”

  “Like it. There’s no shame in that.” His voice was smooth and velvety rich. “You’re a woman. It’s perfectly natural to want to enjoy yourself with a man.”

  “Oh, stop talking and touch me.” Before she went mad from the want of it.

  “Happy to oblige.” He eased her down and stroked his hand down her body before sliding it between her thighs.

  What he was doing to her was something she could never have imagined possible. He stroked her gently—if she didn’t know better, she might have said he was teasing her.

  He rested beside her, running his lips over her cheek. “You’ve gone wet.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you want to be in charge?”

  He was still running his fingers up and down, up and down, pausing every now and again to give a nudge against that point at the top where all the best of everything was centered.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “You can do what you want…with yourself or with me.”

  “What would I do?” When Eliza tried imagining herself doing anything in this scenario, she came up short.

  “Touch me. Touch yourself. You don’t have to tell me what you want, you can show me. This, for instance…sit up.”

  “What?” But she was already doing as he’d commanded.

  He remained splayed on the bed, his head flat against the mattress, the feather pillows bunched up and useless against the headboard. “If you’ve ever thought about trying to ride astride, now’s your chance to practice.”

  “You can’t possibly mean…”

  The wicked grin returned. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  With awkward trepidation, she balanced her weight on her hands while swinging a leg over his body. Her sex pulsed with mad longing, and the scent of arousal whispered a fragrant note in the air.

  “I don’t know if I can do this.” She flicked her hair over her shoulders as she held herself stiffly above him.

  But he began moving below her, rubbing the hard length of himself against the part of her that would take his body into her own. He sank his fingers into her thighs and gazed up at her. “You’re so beautiful, Eliza. Sit down. Let me feel the weight of you on me.”

  She sat.

  “Good. Now move your hips. Rub yourself on me. And when you’re ready, you can take me and put me inside of you.”

  “Do…what?” She froze. He couldn’t possibly mean…

  “Take ahold of me and put me inside of you. When you’re ready.” He stilled, taking deep breaths. His hair was askew, his eyes glistening. “Unless this is too much too fast. If you’re not enjoying it—”

  “I don’t know…” It wasn’t quite the place to stop for a conversation. Her legs wantonly open and strewn over a nude male. Her hair down, her body bare, all of her fully exposed. It was a lot. To ask more…

  “I’m going to have to do better than that, aren’t I?” He reached down to take ahold of himself, positioning the tip at the proper place. “Here. I’ll do it this time. That is…if you’re ready.”

  Biting her lip, she gave a slow nod.

  “Good. Now sit on me. Go gently—at your own pace.”

  She allowed her weight to sink down, his eyes fixed on the place he entered her. He might have been the one impaling her—slowly, deliciously filling her—but she was the one in charge. It was empowering and arousing, waking her body to a warm realization of the potential for sensual gratification.

  “Move when you’re ready, my lady.” Jeremy laced his fingers into hers and squeezed, keeping ahold of her to brace her upright. “Close your eyes and let yourself do what feels good.”

  Eliza needed no further encouragement. She let her eyes fall shut and began moving her hips, rubbing herself against him where the nicest of the sensations originated.

  Strange things were happening. Strange, wonderful things.

  She kept moving, focusing entirely on the pleasure of the place where their bodies joined. Of them moving together. Of the feel of him against her and the delicious intimacy of the wanton position she’d taken above him.

  She kept going and going until, quite unexpectedly, she dissolved into pure starlight.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Eliza was in the carriage with Hetty and Fredericka. She and Hetty had taken the younger girl shopping on Bond Street.

  Hetty made a pinched face and looked down her nose to affect her impression of the perfumist they’d encountered and punctuated her words with a sniff. “Very ill-be-haved young ladies, in-deed!”

  The three of them burst into peals of laughter. Daisy, standing on Eliza’s lap, joined in with an excited yip.

  “I daresay, anybody who received that man’s approbation is not somebody I wish to know.” Fredericka giggled again.

  “He’s not the only perfumer in London.” Hetty was shaking her head at the memory. “If he doesn’t care for our custom, he shan’t have it.”

  Fredericka nodded. “I think all the fragrances went to his mind and stripped away any sense of humor he might have had.”

  The carriage came to a stop before Lady Rushworth’s house. Eliza had a sudden inspiration. “Why don’t you two stay the next week with me?”

  Hetty’s round face flushed a rosy shade. “I’d love that. What about you, Fredericka?”

  “I daresay my mother wouldn’t notice if I didn’t return home for a week.”r />
  “All the same, let’s send her a note and ask her, and she can have clothing and things sent for you.” Hetty might have enjoyed absurdities, but she had a remarkably logical head.

  “I suppose, if we must.”

  One at a time, they climbed out, balancing a few of the boxes and parcels with them. Most of the stores would send items to their respective homes, of course, but there were certain purchases they’d wanted immediately. A pair of footman appeared to help them.

  In the house, Caruthers rushed to Eliza. “Your mother wants you immediately.”

  She kept her expression placid for her friends. “Very well. I’ll go up directly.” She handed the dog over to Hetty’s care. “Take Fredericka and Daisy up to the second drawing room and write that note, won’t you?”

  Stroking Daisy’s ears, Hetty stepped close. “Are you sure we wouldn’t be intruding on your mother?”

  “She doesn’t leave the first drawing room anymore.”

  “Really?” Taking off her bonnet and handing it to the servant with a smile of gratitude, she turned to Eliza. “I heard she was unwell, but…”

  “I know.” It didn’t need to be said. Her mother’s ailment was assumed to be more imagined than anything else. “I think my marriage affected her rather more strongly than anyone could have guessed.”

  The admission brought a twinge of guilt.

  A few minutes later, though, going into her mother’s room, the guilt evaporated. There was absolutely no part of her that wanted to fall in tears at her mother’s feet and beg forgiveness. There was, however, a large part of her that wanted to flee back to Idlewood and forget she’d ever been a Burke.

  But she was her mother’s daughter, and here she needed to remain.

  Lady Rushworth was in her usual place on the chaise longue, covered in rugs. Though it was a lovely day, a fire burned at the hearth. “What did I tell you about the Landon blood?”

  “If you have something to tell me, Mother, pray speak plainly.”

  “They’re not like us. They’re interested in only what will help themselves. Take that friend of yours, Grace, for example—”

  “Either you have something to say or you don’t.” Eliza was in no mood for her mother’s thoughts about Grace.

  “Your husband has ruined me.”

  “Mother, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I very much doubt that.”

  Lady Rushworth slipped a folded sheet of paper from the wrinkles of the blankets and handed it to Eliza. “See for yourself.”

  Eliza skimmed the letter. “All this talks about is an investment gone bad.”

  Then her eyes caught on the amount, and the air went out of her lungs. “Mother, this number…it can’t be right. If it were, it would mean you’re—”

  “Ruined. Yes. It’s as I said. Unfortunately, it is right. I’ve already written to him about it and received a response.”

  Eliza’s mouth went dry. “It’s all you have. What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do?” Idly, she fingered the gem-encrusted rings on her fingers. “That was everything I had. I’m destitute.”

  “You have your dower’s portion, surely.”

  “It wasn’t enough a hundred years ago, and it hasn’t changed a tuppence since then. But the worst part of this is that I have your husband to thank.”

  “What does he have to do with any of this?”

  “It’s his man of business who convinced mine that the venture was too big to fail. And look, now”—she punctuated her statement by stabbing a key clause in the letter with one finger—“it has. And I have nothing.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Eliza thrust the paper back to her mother and stuck out her chin. “I don’t believe it, not for one minute.”

  “Trying to convince me or yourself, child?”

  “Neither.” She stood and paced to the other end of the room. “The earl wouldn’t do such a thing. It’s as simple as that. He might have been overeager in the business of eradicating his debt and he can be very single-minded, but he’s not vindictive. If you lost money, he lost money, too. I don’t think any man would go so far for such petty reasons.” Eliza went to the mantel to fiddle with the china figurines displayed there.

  “Were it to strip me of no more than a few thousand, I might agree with you. But to ruin me altogether—no, I think he would go that far. That’s what Landons do. There are no half measures with them.”

  “It’s not his fault. It’s the fault of your man of business for making a phenomenally stupid mistake. Surely there has to be some sort of rule, written or otherwise, that says you don’t put all your funds into a single venture.” She dared a look back at her mother.

  Lady Rushworth shrugged. “Think what you want. You always do.” She sighed. “So headstrong. Just like your father.”

  If only her father were still alive. Things would have been so different. Lord Bennington would have seen Lord Rushworth about the debt, and her father would have graciously allowed him to repay it. Her mother never would have attempted to force Christiana’s hand. Eliza never would have had to deceive the earl into marrying her.

  At that last thought, a little hook caught in her heart. Would it be possible for something good to come out of all this?

  She sank her teeth into her lip. Was it even fair to hope that something good might come out of what had started by such scandalous means? If any of this, any of it at all, started circulating among Society, it would follow them forever. That was the last thing her husband wanted. He’d done so much—given up so much—to rebuild after his uncle’s spectacular scandal.

  “What would you have us do, Mother?”

  “The first thing that has to be done, obviously, is that he must leave this house at once. The second thing is to see the archbishop. It’s time we started petitioning for this sham of a marriage to be annulled, once and for all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jeremy hadn’t set both his feet over the threshold of Lady Rushworth’s house when Eliza was practically upon him.

  “Thank goodness you’re here at last.” She and two other women—Lady Hetty and that young Chapman girl who had sung the other afternoon—were being put to rights by housemaids while the butler was organizing footmen about piles of trunks. He recognized his own among them.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’re leaving.” Eliza plucked Daisy off the floor to get him out from underfoot. “All of us. I’ve taken the liberty of sending a few servants over to open the Bennington house in Haight Square—we’re going there.”

  “Immediately?”

  “Immediately.”

  At her decided answer, he brought her into the seldom-used morning room at the back of the ground floor. “Let’s discuss this over something that will settle our nerves.”

  “I thank you, but if you’re talking about anything stronger than wine, I don’t ever touch that, my lord.”

  He shut the door behind them.

  The room overlooked the little garden. It was the space he’d made his own during his stay under Lady Rushworth’s roof. He’d also stored a decanter of brandy on one of the side tables, replacing a hideous vase.

  “I know you said you didn’t want any”—he poured the golden-brown liquid into a glass and offered it to her—“but I suggest you reconsider your stance now. The fragrance alone is sometimes all it takes to bolster me.”

  She took his suggestion, inhaling the brandy but not sipping. Her lips were pale, her cheeks ashen.

  They were silent for a long spell. Jeremy, with brandy of his own, took the seat opposite and waited. Silence could be painful—desperation beat in his chest to do something—but what he wanted and what Eliza needed were two entirely different matters.

  “What’s happened?”

  It was the wrong time for such a question. Whatever it was, she wasn’t ready to tell him. Jeremy sipped from his glass. The flavor burst on his tongue, hot at first, then settling back to oak and spiced fruit. It finished with
a lingering hint of vanilla. “If you don’t tell me, how can I help?”

  “I’ve invited Hetty and Fredericka to stay with us. We’ll be too crowded here, what with my mother always in the first drawing room.” Daisy yipped for attention, and Eliza obliged, setting her brandy aside untouched, and placing a kiss on the dog’s head.

  “I see.” There was something else, he was certain of it. But he wouldn’t push her on the subject quite yet. “That will make it easier on my mother.”

  Eliza looked up at him, eyes wide in alarm. “Your mother?”

  “She wants to pay a call on you. Don’t worry, she’s harmless.” Truth be told, his mother was probably more desperate for Eliza to like her than the other way around. “You’ll get on very well, I promise you. Wait and see.”

  The house Jeremy had taken at Haight Square for the new Bennington residence in London—the old one had been sold off to pay the former earl’s debts after his death—was on the other side of Mayfair. The distance seemed unexpectedly serendipitous. The farther away from Lady Rushworth they were, the better.

  Servants were busy with the tasks of opening the house when he arrived. They were Lady Rushworth’s servants, not his own, and they worked as a favor to Eliza. They bustled about busily as if they’d been in service there for their entire lives. It took quite a while to make the house ready, so they were focusing on the necessities. The bedchambers, the kitchen, the dining room, and one sitting room. The rest—the more formal or less frequently used parts of the house—could be attended to later.

  With Hetty and the young Miss Chapman in tow, Jeremy had to wait until a strategic moment when he could finally pull his wife aside. He took her into the library, Daisy at her heels. He took the protective cloth off the furniture in too hasty a movement, bringing up a huge cloud of dust.