by Isobel Carr
An impossible challenge … Eleanor Blakely is all too aware that her reputation dangles by a very slender thread, unfortunately, she’s found herself in the midst of a delicious series of wagers with a consummate charmer, and she can’t seem to stop herself from saying yes to every wicked proposition. Whatever twist of fate has kept his best friend’s sister on the shelf is a mystery to Viscount Wroxton, but when the inveterate little gamester suddenly catches his attention, she’s entirely is too fascinating to ignore. The fact that she has five enormous brothers is hardly worth thinking about—she’s thrown down the gauntlet, and he has no intention of losing, whatever the cost…
For Carolyn Jewel, who talked me though all this self-publishing nonsense and helped me every step of the way. Thank you.
Table of Contents
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Three Courtesans
Author’s Note
Excerpt from Sin Incarnate
Excerpt from Scandal Incarnate
Praise for Isobel’s Books
Books by Isobel
About the Author
Copyright Page
Chapter One
The season seems a bit dull without the Countess of S—to entertain and divert us. Perhaps some other lady shall rise to the occasion?
Tête-à-Tête, 18 May 1790
Eleanor Blakely looked up from her cards as her opponents left the card table in a rustle of silk and a flurry of giggles. She glanced at her partner. Viscount Wroxton’s pale eyes met hers across the expanse of the table, the barest hint of a challenge evident in his expression.
‘Now that our opponents have so obligingly gone elsewhere,’ he said, ‘what do you say to a change in terms, Miss Blakely?’
A not unpleasant shiver ran down Eleanor’s spine, chased by the warm tone in the viscount’s voice like a hare running from a hound. Was her brother’s friend condescending to flirt with her? Was the evening really so tiresome for him that they’d come to that?
Eleanor ground her teeth and rearranged her cards. She had no right to the flash of resentment that quickened her blood, but it was there all the same.
Pride. One of her many failings.
Wroxton reached out, the large emerald on his ring finger winking the in candlelight, and plucked her cards from her hand. Never taking those disquieting eyes off her, he shuffled the deck, long fingers making easy work of the task.
Eleanor’s mouth went dry and she reached for her sherry. She shouldn’t react so viscerally—so physically—to something as banal as the way Wroxton’s fingers moved over the cards. But it was as if she could feel them touching her instead: nails grazing, whorls of his fingertips slightly rough, the promise of strength in their square lines more than evident.
She swallowed the sweet wine in one deep draught, the warmth of it bringing a flush to her cheeks. Well, she could blame the wine if the viscount or anyone else noticed her state. Across the room, their former opponents settled in at the pianoforte and Miss Hardy began to play. Mr Perry turned her pages like the worshipful pup he was. He couldn’t be a day older than nineteen if the peach fuzz on his cheeks was any indication.
Young love. Eleanor’s jaw clenched. It was horrid of her to sneer at it, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. At that age, she’d been eons older; had been forced to be.
She savoured the tang of the sherry on her tongue and pushed the glass towards the edge of the table. Eventually a footman would appear to provide her with more; hopefully, soon. She didn’t blame Wroxton for seeking to relieve his boredom with flirtation. She was overwhelmed with ennui herself . . . or she had been until a moment ago.
Now, every bit of her quivered with awareness, from her heart hammering in her chest, to the hairs on the back of her neck which stood on end as though she stood at the heart of a storm waiting for the boom that followed the flash of lightening. The air felt dead and the room too close. Sounds pressed in from all sides, the slap of cards, the clink of glass ringing against wood, the light cords of the pianoforte, the low rumble of conversation. A cacophony of the first order . . . and yet it made her drowsy, like the crashing of waves against rocks on a nearby shore.
Lady Hardy’s weekly card party was little more than a gossip session played out over games of chance, and those trapped into accompanying their mothers—such as she and the viscount—were forced to endure a tedious evening playing for penny points, usually against opponents who had either only recently escaped the schoolroom or who were so elderly they sometimes nodded off in the middle of a game.
Anything would be a relief.
‘A change?’ Eleanor said finally as she mentally calculated just how much of her quarterly allowance she could afford to lose. The season was not yet half over; she couldn’t throw everything away in a single night’s play.
‘Most definitely.’ Wroxton’s voice was low; intimate in a way that made her swallow thickly. ‘There’s no thrill in playing for such low stakes. I’m sure you agree?’ He met her gaze with slightly raised brows, but didn’t wait for her answer. ‘And enduring hand after hand of mediocre whist with those two,’ he tossed his head towards the pair at the pianoforte, ‘is like to drive me mad before the Season is out.’
One side of her mouth quirked up in sympathy. The poor viscount was obviously not used to being reduced to the nursery ranks. She had gown inured. She was eight-and-twenty. The sort of female who was always called upon to entertain the elderly or supervise the young. Too old to be placed with those just making their curtsey to society, but stymied by her maidenly status from joining the ranks of the ton’s matrons and widows.
She was simply marooned between the two. And destined to stay that way. If she had her way, this would be the last year she was forced to join her parents in Town. The last year she’d endure this particular form of torture. If only her few friends hadn’t married long ago and then moved on to contented lives on distant country estates. Perhaps she could leave Town early and visit one of her friends on the journey home?
Wroxton dealt the cards for a round of two-handed whist, his eyes sparkling with amusement. He reached up and twisted the lock of hair that was forever escaping his queue back behind his ear. Eleanor wasn’t even sure he knew he was doing it, the gesture seemed habitual. The candlelight burnished his hair, turning it from blond to a deep fiery gold.
She studied her cards carefully and tried to keep her attention away from Wroxton’s manicured hands. She’d got herself into trouble with her silly fantasies before. She wasn’t going to do so again. Ever. Certainly not about someone as ridiculously unattainable as the Earl of Clevedon’s only son and heir.
‘What did you have in mind?’ Eleanor said. ‘Shilling a point?’
He shook his head, smiling briefly, clearly bent on mischief. She knew that look. Her brothers wore it often enough. Lady Brooke’s distinctive harrumph sounded from the next table and Wroxton quickly schooled his expression into bland politeness. Eleanor pursed her lips to keep from grinning.
He certainly meant to misbehave. And that smile, canines hidden behind the rise of his full lower lip, made her want to join him in whatever adventure he was contemplating. Another of her failings: a distinct proclivity for risk. She should know better; did know better. But that didn’t make the urge any less intense. If only she’d been born a man. Her brothers never gave their fits and starts a second thought before plunging in.
‘I was thinking of something a little less plebeian.’ Wroxton’s lazy smile turned wolfish, perfect teeth on display as he topped off her half-empty glass. ‘Something a little more interesting. A little more entertaining.’ He said it as if the word were somehow imbued with innuendo.
‘Entertaining?’ She could feel a smile bubbling up, but ruthlessly pressed it down. He was a shameless flirt, but oh, how she was going to miss these weekly encounters when the Season was over and she went home to Kelburn Tower. But getting away from him would be relief, too. It was dangerous to want what you couldn’t have, doubly so when it was seated right before you, temptation encased in striped tobine silk. And quite suddenly he seemed to actually see her. To be aware of her as someone other than the body across the table with whom he shared strategy over cards. And it felt glorious to be seen.
‘Yes, entertaining,’ Wroxton’s voice lowered even more, until Eleanor could barely hear him above the pianoforte. ‘Say, your hair ribbon against my handkerchief.’
Eleanor’s eyes widened. Her breath caught in her throat. She should say no. That was going beyond flirtation.
She shuffled her cards, her mind already arranging them for the game. Her father would kill her if she was caught exchanging intimate tokens in such a manner. Her brothers would beat the viscount bloody, friend or no. Her hands were suddenly damp inside her mitts even as the smile she’d been staving off won out. She’d never been good at should.
‘Done,’ she said before draining her glass once again.
Conway raised his brows. She’d surprised him again. A respectable woman with years of Town bronze such as Eleanor Blakely should have turned him down. Snubbed him. Some women might even have thrown their drink in his face. Miss Blakely just smiled that enigmatic little smile of hers and accepted.
Maddening.
Every week since the Season had begun, he’d dutifully accompanied his mother to Lady Hardy’s, and every week, he was forced to spend the entire evening with a vapid girl, her devoted suitor, and the inexplicable Miss Blakely.
Then two weeks ago, she’d gone from nonentity—his friend Harold Blakely’s spinster sister—to intriguing creature. And now he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. He was having indecent thoughts about a woman with five brothers, each one of them bigger than the next and all of them bigger than him, one of whom had been his friend since they were barely out of their teens. What was wrong with him?
It had started innocently enough when young Perry had informed them all that he was quite convinced his new waistcoat was a satirical success. Conway had glanced up in time to see a ghost of a smile flicker across Miss Blakely’s face before she said in the driest of tones, ‘Why yes, Mr Perry. It most certainly is.’ Her eyes had met his for the briefest of moments, and it had been all he could do not to burst out laughing then and there.
Suddenly, he found himself paying much closer attention to her, wondering what she was thinking as their young opponents prattled on and on about the glories of their first Season on the Town. There was a shared intimacy as they sat across the table, silently laughing, that was as heady as brandy on a cold night.
She wasn’t a beauty, or at least not one to his tastes. Her black hair was too severe. Her dark, lively eyes too knowing, too intelligent, to claim beauty. And her features were a bit too sharp, too authoritarian. She looked very much like her youngest brother in fancy-dress for a masquerade. Until he’d been trapped at a card table with her, he couldn’t say that he’d ever particularly noticed her, though she’d been shuffling about the edges of his life for years now. She must have been, given the amount of time he’d spent with her brothers over the past decade. Hell and damnation, he’d even visited the family at their seat once, but he couldn’t summon up more than a vague memory of a tall girl with a good seat and a no-nonsense attitude about being liberally splattered with mud during a hunt.
Miss Blakely was quiet. Contained. From the simple way she dressed her hair to the clean lines of her gowns which eschewed the more extreme forms of passementerie. Everything about her was fashionable, but only just. The filmy fichu that swathed her neck and chest covered up what appeared to be an impressive bosom. Most women would have flaunted it. Just as they would have made the most of the extravagant amount of hair on her head, and played up those decadently full lips by placing a beauty mark beside them. Especially at her age, nearing a time when unkind epithets such as ape-leader would begin to be linked to her name.
But Miss Blakely didn’t seem overly interested in drawing any sort of attention to herself. When he attempted to flirt with her she gave him a repressive look, very much the way his sisters’ governess had rebuked her unruly charges. Miss Blakely had the expression down pat. A maiden aunt of the sort found in homes all over England. The favourite one you ran to with torn clothing and skinned knees as a child and wrote to in times of dire financial need while away at school.
To be perfectly honest, it was more than a little surprising that she’d accepted his wager. He’d suggested it out of pure devilment, just to tease her, to unsettle her, to see what she would do. But now she was studying her cards with clear intent that luscious lower lip of hers caught between her teeth. She meant to win.
Conway studied his own cards and wrinkled his nose. They were dreadful. He stretched his foot out under the table until it encountered hers and pushed up with his toes, brushing her ankle. If he couldn’t win fairly, perhaps he could distract her enough to win unfairly? She didn’t so much as glance up at him, just laid her cards down and took the trick, one side of her mouth curling up, the dimple in her cheek mocking him.
No, Miss Eleanor Blakely wasn’t in the common line, but that might be in her favour. How was it that she’d ended up on the shelf? Had no man ever noticed that naughty little smile of hers? The one she so had begun to use freely here at the card table when they were ostensibly alone.
That wicked little smile was beginning to give him all sorts of ideas. Under what other circumstances might he elicit that smile? Did her repertoire contain others, as yet undiscovered? What would she look like after being kissed, after being bedded . . .
Conway pulled his foot back. He should not be thinking such things about Harold Blakely’s sister. Not if he wanted to continue breathing. He sucked his cheek in between his teeth as he considered her. If he wasn’t careful she might win. She’d been an adequate partner, and she had just proved all too neatly that she was a more than competent foe.
Chapter Two
Viscount W—has abandoned the country and joined his parents in London for the Season. Dare the ladies making their curtsey this year hope that he has finally set himself to choosing a bride?
Tête-à-Tête, 11 May 1790
‘My trick, I believe.’ Wroxton laid his cards out smugly. ‘Which means my game, Miss Blakely. And my rubber.’
Eleanor bit back an unladylike curse. Damn the man.
He fingered his cards, moving them about a bit, displaying them like a peacock on the strut. ‘All that remains is to settle your debt.’
‘Now?’ She stared at him, incredulous. He couldn’t be serious.
His smile crooked up. ‘It is usual to settle such things promptly.’ He looked as if he’d burst into laughter at any moment. His foot caught hers under the table, pressing down on it.
How did he know she was longing to kick him?
That small connection sent her pulse racing, just as it had when he’d toyed with her ankle. She was too old to be developing a schoolgirl tendre, and too level-headed to ever allow herself to form an attachment to a man like Wroxton. Not again . . . a person could only be that
dramatically naive once in a lifetime. She might not know the viscount all that well, but she knew of him, and had heard plenty of stories–some not entirely fit for a lady’s ears–from her brothers over the years. Wroxton liked women, often in the plural, and almost always had one of London’s high fliers in keeping. This Season it was some actress from what Harold had let slip while complaining about his friend having all the luck.
Eleanor let her head loll slightly to one side, as though stretching her neck, while her hand slipped up into her hair. She fluffed her curls giving a pretence to her actions.
Wroxton leaned back in his chair, watching her with a hint of a smirk cocking up the corners of his mouth. His coat slid open, revelling the silk net overlay and lavish embroidery of his waistcoat. A peacock indeed. It was positively unfair for a man to be that beautiful.
None of their fellow guests was paying the least attention to her, to them. She should be grateful. Instead a lump of pure annoyance burnt behind her breastbone. In a room filled to the brim with the leading gossips of the ton, her being alone at a table with an eligible gentleman didn’t draw a single eye!
The bow holding her hair ribbon slid loose between her fingers, and when her hands came away from her head, the silk ribbon that had been wound through her curls came with them. Thankfully her hair didn’t fall in a shower of pins as she’d half-expected. That would have been just her luck, especially with Lady Brooke at the table right beside them. Gauche, rough-and-tumble Miss Blakely. It would be all over town by morning.
‘Not a hair out of place,’ Wroxton assured her. ‘Brava.’
Eleanor balled the ribbon up in her hand and raised her chin, meeting his gaze as steadily as she could. She’d agreed to the wager, but she hadn’t expected he’d insist on immediate payment. In fact, she hadn’t expected him to actually demand payment at all. It was a silly bet, a joke. An entirely inappropriate jest.
