Seven Secrets of Seduction

by Anne Mallory

  Miranda tilted her head.

  “Mother was in love with Father.” He shrugged, not feeling the sentiment. “He is constantly in love. With many things. All of them real. For a time. It took her a long time to realize it.”

  And there had been many times he had observed his father without his mother present. His libidinous father, for all his marital faults, always had time for his children. Always took Max on trips to the estates, to Parliament, to social appointments. Inevitably seduced yet another woman at the end of a meal or in the hall or in a back cottage, all while his son was at his side. Oh, he didn’t take them there on the floor or table or whatever surface was readily available while Max was present. But he’d work his wiles. Make appointments for later.

  And doors occasionally got left ajar. Loud sounds permeated even the heaviest oak. Women would stumble out, ravished and glowing. Would give him sly glances and sometimes touch his young cheeks telling him that they’d be back for him someday.

  “Oh. Poor woman,” she whispered.

  “She is fine,” he said, unable to stifle the bitterness that always lingered when thoughts of his parents’ marriage surfaced. Unable to stifle it when speaking to the woman in front of him, at least. For she called within him a need to be clean, to fly free. “Now.”

  Yes, fine. If one could call what his mother did in order to hide fine.

  He remembered his father’s reaction the first time he found his mother with another man in London. Max had been ten. His father had watched for a moment, given a laugh, booted the man out of his home, then ravished his own wife. Luckily, Max’s tutor had pushed him down the hall and into his room before he had witnessed anything that would scar him further. His mother had had a smile on her face all that next morning. Max had been giddy, her happiness infectious. Thinking that perhaps his parents would be happy together finally. For he loved them both.

  And then he and his mother walked in on his father rutting with a maid in the sitting room a week later. The woman’s eyes had been glassy and unfocused. Little ohs on her lips. Just like the ones that had been on his mother’s.

  Her happiness had dissolved. His youngest sister had been born nine long months later.

  Max had never quite forgiven his father for the light that had seeped from his mother’s eyes though he loved him still.

  “It is silly to marry for love.” He stroked the underside of Miranda’s first finger.

  Her brows knit. “There is nothing wrong with marrying for love.”

  “To see the same longing face in the mirror every morning? To be emotionally constrained to that other person for the rest of one’s days? Better to marry some cold, expensive fish who can entertain and do her duty and not expect a thing.”

  “That’s horrible.” She looked appalled.

  “It’s smart business,” he said intently, trying to make her understand.

  “How can you say that? You who wri—” She took a deep breath. “You who rides the line of seduction.”

  “I’m not against marriage, nor love.” He had to make her understand. He stroked her finger. “I’m just against love in marriage.”

  She stayed silent for a moment. “I feel sadness for your mother. And even your father. But I think emotions are lovely,” she said softly. “Even if they fall to the negative for a time. The sun will rise again another day. The sadness perhaps never forgotten, but a new day enjoyed in another way. A way that could not have been but for the sadness’s existence.”

  “That seems to be Father’s view on life. That there is always a new day. A new friend.”

  “I don’t mean something that changes. I mean something that evolves because of changes. Something to be enjoyed.”

  A feeling, a mad want opened in him. “It makes one weak.”

  She tilted her head, leaning toward him, the play of her freed fingers bearing down just a touch on his knee. “Does it make me weak then that I love sentiment?”

  He tugged her silk-covered digit between his forefinger and thumb. He was still surprised to see the new gloves on her hands. The girl he had “met” in the bookshop would not have purchased such no matter how much she wanted them. Too practical and cautious. “It is a feminine prerogative to do so.”

  “Shakespeare wrote wonderful sonnets. Only a man with a keen eye toward sentiment could have done so. Even if one simply seeks to mock.”

  The words hit too close to home. His fingers slipped from beneath hers and drummed against the seat. “And look where that landed him. Disillusioned in marriage. Grand sentiment directed elsewhere.”

  “His written work is lovely, whatever his rumored problems in spoken life.”

  Like your Mr. Pitts, your Eleutherios? he wanted to ask, to demand. He tapped his fingers a little viciously. Idiotic of him to hold her to some lofty standard that he had manufactured. And yet, he couldn’t help the emotion. The weakness of it.

  “Those things that you cannot fully have make the impressions last. They keep relationships interesting.” Untethered and free. Able to breathe and live. Something that would keep him alive, and that he too could not crush.

  She lifted her hand and leaned back against the seat, the weight of her palm missing from his knee. “So if you fully embrace something, you feel it will disappear? Slip between your fingers?”

  “Yes.” His eyes tightened, something inside of him upset, no, not upset, irritated, by the conversational turn. He tapped the seat more furiously.

  “I disagree. I think that it allows you to more fully explore. To become more within that embrace.”

  “You who will barely even step a foot outside of your bookstore, much less England.” He narrowed his eyes on her.

  She raised her chin. “Yes.”

  “So I seek to ignore and take, and you seek to dream and withhold.”

  “Perhaps that is why I’m consistently drawn to you,” she said lightly, strangely, her face once more turned to the window. “But as I said, I am evolving. Slowly.”

  He narrowed his eyes further, something inside him reacting violently. “I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

  “I can’t seem to help the weakness.”

  Every muscle in his body tightened unpleasantly. He didn’t like it when she claimed her emotion for him as weakness.

  Not one bit.

  And yet he couldn’t very well argue, or else he would be arguing against himself.

  Tangled in his own web.

  He looked out the other window, the countryside blurring in his unfocused view. The problem was that it hadn’t been thought that had prodded him into this situation. It had been the dreaded emotion. His vulnerability.

  And the cure?

  Having her didn’t seem to be sating anything inside him. He just wanted her more, every time he saw her, spoke with her, buried himself inside her.

  The carriage swayed to the side as they turned. The vehicle moved up the drive, the trees forming a tunnel of beautiful shade and dotted, hovering sunlight.

  They drew up to the charming stone manor that stood nestled at the end of the drive, surrounded by the forest. No formal gardens or maze. Simply a retreat. A gem nestled in the glade. Far enough away from the castle and town to create a different world.

  Somewhere where he could let the masks fall.

  “It doesn’t look as I imagined it.” Her voice was soft, the meaning of her words twofold. He hadn’t disabused her of the notion that they would be visiting a sprawling, ridiculously grandiose property. Something so grotesque in its magnificence that she would be put off by it.

  “My father uses the property sometimes, but it is more often abandoned.”

  Just the way Max liked it.

  “Oh, but it is lovely.”

  “Too far from town for the others.” Thank God.

  She stared at him. They were hardly even outside the city.

  He smiled wryly. “Even for Colin. They can’t leave their pursuits. And this house is hardly big enough for a party. They go to B
ervue or Ratching Place if they want to entertain.”

  “And you?”

  “Oh, I require my pursuits as well.”

  He couldn’t read her eyes, but she stared at him for a long moment before turning back to the window. He badly desired to know what she was thinking in that moment.

  “At one time I might have wondered about your pursuits,” she said. “What you did with your time. But now I know.”

  His chest tightened. “Oh?”

  “You seduce starry-eyed young women, of course, and then take them on ridiculously expensive and outrageous outings in order to make them your slaves.”

  The knot loosened, and he smiled, relieved to be back on firmer ground. Flirtation and light barbs. Anything deeper hidden once again, even as it strained against the bonds. Wanting to be freed now that it had tasted a measure of sunlight. “You are my test subject, and I have to admit the pursuit is without equal.”

  “Men are all about the pursuit. Even Eleutherios says so in his work.”

  That hadn’t been what he meant. In the conversation, that is, not the book.

  Damn.

  He was going to develop true madness at this rate.

  He had verbally meant the term “pursuit” in its original meaning in the conversation—as an activity. And even though usually he would have been quite happy to have the knowledge of his affections hidden within the chase, something about it bothered him now.

  Bothered him along with her allusion to the author in that respectful tone of voice. His fingers curled into the fabric of the seat as if he could claw it in two. God, he was a piece of work. He wondered if her talk of self-hatred did indeed have roots.

  He pulled her to him, quickly, roughly, as the carriage drew to a stop, and kissed her with all the confusion, rage, and hope that were mixed together in him. She startled, then returned the kiss, her lips equally crushing his in some sort of answer.

  He pulled away just as fast as he heard Benjamin on the other side of the door, preparing to open it. The boy would knock first, of course. But even so, Max needed to get his bearings. To replace at least one mask.

  To remove the naked look that was assuredly in his eyes, as he stared into the slightly incoherent, slightly wise eyes across from his.

  Miranda smoothed her hands down her dress once again. Surely she looked a mess, though no one had given her a glance askance. Didn’t seem surprised to see her at all. Of course, news traveled fast. And between households assuredly everyone was kept abreast of things that concerned their master.

  That a bookish nobody was having a torrid affair with the viscount was probably a pretty poorly kept secret.

  The waiting staff welcomed them inside.

  “Welcome back, your lordship.” The housekeeper fussed over him. “Been nearly a month.” The woman made a sound between her lips and put her hands on her hips.

  Miranda watched as he allowed the woman to fuss over him in a motherly fashion. Not too far out of town for the viscount, obviously. And just what sort of pursuits did the man follow here? His writing? Surely he wouldn’t bring her someplace that close. Risk her figuring it out. But then again, he was a gambler. The gossip pages always had some outrageous quest of his embedded in the ink.

  Though after listening to him speak of his parents, the gossip pages took on a different hue. The personal reasons known only to the people involved, lost in the translation to the inky lines. Unable to be shared in the space of a gossip column.

  She watched him smile at the housekeeper. Watched the way his shoulders eased, the stiffness of the conversation on marriage and his parents sliding from him.

  He motioned to Miranda, and she stepped forward to be introduced. The staff watched as well, trying to deduce just where in the viscount’s long-term hierarchy she might fall.

  Miranda wondered that too.

  They stepped inside the house, and she was given a quick tour, the housekeeper pulling the viscount up to date on recent changes and events. There was a small but lovely library on the ground floor.

  “You don’t need me to do a thing to it.” She ran her hand along the dark wood paneling of the hideaway retreat. “Everything is in perfect order.” Hard for her to justify mixing up every title. She’d find some other way to wreak havoc. “Not quite as grand as yours.” Most libraries weren’t. “But quite beautiful.”

  “It’s adequate.” But she heard the fondness in his tone. “But you haven’t seen Bervue. The estate doesn’t have a library—it has a separate manor dedicated to literature. My father is rather rabid about books.” He ran a hand along the paneling. “You’d likely be found buried beneath the spines there. Forgetting to eat or drink and withering away amidst the tombey tomes.”

  “I enjoy eating far too much.”

  “Mmm. I enjoy that as well.” He nipped her shoulder and ran a hand down the curve of her waist and over her hip, swirling around her body and lifting her hand to his lips.

  Her body responded, but something in the conversation kept her from giving in. Curiosity peaked. A remembered tidbit from the Hannings’. “Your father likes literature?”

  “He fairly salivates over it like he would a debutante in a white dress.” The viscount might as well have been discussing the weather. “Would like nothing better than to write the next tome of seduction. Unfortunately, he can’t keep his trousers up long enough to put pen to paper. He hates your Eleutherios as much as the rest of us do.” He smiled unkindly.

  The statement and the sentiment behind it made her suddenly sad. She had a feeling that his father had only recently discovered that his son was the author. Was proud of his accomplishment but didn’t know how to tell him so. The way he had talked of Eleutherios, the way he had looked at Max at the Hannings’, made her sure of it.

  That neither the father nor the son could fully expose himself to the other because of past events—though both of them wished to—squeezed her heart.

  She touched his shoulder. Then reached up on her toes and touched her lips softly to his.

  He kissed her back, then looked down at her. “I appreciate the lovely kiss, but what prompted it?”

  She smoothed a hand down his front. “I wished to do so, so I did.”

  His lips curved. “Finally listening to me?”

  She tilted her head. “More so than you know,” she said softly.

  His eyes narrowed, and she pressed another kiss to his lips before he could think on her statement further.

  A softly cleared throat echoed in the room.

  The viscount held on to the kiss for another second before pulling back and staring at her. Miranda held her breath at the look. She wished she could write to him right now and receive the response on what he was thinking at the moment. There was a naked look, bared for her to read, if she dared.

  He turned to the housekeeper in the doorway.

  The housekeeper bowed. “You said to inform you when the refreshments were ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That was fast,” Miranda said. Though the servants had probably been more than ready for their master to arrive.

  He tilted his head at Miranda, a smile touching his lips. “There is refreshment to be had in multiple places on this estate.”

  Two hours later she stretched in the water of the natural spring located in a wooded glade just far enough from the house to be private. Cool and refreshing. Just a hint of ice to manage the heat from the man near her.

  “Old men trying to make decisions for everyone,” he said.

  She tilted her head, thinking of the jabs Mr. Pitts had made about Parliament. “You dislike Parliament.”

  “On the days it is most frustrating, I veritably loathe it. And it is hard to blow off steam to one’s peers…about one’s peers. I have to choose…different confidantes.”

  So he had blown off steam to her. In his letters. Her throat felt unaccountably tight at the thought.

  “Why do you return?”

  “Oh, it isn’t always dread
ful. Sometimes it is downright invigorating. I have a seat in the Commons. I originally used it to control the Werston vote when Father was…unable to concentrate on the matters at hand. To tell him which way to cast.” He lazily drew his hand over her foot, bringing it to just beneath the surface of the water. The cool air was just in reach of the top of her skin, misting over the warmth in a delicious way. “He does his duty, but his passions obviously lie elsewhere.”

  She shivered as his fingers curled around her heel.

  “I was young and at loose ends in life.” He shrugged. “It turned out brilliantly. The men in the Commons are highly motivated individuals. Some are younger sons or those in line. Others are just brilliant commoners.”

  “We fodder can be smart for all our humble beginnings.”

  He smiled and gave the underside of her foot a slow caress. “So I’ve found.”

  “Perhaps you should spend more time mucking about with us. Renounce your ways. Start a lending library.”

  “My siblings would be aghast.”

  She withheld a wicked smile at the direction of the conversation. She had been waiting for the introduction of the topic. The carriage conversation had been too honest, and far too serious for her to inject any topsy-turvydom. But now? Here in the cool water? “You said your brother is a writer.”

  He tilted his head. “Did I?”

  “Yes, at Lady Banning’s.”

  “Ah. Yes.”

  “He enjoys writing?”

  “Enjoys…” He ran a finger up the inside of her leg, causing her to catch her breath. His body followed the path, allowing him better access to all of her. “His passion for written communication is nearly ridiculous, and he spends far too much time rallying the servants.”

  Or perhaps just one servant. Miranda would have to test the theory at the promised social gathering.

  “There is nothing wrong with correspondence,” she said. His palm brushed over her. Warmth pooled below the touch causing her breath to catch. “I quite enjoy it.”

  His lip curved along with his fingertips as he grew closer in the pool. “I’m very happy to hear your enjoyment.” She couldn’t stop the sudden intake of breath as he worked his magic.