Seducing Mr. Sykes

by Maggie Robinson

  “Anything would be better than that, and you know it. This is just one more petty, childish ploy to try to stay here and not get married.”

  She looked as if she wanted to strike him. Well, let her try. He was light on his feet, and could duck any blow she thought to deliver.

  But then her lower lip—lush and rosy—started to tremble. Those beryl-colored eyes filled with tears.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” she whispered. “You’re a man.”

  And she was very much a woman. Tristan hardened his heart. “It can’t be as bad as all that. The chap you’re engaged to isn’t such a bad fellow. I know of him,” he said, pulling his handkerchief out.

  “He’s not a good fellow either. He’s just—a fellow.” To Tristan’s dismay, she honked into his handkerchief in a most alarming way.

  “Don’t tell me you believe in romantic love.” He had once, and where had that gotten him?

  Her eyes flashed. “Of course I don’t! Love is for”—she nodded toward the maid and the driver and spoke softly—“the lower orders. Lucky them—I don’t know why people don’t recognize they live far superior lives, even if they have to work hard. They can choose their life mates. Everything is much simpler when you’re not uniting estates and dynasties or trying to get votes in Parliament. Or money.”

  Tristan shrugged. “It’s the way of our world, Lady Sarah. Surely you’ve had enough time to prepare yourself for it.” According to her report, she’d been out in society for four, very long, eventful years. Her hijinks had been legendary and reported in all the newspapers.

  “I’ll never be prepared to toss my life away.” She tucked his despoiled handkerchief into her sleeve and fiddled with it.

  “You don’t want children?”

  “I don’t know much about them.” She looked up. “Mr. Fitzmartin is always going on about being fruitful and multiplying, but I’m always reminded of maths. You think I’m unnatural, don’t you.”

  “What I think means nothing, Lady Sarah. I’m not in charge of your release.”

  “You’re head of the governors.”

  “Only in my father’s absence.” The last letter he’d received from his father had been vague in the extreme about a return date, so Tristan was stuck in his temporary position of control. “Let’s go inside, shall we? There’s a nip in the air.”

  “If I had a new coat, I wouldn’t be cold.”

  She was incorrigible. “I’ll add it to Miss Churchill’s list.”

  She pulled out the crumpled handkerchief and wiped her nose. “You really won’t take me shopping? Ever?”

  “You’ll remain here for less than four weeks. I’m sure we can find suitable clothing for that short a time.” Tristan should have refused to take her to Stroud at the outset. It went against all the Puddling Rehabilitation Rules to allow a Guest to leave the village. And if he’d been seen dining with her in public, all sorts of tongues would wag.

  His stomach rumbled. Breakfast was half a day ago. “Come, let’s see if we can rustle up some lunch from Mrs. Anstruther. You set her into a pelter, you know. I can’t have you upsetting my staff.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Lady Sarah said mulishly.

  Tristan’s eyes swept from the tip of the top hat to his old black shoes. “Indeed. As fetching as you look, your ensemble is a shock to the average person. Sykes House is chock-full of average people. They aren’t trained to deal with Guests as Mrs. Grace and the other keep—um, attendants are. I shall have a word with them.”

  “Keepers. Jailers. Let’s not mince words.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose. Would you prefer to be in a hospital?”

  Lady Sarah flushed. “I would prefer to be in my own accommodations, with my own clothes! I wouldn’t try to be so difficult if only I could have my own way.”

  Tristan couldn’t help it—he laughed. “The world would turn to chaos if we all had just what we think we wanted.” He’d gotten what he wanted once, and the result had been tragedy.

  Chapter 9

  Sadie knew she’d gone a step too far—hell, several steps, and it’s not as if these cumbersome leather shoes were comfortable. Poor Mrs. Anstruther had tried to talk her out of wearing Tristan Sykes’s school uniform, going so far as to offer the clothes off her own back. As the housekeeper was half a foot shorter and twice as wide as Sadie, she would have looked ridiculous.

  She would soon rival the woman’s girth if she kept eating. The impromptu lunch Mrs. Anstruther put together was impressive—cream of tomato soup, cold chicken pie, a green salad, yeast rolls, seeded bread, thick slices of ham, three kinds of cheese, chutney, pickled vegetables, lemon curd, and strawberry jam tarts. Sadie had avoided the pickled onions but had wolfed down the rest.

  Chewing kept her busy. She’d given up admiring the yellow rose-patterned wallpaper and family portraits. Small talk did not seem to be Mr. Sykes’s forte, and if he began to lecture her again on her womanly duties, he might get the breadbasket hurled at his head. The servants were very deferential toward him, so at some point he might have shown them more charm than he was presently showing her.

  Sadie still sported the Etonian suit. She’d have to go back to the attic after lunch and see what she could salvage from the trunks of women’s clothing. Mr. Sykes seemed disinclined to reconsider his position on taking her shopping, and she could only imagine the dreadfully dull dresses Miss Churchill would select.

  But the inconvenience, Sadie reminded herself, was for a few short weeks. Unless she figured out how to demonstrate that she was insane enough to stay in Puddling, but not insane enough to be institutionalized.

  Or…

  It would require all of her mental reserves to formulate a plan to run away. She’d spent much of last night plotting before she finally fell asleep. The first obvious impediment was lack of money. It wouldn’t be cricket to steal from Sykes House’s servants, but Sadie could reimburse them once she was safely settled somewhere and found employment. And that was the second impediment. Where could she go? She’d worn the patience of her few friends, who in any event would be reluctant to cross a duke, even an impoverished one.

  It wasn’t as if she could blend into a small town—as a nearly six-foot redhead, it would be hard to hide. But if she could book passage to America—

  Pipe dreams. Servants wouldn’t have the necessary sort of money lying around, and Sadie was reluctant to start hiding candlesticks and silverware in the pockets of her nonexistent dresses.

  Blast. She was usually so good at solving dilemmas, but perhaps she’d finally run out of ideas.

  Tristan Sykes wiped his mouth on an embroidered linen napkin and rose. “I’ll send a carriage for Reverend Fitzmartin.” He rang for the footmen.

  Sadie stood too. “I don’t want to see anyone. I have nothing to wear.” The vicar would expire from heart failure if he found her in trousers two days in a row.

  He walked her out to the entry hall and picked up his hat from a chair, where it had sat next the battered top hat. “You missed yesterday’s session.”

  “And I had a perfectly good excuse!”

  “Well, nothing’s on fire today. Except, perhaps, for your temper.”

  “I suppose a lady in your world would be sanguine about wearing servants’ castoffs.”

  “I believe a lady knows which battles to pick. One’s character is confirmed as to how one responds to adversity.”

  “Oh, bollocks.”

  When she was fifteen, she’d spent a great deal of her time in the stables at Marchmain Castle, and had picked up a colorful vocabulary. Tristan Sykes’s distinctive eyebrows raised, but he said nothing.

  She forged ahead. “I’d like to see how well you’d deal if your father picked out your wife.”

  “As a matter of fact, he did.”

  It was Sadie’s turn to raise her eyebrows. He went around almost kissing women who were not his wife, did he? The
—the rogue! “You’re married?”

  He looked down at the hat between his hands. “I was.”

  Two words, but they still didn’t tell Sadie what she wanted to know. “What happened?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but my wife and I did not suit. We divorced some years ago.”

  Well! What a scandal! The prim and oh-so-proper Mr. Sykes had an actual past. Divorce was still extremely irregular, even if the laws had softened some.

  “Where is she now?”

  “I’m afraid she died shortly afterward. I could have spared myself the effort, expense and disgrace if I’d waited a little longer.”

  His voice showed no inflection, but he must be bitter. That explained why he was so...whatever the correct word was. Standoffish? Critical? Disapproving?

  He hated women.

  Well, except for Mrs. Anstruther. And the Sykes House maids, who blushed when he was spoken of. And Miss Churchill, and the elderly vicar’s wife. Mrs. Stanchfield, too. They were safe from his opprobrium, and they seemed to beam in his presence.

  Maybe he just hated her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to do with you,” he said curtly.

  “But it is, in a way. You must know how awful it is to be forced into doing something you do not want.”

  He shook his head. “You misunderstand, Lady Sarah. I was anxious to marry my wife. I fancied myself fortunate in my father’s choice.”

  Ah. So he’d been in love. Just this morning he’d scoffed at the whole idea of romance. His marriage had evidently cured him of such juvenile notions.

  “How old were you when you married?”

  “Twenty. As fascinating as this conversation is, I do have responsibilities, Lady Sarah. If you’ll excuse me?” He angled the hat on his head. A footman appeared quickly from a corridor and opened the front door.

  “Good day, Lady Sarah. You may expect Mr. Fitzmartin within the hour.”

  Bollocks again, but she kept the word inside her head. Twenty! Younger than she was right now. She couldn’t imagine Tristan Sykes young and in love—he was so prim and grumpy now. She watched him stride around the corner of the house, heading for his own tiny patch of Eden.

  And so she faced another insipid afternoon. At least the food here at Sykes House was much better than the swill that Mrs. Grace gave her. She wondered how long it would take the governors to realize she was enjoying her dinners too much. It seemed part of their design was to flatten Guests’ appetites for anything pleasurable completely.

  Bored into submission. Sadie had no intention of submitting to anything.

  But how long could she hold out?

  She’d better change into something less shocking. Mr. Fitzmartin was frail enough as it was. Sadie didn’t wish to be responsible for his demise, although his wife’s dreadful cooking might play a part eventually.

  She took the stairs to the attic two at a time. Boxes and trunks were still thrown open from her earlier marauding. If she were a little girl with her heart set on playing dress-up, she had come to the ideal location. At least a century’s worth of court and day and evening dresses were peeking out of folded tissue paper—a kaleidoscope of color.

  It seemed a shame to cut into any of the lux fabrics. It wasn’t as if she’d be going to parties, and the clothes were not part of her family’s history to alter. Marchmain Castle’s attics boasted nothing but mouse droppings and broken furniture. There wasn’t a trace of Sadie’s mother or her belongings anywhere.

  Sadie stripped off the suit and reluctantly put it back from whence it came. At least the silky underthings she wore were serviceable. In fact, the flower-embellished corset and short lacy shift she’d found earlier were of the finest quality.

  She dragged over a tuft-sprouting chair, sat down and bent over a canvas trunk. This one was layered with sprigs of lavender, much nicer than camphor. She pulled out a fringed Norwich silk shawl and draped it over her shoulders. It was stuffy and warm in the attic, but now she wasn’t quite so exposed in case one of the maids or Mrs. Anstruther tracked her down. Sadie planned to try on a few things before she bothered to bring them downstairs.

  Heavens, women had worn stupid things in the past. She bypassed garishly bright dresses with enormous barrel sleeves, the skirts so full it was a wonder one could walk without tripping. The artificial dyes used on the material were rather awful. Sadie had never been a slave to fashion, but she did like pretty things. There was nothing in this trunk that wouldn’t require major alterations or a pair of dark spectacles.

  She slid her chair to the next trunk and moved back in time several decades to the Regency. Spotted muslins, striped cambrics—now here were simple day dresses she might add temporary length to without spoiling them. They would require no cage crinolines or bustles to keep their classical lines.

  She unfastened a row of tiny hooks and dropped a pale yellow dress over her head. Unfortunately, the bodice was so narrow she couldn’t fit her arms into the sleeves, and she sat mummified in lavender-scented muslin for a few panicky seconds before she struggled out of it.

  It was hopeless. She’d just have to receive the vicar in her dressing gown—well, one of the maids’ dressing gowns. If Tristan Sykes weren’t so pigheaded and woman-hating, he’d surely see that she needed proper clothes that fit her.

  Sadie rose from her injured chair. She couldn’t very well walk downstairs in her current state of undress. Perhaps there was a spare sheet she could sling around herself like a ghost.

  The attic door squeaked open behind her before she had a chance to find a sheet, blanket or even a curtain. Clutching the shawl, she expected to see a servant when she turned. Instead, she met the ice-blue eyes of Tristan Sykes.

  Chapter 10

  The words died on Tristan’s lips. He could do nothing but stare.

  At first he thought she was covered only by a scarf, but the edge of an embroidered corset peeked out from under the paisley and straps as pale as her shoulders revealed she was wearing a shift as well. But not much of one. Lady Sarah Marchmain stood in a swirl of golden dust motes, strands of her coppery hair tumbling from its pins, her white legs mostly bare and endless.

  He had come to tell her that Mr. Fitzmartin was indisposed, that she was saved from another lecture. Instead, he was mute, his eyes blinking when he really needed to avert them, his cock behaving as if he were a schoolboy looking at naughty pictures.

  She stared right back at him, frozen.

  He should excuse himself and dash back down the attic stairs.

  His feet refused to move.

  One of them should say something. Hell, she should be shrieking her head off. She was practically naked. To be discovered like this was the most compromising of positions. A normal woman wouldn’t just stand there.

  She was as brazen as her legs were long. Lady Sarah Marchmain had invaded his privacy in the bath, tried to kiss him, and was now tempting him, making him forget why—

  This is what Tristan had feared all along—that something would happen between them that was inescapable. If they were in some foolish novel, he’d find himself in parson’s mousetrap before the week was out.

  Was that her plan? No, she claimed she didn’t want marriage, at least to Lord Roderick Charlton. Or any of the other men who’d sought her hand—and the rest of her luscious self—since her debut. And besides, Tristan was at fault this time, coming upon her without notice. Why hadn’t he sent Mrs. Anstruther or another servant to the attic?

  The truth was, he’d wanted to see her face light up when she learned her afternoon was free of the vicar’s intervention. He’d been only minimally polite at lunch, trying to control the unwanted storm she created inside him—trousers, again!—and felt a trifle guilty. As a form of apology, he had planned to invite her to walk with him in the garden.

  Right now, she’d give the marble statuary outside some competition. She was utterly still, pale and beautiful.

&
nbsp; Let’s see. To speak, one opened one’s mouth. Arranged teeth and tongue in familiar combinations. Pressed one’s vocal chords into service. Breathed too, somehow. All of that was quite beyond him at the moment.

  And her as well. Her eyes were locked on his, her usually pink cheeks devoid of color.

  He threw a hand over his eyes, because they didn’t seem to want to look anywhere else but in her direction. “I—I beg your pardon.”

  “What do you want?” Her voice was thin, higher pitched than usual.

  By God, his hand was shaking like an old man’s. “I came to tell you Mr. Fitzmartin cannot come today.”

  “Good.”

  There. That was sufficient information, wasn’t it? Time to turn around and go down the stairs.

  But no. Here he was, rooted to the floorboards. Tristan peeked through his fingers.

  “He is indisposed. Mr. Fitzmartin, that is.”

  Her knuckles were white from clutching the fringed scarf, but her lips curved slightly. “He probably ate too many biscuits.”

  Biscuits? This encounter was proving more absurd by the minute.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, then, I’ll be leaving.”

  “Yes, that’s a very good idea.”

  From somewhere below, Tristan heard loud voices and doors slamming. Lady Sarah was standing quite near the window, but there was no hope for it—he had to go near her in all her half-naked glory. He edged around the boxes and baskets and cast-off furniture trying to keep his distance and looked down onto the curved drive of Sykes House. A dusty crested carriage was heading toward the stables, and the footmen were racing to bring in the baggage that was tumbled about on the cobblestones.

  Tristan was not expecting any visitors. What the devil? Had his father decided Paris was de trop? His last letter had been filled with cheerful descriptions of various amusements, so very different from preternaturally quiet Puddling-on-the-Wold. The old man seemed to be having a splendid time, probably for the first time in his life. Growing up, Sir Bertram Sykes had suffered over his mother’s wild reputation, and had consequently turned into quite a prig as a sort of revolt. Tristan loved his father, but the man’s prudery and self-consequence could raise anyone’s hackles.