The Gentleman's Seduction

by Lauren Smith

  11

  Livvy curled into the warm, hard object that lay beside her. It was like sleeping close to a roaring fire while it snowed outside. She sighed and rubbed her cheek against whatever it was.

  I must be dreaming. It felt simply wonderful. It slowly occurred to her that there was no way her father could have afforded extra logs for the fireplace in her room.

  She jolted awake and stared at the still form lying in bed beside her. She wasn’t in her room at home. She was in Martin’s bedchamber.

  “Martin?” she whispered tentatively, touching his back. He lay on his stomach, one arm underneath his pillow, his face turned her way. His face was pale, and a slight frown creased his brow, as if whatever he was dreaming bothered him. When had he come back? She had crawled into his bed around midnight and had been quite certain he would not return. Yet it was barely past seven if the clock on the fireplace mantel was correct.

  She started to slide out of bed, but Martin rolled onto his side and curled an arm around her waist. She gasped as she saw a thick white bandage around his upper arm. That same arm now gripped her in the way a child would a beloved stuffed toy. And one of his eyes was puffy and dark. She winced. What had happened to him while he was away?

  “Martin?” She spoke his name a little louder, and he shifted, muttering something about finding a good horse. He must be dreaming. Livvy carefully tried to pry herself away from him. The soft skin of his arm was tempered with the hard and heavy weight of his muscles. For a moment she found herself looking at those muscles in fascination. Then she chastised herself and focused on lifting his arm. Her attempts only made him curl tighter around her.

  “Martin!” she growled.

  “Hmm?” The drowsy murmur made her temper flare. She really needed to use a chamber pot soon. She pressed her palm tightly on the wrapped wound, knowing it would hurt, but she had to get his attention somehow.

  Martin hissed and released her waist immediately, then rolled up into a sitting position, clutching his wounded arm to his chest.

  “What the devil?”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She pushed back the covers of his bed and tried to help him, but she didn’t know how.

  He growled like an irritable badger and got out of bed. “It’s fine.” He turned his back on her as he stalked over to his washbasin and splashed his face with cold water. He scraped the cloth over his chin and cheeks, drying his skin.

  “What happened to you?” She slipped out of the bed and came up behind him, trying not to let the sight of his muscled back distract her.

  “I don’t wish to discuss it. What the devil are you doing in my room?” His cold tone made her step back. “A man could get the wrong idea about a woman in his bed. You say that I’m cold, that I’m callous? You don’t know a thing about me. I vowed not to touch you without your permission, but when you’re touching me, how do you expect me to respond?”

  “Well…I didn’t intend… But you can’t blame me for what happens while I sleep!” she snapped back, feeling a strange flush inside her as she verbally sparred with him.

  “Then you shouldn’t have been in my bed in the first place. A man is liable to wander between his own sheets, and if he finds a soft, feminine body to hold, well, you can’t be mad at me for that.” He lips were twitching as though he was fighting between a frown a smile, and for some reason that set her off even more, wanting to provoke him into doing something utterly dangerous, like share another kiss.

  “Can’t I?” she challenged, and he acted just as she hoped he would and took the bait.

  He spun around and circled his arm around her waist, holding her captive at the same moment she almost threw herself at him. His kiss bordered on cruel, the savagery of it startling her, and she couldn’t help but surrender as her body betrayed her by melting into him. She dug her nails into his shoulders, wanting to get closer, needing the fury of their argument to blend into the heat of his kiss.

  She shouldn’t like his anger or his rage, but something about it was deeply sensual and aroused her. He tightened his arms around her, lifting her up until her feet left the ground and she was carried to the bed. Livvy gasped as she was dropped onto the sheets. He stood over her, panting as he gazed down at her like a warrior ready to claim a captured princess.

  She really had to stop reading Gothic novels. Her fantasies were starting to affect her rational mind.

  “Still think it’s safe enough to stay in my bed? I’m the monster who bought you, Livvy, never forget that. You despise me, you made that much clear. I considered sending you home, but another man, one even worse than me, would surely collect you for debts as I have. So here you shall stay until I deem it safe to return you to your parents.” He glanced away, a tic working in his jaw. “If I find you in my bed again, I won’t restrain myself. So if you want to be bedded, you know where to be. Otherwise, stay out of my room.”

  Livvy scrambled off the bed and rushed to escape. His foul mood shocked her, but it was clear that whatever had happened last night had changed things. She had been wrong to say those things about him, and now it seemed he was determined to make them come true.

  She retreated to the refuge of her own chamber, where Mellie was laying out one of her new dresses. It was a lovely pale-blue gown with golden flowers stitched on the bodice and a light-gold netting dropped over the skirts. She’d never worn such a fine gown before, and guilt suddenly formed a knot in her stomach.

  “Everything all right, miss?” Mellie asked.

  “Yes.” Her reply was a little too quick, a little too tremulous even at that single word.

  “The master is home now. Did you see him?” the maid asked, her brows knit with worry.

  “I—yes.” She headed toward the dressing room to make use of the chamber pot. “He was injured last night, but I’m not sure how. He was most boorish toward me and wouldn’t share any details.

  The maid stayed in the bedroom, giving her a moment to attend to her needs. When she returned, she was ready for Mellie to help her into her new gown.

  “There. Now, go and have some breakfast.” Mellie shooed her out of the room, and she resigned herself to the fate of being alone all day. It wasn’t that she minded being alone, but this was different. The tension between her and Martin seem to fill the house with an invisible knot of ill omens, and she didn’t like it. She prepared a plate of food in the dining room and sat in a chair looking out a window facing the gardens.

  It was not as though anyone would care that she wasn’t at the table. Martin wouldn’t be down anytime soon. She balanced the plate on her thighs and nibbled on a poached egg while she examined the frozen rosebushes that touched the edges of the windowpanes. The frost turned the heavy green leaves to pale seafoam, and crystals of ice in exquisite shapes painted the glass. She’d always liked ice and snow. Yes, the cold could be a dreadful thing, but winter itself was beautiful. She reached out to the window, gently tracing the patterns of frost on the glass. She smiled, dreaming of simpler times.

  “What are you doing?” Martin demanded from behind her. She jumped, nearly toppling her breakfast off her lap.

  “Oh!” She steadied the porcelain plate and relaxed. “I was looking at the frost.” She gestured toward the frosted windowpane.

  “Frost?” he repeated darkly. “Why the devil do you care about frost?”

  She bit her tongue. She’d provoked him by being cruel-tongued first. She would not make matters worse. She focused on her response instead.

  “Frost is beautiful.”

  “Why is it women are so focused on beauty?” He turned his back on her to lift up a lid of a chafing dish and inhaled deeply.

  “I’m not focused on beauty for beauty’s sake,” she argued, trying not to bristle.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I love studying beauty, particularly in nature. Frost is beautiful because of its symmetry. It’s the same with snowflakes.”

  “Symmetry?” He turned to face her, a full plate
in his hands as he joined her at the window. He seemed less upset now and more intrigued.

  “Yes.” She pointed to the edge of the frost. “Examine the edge, where the frost begins to form. There is a recursive self-similarity. I read about it in a book of mathematics. A seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician named Gottfried Leibniz discussed recursive self-similarity. He proposed the idea that such repeating patterns he discussed in objects in nature were close to geometry, yet no one has been able to properly link those fractional components, as he called him, to geometry. Most mathematicians put up resistance to such theories, simply because they are afraid to dive deeply into the unknown. But I find it fascinating.”

  “You have a mathematical mind?”

  “No.” She laughed wryly. “But I do have a mind that focuses on concepts. I can see the patterns, recognize them, but I’ve no way to explain them with equations or formulas.”

  “Philosopher, then,” Martin concluded. His lips twitched, and her heart gave a jolt. He wasn’t angry now. Could she take a chance and apologize? Yes. She could.

  “I didn’t mean what I said.”

  Martin didn’t speak, and for a moment she feared he hadn’t heard her.

  “You’re entitled to your opinion of me, even if isn’t completely true,” he finally said.

  He was still looking at the frost, not her, and she hesitantly put a hand on his where it rested on his knee.

  “My opinion was wrong. You bought me out of anger, and that anger is only a small part of who you are. There are other parts, better ones, that make you the man you are.”

  “I’m not a good man, Livvy.”

  She studied him closely. “You are, but I believe it’s been a long time since you let yourself see that part of yourself.”

  He frowned at her, but it wasn’t an expression of anger. It was more as if she had begun to pull at a thread that held up the mask he was trying to hide behind. She would tug it down completely one day, and he would see that he was a better man than he thought.

  “Finish your breakfast,” said Mr. Banks, then he paused briefly before continuing. “We could go to the frost fair if you feel up to it?”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Oh, that would be lovely.” She dug into the remains of her breakfast, and he did the same. She tried to contain her excitement, but she was bursting with relief and joy. They’d made amends, and it seemed the awful distance between them had almost completely faded. When she looked at him now, she saw a man with a vulnerable heart just like hers, one hungry for affection and acceptance.

  “Fetch your cloak,” he said with a gentle smile as they exited the dining room together.

  “I’ll just be a moment.”

  She rushed upstairs to retrieve her cloak and muff and put on her sturdiest black boots. By the time she got back down the stairs, he was waiting by the front door, hat in hand and wearing his black greatcoat, an image of masculine beauty. She blushed, trying to hide her face as she slipped her hands into her ermine muff and joined him.

  “My coach will take us to the Thames.”

  Martin led her down the steps to his coach, and they climbed inside. They sat beside one another this time rather than across. Their new closeness was far more intimate than she’d expected, and her skin flushed each time his knee brushed hers. She couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like soon when they…and how their bodies would…

  Lord, I have to stop imagining going to bed with this man or my face will stay as red as a cherry all day.

  She shivered a little, and he noticed.

  “Are you cold?” He reached around her and placed an arm over her shoulders, pulling her into his side. It was such a simple thing for him to do, and yet it was torture for her because she could breathe in his leather-and-sandalwood scent, and she wanted to crawl onto his lap and get even closer.

  “Yes, I was,” she lied. If she confessed to the nature of her thoughts, he might just kiss her, and then they may never get to the frost fair.

  The closer the coach got to the Thames, the more she leaned toward the vehicle’s window because she could hear the crowds. When they reached the river, she stepped out onto the embankment with a gasp. The river was truly frozen over, and for nearly two miles on the ice, a town had been constructed. Wooden huts, vast canvas tents, and all other manner of stalls had been hastily constructed. Thousands of people were on the ice, and the noise of it, the cacophony of the impromptu village, was startling.

  “Quite the thing, eh?” Martin asked with a chuckle. He gave her his arm, and she looped hers through his as they began to walk down the slope to the river’s edge. Her boots slid and she gasped, her heart jumping into her throat as she lost her footing. Strong arms banded around her waist, and she was caught safely by Martin, their bodies pressed close together. Even through the layers of fabric she could feel the heat from his body, and it made her delightfully dizzy.

  She tentatively stepped out onto the ice and held her breath. When the ice beneath her feet didn’t shatter, she let the air out of her lungs in relief. She was walking on the Thames!

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a massive slab of stone at the river’s edge. Words were carved on it.

  Martin read the inscription:

  Behold the liquid Thames now frozen o’er

  That lately Ships of mighty Burthen bore.

  The Watermen for want of Rowing Boats

  Make use of Booths to get their Pence & Groat

  Here you may see Beef Roasted on a spit.

  And for your Money you may taste a bit.

  There you may print your Name, tho’ cannot write,

  Cause num’d with Cold: ’Tis done with great Delight.

  And lay it by, that Ages yet to come

  May see what Things upon the Ice were done.

  “It’s from the last fair in 1814,” he added. He kept an arm around her waist, holding her as they walked carefully over the slick ice to a strip of sand that formed a pathway toward the small town built upon the river.

  A group of men stood at the edge of the ice city, and the leader held up a hand to Martin. They were dressed a little rough and a tad dingy.

  “Ten shillings for you and the lady.” The man held out a box with a slot in the top to collect coins.

  “Of course. Here you are. Which stalls have the best cider and beer?” Martin asked as he paid the man, and the group stepped back to allow Livvy and Martin to pass.

  The man in charge of the money smiled and pointed at a stand in the middle of the first row of set up shops. “That’d be O’Malley’s Pub. Decent fellow, even if he is Irish. Best beer on the Thames.”

  “Thank you.” Martin nodded at the men as they passed.

  “Why did you pay them?” Livvy asked with a glance back at the men who were still guarding the entrance to the frost fair.

  “Those are watermen. They usually make a living transporting people up and down the Thames, and they help the lightermen who move the goods. When the river freezes over, they lose the ability to make a living. They are in charge of the fair. All these traders here you see have paid to build stalls.” Martin pointed as they walked down the sand-and-ice avenue. Leather makers, jewelers, and even temporary pubs were all there on the ice. They were getting close to Blackfriars Bridge when a monstrous gray shape appeared at the edge of the bank of the river.

  “What’s that?” Livvy pointed at the shape. As they got closer, she almost laughed as she recognized it, although she was convinced she had to be dreaming.

  “An elephant! It must have come from the zoo. My God, look at it.” A boyish look of wonder and delight shone upon his face, and Livvy’s heart skipped a beat. This was the Martin she wanted to be with, the man who made her feel like she still had a future to be courted and loved and destined for a happy life.

  “Come on. They’re going to have it walk upon the ice!” Martin tugged her by the hand as they raced like children for the elephant and the crowd watching it. The huge, bea
utiful creature was marching proudly over the ice. An Indian man in colorful clothing was smiling and encouraging the elephant to keep walking. It was one of the most magnificent things Livvy had ever seen. Her eyes burned with tears as she watched the elephant lift its trunk and touch its handler’s shoulder with affection.

  “Could we get closer?” Livvy asked Martin.

  “I suppose so. This way.” He led her toward the crowd until they were only half a dozen feet away.

  “Sir!” Martin called out to the man leading the elephant.

  The man turned their way, smiling a little he patted the elephant’s trunk. “Yes?”

  “May we come closer? My…” Martin glanced at her. “My wife would like to see your magnificent beast up close.”

  “Would she?” The man’s smile broadened. “Come, come, madam.” He waved Livvy closer.

  She approached, spellbound by the leathery gray-skinned creature. It gazed down at her, ears flopping slowly as it raised its trunk in an inquisitive way and swayed slightly on its feet.

  “May I touch it?” she asked the man.

  “Yes, yes, please.” The man held out his hand to Livvy, and she came closer, only a foot away from the elephant. The elephant’s trunk touched her cloaked shoulder, and she reached up, removing her gloves so she could touch it. The skin was leathery like it appeared, yet it was also softer than she expected and covered with fine hairs. She laughed in delight when she shook the trunk the way she would someone’s hand in greeting.

  “Oh look, Martin!” she called out. He was watching her from a few feet away. “Come and touch him. He’s wonderful.”

  Martin shook his head. “I think I’m close enough. I saw one of these in Africa during my time in Egypt. They aren’t native to Egypt, but some gentleman of my acquaintance had insisted on them being brought there. There was one bull elephant, gigantic fellow, and he grew angry at being dragged through the sands and stomped on a man, crushing him to death.”

  Livvy eyed the gentle giant beside her and sighed. “Martin, I can see his eyes. They’re so noble and full of peace. He won’t hurt you.” Livvy patted the elephant, and he flapped his ears slowly as if in agreement.