Ripe for Seduction

by Isobel Carr

  CHAPTER 16

  The mingled scents of dust and horse and leather grew stronger as Roland strolled across the yard at Tattersall’s and turned into the entrance of the barn. His friends were at the far end, gathered in a lively semicircle around Lord Leonidas Vaughn.

  It was Monday, settling day, and it had been a very good week, and not just because Lady Olivia was one step closer to capitulation. Thane owed him fifty guineas, Reeves owed him thirty, and he didn’t owe anyone so much as a groat. That eighty ought to be more than enough to buy the gelding Lord Leonidas was selling today. Dyrham-bred or not, it was hard to imagine anyone offering more than that for the animal.

  Roland wandered down the wide aisle between the stalls, stopping to give the once-over to a chestnut mare from Lord Dandridge’s stable before moving on to the cluster of men standing outside the stall of an eighteen-hand black gelding with a blaze so wide it might almost have been called piebald. The chestnut was a beautiful animal, but the black was nothing short of magnificent. It looked like it ought to be carrying an armored knight into battle with a pennant waving overhead.

  Roland nodded to his friends and ran a gloved hand up the gelding’s beautifully arched neck. He dug in and scratched behind one swiveling ear. The horse exhaled loudly through its nose and dipped its head to lip at Roland’s pocket. It caught the flap with its teeth and tugged.

  “Greedy beast,” Roland said, freeing his coat from the animal’s grip and fishing for the lump of sugar that Reiver knew was there. He fed it to the horse and then dusted his gloves off.

  “Still intent on buying him?” Thane asked as he unfolded his Bargello work pocketbook and counted out a stack of banknotes.

  Roland nodded, tucking the banknotes into his pocket. “I was at Dyrham the last time the duke took him out, God rest his soul. I wanted him then, but His Grace wouldn’t part with him.”

  “He was Grandfather’s favorite,” Vaughn said with a slightly sad smile. He rubbed his knuckles fondly between the gelding’s eyes. “And though I’m loath to part with him, that’s pure sentimentality. I need the space for breeding stock.”

  “How’s the new foal?” Reeves said.

  Vaughn’s face lit up. “He’s a right devil, just like his sire. Up on his feet in record time and running across the pasture like he has the wind in his blood before the week was out.”

  Roland chuckled at his friend’s nearly paternal enthusiasm while Thane rolled his eyes. Reeves ran a knowing eye over the gelding and nodded. “The new colt is a Godolphin descendant, just like Reiver here, isn’t he?” Reeves said as he pulled a snuffbox from his pocket.

  “Yes.” Vaughn put a shoulder against the wall and wrinkled his nose as Reeves inhaled a pinch of snuff and immediately sneezed. “They’re both out of Skyscraper.”

  Thane let out a low whistle. “The grand stallion of Dyrham. He must be going on twenty now.”

  Vaughn nodded. “He’s twenty-four. Born the same year as Beau. I doubt there will be too many more foals for him, making the new one all the more precious.”

  “And how’s our termagant?” Roland said. “Still enjoying the pleasures of Kent, is she?”

  “Safely delivered of a daughter and busy planning the christening by all accounts. She and Sandison will be up as soon as the babe can travel.” Vaughn slapped the gelding on the neck, and the animal shook its head, mane flying out. “Are you going to make me an offer, Devere?” he said. “Or did you want to wait and end up bidding against Squire Watt for him?”

  “Watt wants him?” Roland suppressed a surge of annoyance. The hunting squire had a large fortune to draw upon and was well known for paying outrageous sums for horseflesh.

  “Offered me sixty pounds,” Vaughn said with an amused smile, “but I told him I’d already promised you the right of first refusal if I sold him. Besides, it wouldn’t seem right to sell him outside the family, so to speak.”

  “Will Thane’s sixty guineas get it done?” Roland pulled the notes Thane had just given him from his pocket and held them out. “Or should I make Reeves here produce what he owes me as well?”

  “You are possibly the worst negotiator ever born,” Thane said with undisguised disgust. “It’s no wonder you’re perpetually in the basket. You don’t up your own offer. You wait for the other party to do so and then you never offer all of what they ask.”

  “Sixty guineas is more than fair,” Vaughn said, cutting off Thane’s lecture. “Did you want him delivered to the mews at Moubray House or to Croughton Abbey?”

  “To Croughton if it’s not a bother,” Roland said after Vaughn had tucked the banknotes into the commodious pocket of his greatcoat. “There’s to be a party there next week, and Reiver will save me having to ride one of Frocester’s slugs.”

  “Your brother does have execrable taste when it comes to horses,” Reeves said with a shake of his head. “The flea-bitten gray he was on when last I saw him would have been better suited for a country parson’s gig than a viscount’s stable. If it wasn’t within an inch of being a damn pony, I’ll eat my boot.”

  “It’s not Frocester’s fault,” Roland said with a twinge of conscience. “You know he has a lame hip. He picks his mounts for comfort and smooth gaits.”

  “Why doesn’t he just take a chair when in Town?” Thane said as they all wandered out to the yard to watch as the pretty little chestnut mare was put through her paces. They stopped in the shade of the colonnade, letting those actually interested in purchasing the dashing little mare occupy the yard itself.

  “Father once called it an embarrassingly womanish means of conveyance, and it was more than clear that he meant Frocester to hear him say it. My brother took the slight to heart. How could he not?”

  “How many of our fathers can’t stand their heirs?” Reeves said before taking another pinch of snuff. He shut the little porcelain box with a click and dropped it back into his pocket amid the collective nods.

  “And vice versa,” Thane added. “Look at the prince and the king. They’d gladly murder one another if given half a chance.”

  “It can’t be comfortable, for father or son, to know that the one can only come into his own by the death of the other,” Vaughn said as he dusted off his hat and settled it on his head.

  “Almost makes one glad to be a younger son,” Roland said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Reeves said, giving voice to what Roland was sure was a communal sentiment. “Though I’m damn glad it was my brother, not me, who’s to be sacrificed on the altar of dynastic marriage. Have you seen the rabbit-faced heiress my father is backing?” Reeves gave a dramatic shudder. “But for the grace of God and five minutes tardiness on my part, that could be my fate. Good Lord!” Reeves broke off, his attention riveted to a group of men on the other side of the yard. “Isn’t that Sir Christopher?”

  “It is,” Roland said darkly. “I’ve been trying to run him to ground for days. He’s never at home when I call, and his sister appears to be a virtual prisoner. When Margo called, Lady Bence-Jones admitted her but claimed her daughter was too unwell to join them.”

  “Shall we corner him now and get to the bottom of Blakely’s missing letters?” Reeves cracked his knuckles, his eyes lighting up in anticipation.

  “Drawing Sir Christopher’s cork won’t get us anywhere,” Thane said as he put a restraining hand on Reeves’s shoulder. Reeves cast him a dark look but didn’t shake him off.

  “Has Miss Bence-Jones changed her mind?” Vaughn said, eyeing them all with a furrowed brow. “I thought the matter settled.”

  “As did Blakely,” Reeves said, his dander clearly up about his closest friend’s dilemma. “And then Sir Thomas had the temerity to up and die, and his son insisted they postpone the wedding for a proper period of mourning.”

  “I see,” Vaughn said. He blew out an impatient breath, and his mismatched eyes narrowed as he watched their quarry bid on the chestnut mare. “Have any of you thought to bribe a servant?”

  The note that was returne
d via the Bence-Jones’s maid, who was only too happy to play go-between for a few paltry crowns, was written in an elegant copperplate hand but obviously dashed off in a hurry given the splatter of ink that marred the page. It said only: Yard. Eleven o’clock. Tonight.

  Roland tossed it onto the scarred wood of the prime table at The Red Lion and dropped into a seat. “Whichever of us goes, we’ll be lucky not to be arrested for housebreaking.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Roland pushed away from the wall as Reeves emerged from the card room at the Hughes’s ball. Livy was dancing with Carlow and promised to Lord Gregory for the following set, so she was unlikely to notice his absence.

  He and Reeves set off on foot for the Bence-Jones’s residence, bypassing the long line of standing carriages and idle, dozing teams. They skirted past a huddle of coachmen dicing by the light of a linkboy’s flambeaux and were roundly cursed as their shadows allowed one of the dice to disappear into the gutter.

  Reeves yanked his watch from his pocket and snapped it open as they passed beneath one of the infrequent oil lamps that attempted to push back the night in Mayfair. “We’d best hurry, or we’ll leave the poor girl cowering in the dark.”

  Roland lengthened his stride as Reeves tucked his watch away. His sword knocked against his leg, and he steadied it with his hand. The only sounds in the streets were the scrape of their shoes on the pavement and the yapping of a small dog who took offense at their passing too close to his domain.

  The Bence-Jones house was dark as they approached it, not even a light left on on the porch. Roland narrowed his eyes. Yes, the knocker was still there. Sir Christopher hadn’t somehow discerned their purpose and spirited his sister out of town.

  The mews were deserted. No dog or stable lad to raise the alarm as they counted gates, pushed the third one open, and slipped into the yard. Like most of the houses in town, the Bence-Jones’s terrace didn’t boast an actual garden, just a small courtyard that was taken up almost entirely by coal and ash bins and a large water butt.

  “Hello?” Miss Bence-Jones’s greeting came out in a tenuous warble.

  “Miss Bence-Jones,” Roland said quietly, putting out a reassuring hand.

  Her teeth chattered, and she clutched her cloak more tightly about her. Reeves shut the gate silently behind them. “We brought the packet of letters Blakely sent. Copies of the ones he’s sent since your father’s death.”

  She reached for them, revealing what appeared to be her nightclothes beneath the cloak. “Thank you. I thought—I thought he’d…” She paused, clutching the fascicle of letters to her chest and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I didn’t know what to think.”

  “Neither did Blakely,” Roland said as kindly as he could. The anger thrumming through him was for her brother, not her. It was important to remember that, to keep it at the forefront of his mind.

  “Kit wants me to marry his friend, Mr. Price,” Miss Bence-Jones said. “He’s been encouraging me to believe myself jilted. Harping on the issue until I’m ready to scream. But I had no idea he was keeping my letters from me. I assume my letters to John have also been interfered with?”

  Reeves nodded grimly. “And Lady Bence-Jones?”

  “My mother says I should be grateful to have a brother who cares so very much for my welfare,” she said, not sounding at all as if she agreed with her mother’s opinion.

  CHAPTER 18

  Which do you like better?” Henry said as he leaned over the pattern book at Stone and North’s. “The shield back or the lyre?”

  Livy glanced over his shoulder, casting her eye over the page of chair designs. “I thought the rooms you rented were furnished.”

  “The chairs all creak and the drawers of the desk stick,” he said as he turned the page. “And the carpets are worn through in spots. And it’s best not to even discuss the state of the mattress. Considering what I’m paying, you’d think they wouldn’t be such a shambles.”

  Livy hid a yawn behind her hand. The furnishings had seemed fine to her when they’d toured the rooms, but Henry always had been more fastidious than she about such things. He positively loathed most of the furniture at Holinshed. Livy couldn’t help but be glad her father had decided not to leave it to him. Holinshed deserved to belong to someone who loved it. Someone who thought it was special and appreciated its eccentricities and oddities.

  “Well, cousin?” he prompted.

  “The shield back,” Livy said, tapping it with one finger. “It has a more masculine look to it. The lyre back belongs in a lady’s boudoir or a drawing room.”

  “I agree,” Henry said a bit too brightly, as though he were trying to turn her up sweet.

  Livy had a sudden vision of Holinshed filled with little gilt chairs. She repressed a shudder and turned to stroll across the room. The shop smelled of wood, orange oil, and beeswax. Small tables were set beside both windows to take advantage of the light. Each was stacked high with pattern books. Henry had insisted she accompany him. Acting as though it would be a treat for her. She couldn’t imagine why. Her maid was standing outside, waiting patiently for them to finish, playing with the ribbons of her hat.

  Henry made his selection known to the proprietor and led her back out to the pavement. A phaeton, glossy black with its wheels and details picked out in gold and green, rolled toward them, Devere’s sister deftly steering the pair of high-stepping bays. Beside her, Lord Sudbury lounged at his ease, his arm stretched out across the back of the seat, looking very much like the cat who’d caught the canary.

  The comtesse smiled when she saw Livy and touched the brim of her hat with her whip as she passed, very much as a gentleman would have done. Livy waved. Beside her, Henry made a stammering sound that was clearly part shock and part disapproval.

  “I’m glad to see that woman has moved on from attempting to entrap your father,” he said, his upper lip curled with disdain. “Sudbury is a much more appropriate object for her schemes.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Livy said, unable to keep the annoyance from her voice. Henry had no right to speak of her father, or Devere’s sister, that way. Her hand must have tightened on his arm because he tugged it away from her.

  “Have you really not noticed? The comtesse”—he stressed the French title as though it were somehow damning in and of itself—“has been pursuing your father relentlessly. It’s the joke of the season: the Monk and the Laïs of Versailles.”

  “Don’t call my father that,” Livy snapped. “And don’t speak of Madame de Corbeville that way either.”

  “I wasn’t saying I find it funny,” Henry said. “Quite the contrary. Imagine if she were to succeed in seducing him. Your father is a gentleman. Circumstances might arise under which Lord Arlington might feel compelled to marry the creature. And then where would any of us be?”

  “You mean where would you be?” Livy said, her temper rising.

  Henry gave her a pitying look. “That’s right,” he said. “You’re going to marry Devere. So I guess it won’t matter if you’re displaced as mistress of Holinshed.”

  Henry took his leave at the front steps of Arlington House and went off whistling between his teeth. Livy stalked inside, her maid trailing after her, and went directly to her room. She peeled off her gloves and washed her hands in the tepid water in the stand by her dressing table. She felt unclean.

  If it was the lady’s day at the Bagnio near St. James’s, she’d have been tempted to drag Frith back out. But it wasn’t. Women got access only one day a week. At the moment, the baths were undoubtedly overrun with whores and the gentlemen who sought to combine the pleasures of a shampoo with other, less respectable indulgences.

  Livy rubbed the back of her neck, massaging away the tension. Of course she’d noticed her father and the comtesse’s flirtation. She wasn’t blind. But it hadn’t occurred to her that anything serious might come of it. Given the comtesse’s well-known predilection for dalliance, it seemed far-fetched and fantastical to suggest such a thing, but trust He
nry to have an eye toward the prize. If her father remarried, Henry could lose everything.

  Her maid had retreated to the chair beside the window to reattach a flounce on the gown Livy had worn to Ranelagh. Frith’s needle and thimble winked in the sunlight. Livy checked her hair in the mirror, twisted a curl back into place, and went downstairs in search of a few moments’ solitude.

  She’d left the copy of Dangerous Connections she was reading in the drawing room the previous afternoon. She found it lying just where she’d left it, but one of the maids had closed it, marking Livy’s place with a length of ribbon. Livy threw herself down on the settee closest to the window and flipped the book open, but after several attempts to lose herself in the story, she set it aside and went out into the garden instead. The original, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, had been better. It was somehow milder in translation.

  Small stone benches were set under arbors all down both brick walls that separated their garden from those of their neighbors. Espaliered apple and pear trees were set between them, their profusion of blossoms humming with bees.

  Livy wove her way past the neatly trimmed herbal borders and then sat down on the very last arbor, ignoring the chill of the stone that crept through the layers of her petticoats. The soft scent of fruit blossoms enveloped her, with a cloying hint of jasmine lurking underneath.

  She couldn’t imagine her father remarrying. If he’d had any inclination to do so, wouldn’t he have done it long ago? It would have made perfect sense for him to take a new wife when he was a young widower. Doing so now seemed almost preposterous. Her father hated for anything to disturb his peace. He liked his routines, to have everything in its place. New servants annoyed him, for heaven’s sake. A new wife, especially one with Continental ideas of how to run a house, would drive him mad.

  A trio of wrens flittered through the garden, stalked by the small cat who ruled the kitchen with an iron paw. The birds chattered loudly to one another as they hopped across the small lawn and dove through the bushes, always staying just out of reach of the tortoiseshell queen. The cat gave Livy a baleful glance as it slunk past and disappeared in the direction of the mews.