The Viscount's Seduction: A Regency Romance (Sons of the Spy Lord Book 2)

by Alina K. Field

Unless he convinced her she did.

  He eased in a breath. No. At least, no, not tonight.

  “You and I, my lady, we’re looking for the same thing.”

  She swallowed hard, her lovely throat jumping. “You are mistaken.”

  “Am I? What do you think I’m talking about?”

  She pursed her lips. Opened them. “A liaison.”

  “An improper one?”

  Her brow furrowed. “You’re mocking me now. Let me go.”

  “First we should search together.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, and we’ll be missed. Both of us gone? Together?” Her eyes became shiny. She’d drummed up some tears. “I’ll be...on the street. I’ll be fortunate if I’m sent back to serve as my cousin’s, my cousin’s—”

  “Files, Lady Sirena. Files that say Hollister on them.”

  A tear ran unchallenged down her creamy cheek and her mouth dropped. “Oh.”

  He swept the tear away with his finger. So soft her skin was, as he dragged the moisture down to her lips and traced a path over them. Her chest rose, her breasts straining the modest bodice of the yellow gown.

  He yanked her closer and settled his lips on hers, and a sharp gasp escaped her before she clamped her mouth shut.

  “Just one kiss,” he whispered. He nibbled around her locked lips and stroked the line of her jaw until she shivered in his arms and her lips parted, allowing him entry.

  He kissed her then, sweeping his tongue against hers, for long minutes, then tasting her skin, following the path of his fingers along her jaw and down to her neck, inciting a sharp gasp and a moan, and more wriggling. He wanted her, and she wanted him, and—

  “Stop.” Her hands locked on his shoulders, pushing.

  Heart pounding, he froze. He was a gentleman. Even if she had been no lady—which she most definitely was—he would have stopped. No matter how hard his cock screamed for release, as it did now. “Right.” He stepped back and straightened his neck cloth.

  Sirena’s heart pounded so wildly she could barely find breath to speak. “The files,” she said finally.

  “Yes. He wouldn’t keep them here in so accessible a location.”

  Oh, he was lathered, she could tell, almost as much as herself. This was what was meant by seduction—not the graspy, slobbery, forced thing her cousin had attempted. If not for the housekeeper and butler and a strong dose of laudanum...oh, this was very different, and this man a far more powerful lord than her cousin.

  She’d be lucky to survive this night with her maidenhead intact. But she wanted that file. She needed to know what happened to Jamie. “His study then? My father had a room like that.”

  “Yes. We’ll look there.” He gazed down that bored nose, straightened his neck cloth, though not so much as a hair of the man was out of place, while inside herself, every nerve was dancing a jig. She pressed a hand to her throat and hoped her heart hadn’t pounded her bodice askew. She daren’t look away first.

  Music still played, and a wobbly contralto could be heard. Finally, he turned away, blew out the candles, and took her hand, leading her up the servants’ stairs.

  Using the backstairs—it tweaked her pride, but she quickly dismissed the emotion. Lady or no, she was an Irish girl in London with no money or family, and no right to put on airs. And now was no time to take offense. If Shaldon’s heir required her to mop or dust, she’d do it and gladly, and mayhap have more chance to see what the old man was hiding.

  She’d not willingly spread her legs for him though, and as he squired her down the dimly lit hall she decided he’d not likely try to force her either. He’d stopped immediately upon her request, like the gentleman he claimed to be.

  No, like a true gentleman of any country, his would be a sneaky attack on her virtue. She must be strong and forbearing of carnal pleasure. Not even dear Lady Jane would rescue her if she cheerfully surrendered her virtue to Bakeley.

  Men’s voices on the grand staircase brought Bakeley to a sudden halt, and she collided into him. Her cheek bumped his shoulder and she uttered an oof.

  He turned quickly, hooked an arm around her, and placed a finger over her lips. The voices had paused and picked up again, and she recognized Lord Shaldon’s deep tones.

  Bakeley quietly opened the nearest door and twirled both of them in, shutting it without so much as a click, turning the key. Under his fine coats, his chest rose and fell against her breasts.

  Oh, heavens. The man was all muscle and lean strength, and he smelled—wonderful. Some manly perfume mixed with hints of tobacco and leather. And just a touch of the stables. Her father had smelled almost wholly like horses and whiskey, which were wonderful in their own way. But this?

  His hand crept up her back, and the other—there were two wrapped around her—the other moved down, and... Oh. His hot breath caressed her ear in a long shhhhh that sent warmth curling through her.

  Voices came through the smoky fog in her brain. In the corridor, Shaldon was speaking.

  She strained to hear his words, tried to discern who he was with, but that whoosh of hot breath, like the brook near her home rushing over the boulders, swallowed the voices.

  The men retreated and a door slammed, cutting them off. She unwound her arms, realizing she had been holding him as tightly as he held her.

  You are a fool, Sirena.

  Dim light penetrated the room through the drawn back curtains. Her eyes had adjusted and she saw the outline of a grand bed. She could make out no scattered garments, no books, no clutter of any sort. Perhaps this was an unoccupied guest chamber, and they at least wouldn’t be discovered by an occupant turning in early.

  You cannot stay here with him. Get out now.

  She pushed against his chest, so solid and strong, her hands itching to slide under the layers of coats.

  “Well, that’s that,” she whispered. “I’ll be off.”

  “Not yet.” The low masculine murmur stirred her, as did the hand traversing her bottom. The thin muslin, the delicate petticoat, the fine gloves, they were the flimsiest of barriers for his lordship’s heat.

  Chapter 8

  Bakeley settled his hand on the swell of Sirena’s hip and held it there. The heat coursing between them was like the exchange of a blood oath. Need, want, and anger did battle with his finer senses.

  His father had entered his study down the hall, and that had been Lord Denholm’s voice he’d heard too. Making plans for his future they were, to settle him with the little miss down below who deserved someone better than him, someone younger, someone who wanted her.

  What he wanted he had in his arms right now, in a dark bedchamber. She’d tried to push him back, but that had been no display of maidenly airs—it was a fine-honed sense of survival. A maiden she was, he’d guess, and had never been properly kissed before, yet every instinct in her had made her respond. And damn it if he didn’t want to take that further, to show her just how sensual she was.

  He could. He could do this. He could have her.

  His heart quickened and began to pound fiercely against the hand she had planted on his chest.

  He could have her, but not this way. He moved his hands to her shoulders and let his thumbs sweep the soft skin there. “My sister’s rooms are on this floor. She told you to go up and lie down there if you needed. You got lost.”

  He could feel the movement of her throat as she swallowed.

  “She will back you up,” he said.

  “Yes. I’ll go now.”

  “No. I’ll go to my father’s study. Wait until you hear the door close again. Then go. Take the main stairs.”

  “Thank you.”

  He dropped a chaste kiss on her lips. “I’ll call on you tomorrow.”

  He rapped once on the study door and sauntered in. Surprise lit Denholm’s face, but Shaldon merely sunk deeper into his chair, as though he’d been expecting him. Both men were seated comfortably at the low coal fire, drinks in hand, settling his future.

  “Just the m
an,” Denholm said. “Join us.”

  “For a moment.” He poured himself a drink and pulled a chair over from the writing table. Why Father had brought Denholm to his chummy, cluttered study was a mystery. No one but two trusted servants were ever allowed to clean, and they only delivered coal and dusted around the piles of paper and books.

  But perhaps Father had looked for him in the library. Father was a cagey one. He would have noticed that both his son and Lady Sirena had disappeared.

  To hell with it. “I hear you have a horse running at Ascot this year,” he said. His father’s interest in horses had necessarily waned, what with having to save England from Napoleon. But with Denholm, horses were a safe subject.

  “Indeed. And I have a fine filly downstairs in your music room. What think you of her? She’ll give you some fine foals. Good stock she is, like her mother.”

  Shaldon watched, as ever, unreadable in a crisis.

  “She’s a lovely young girl.”

  Denholm slapped his knee, immune to sarcasm. “Indeed she is. Kept a tight rein on her, I did. None of these young ladies’ academies for my chits. Have another one at home just like her. The settlements will be easy. Shaldon and I have already come to terms and we’ll have you married in no time.”

  He sipped his drink and stared back at his father. This desire for an alliance with Denholm was baffling. Father had claimed to be too ill to attend Parliament, but he was no doubt busy meddling behind the scenes of government. Of course, Denholm’s would be an easily controlled vote, but he would follow Shaldon’s lead anyway. The man had no political aspirations, unless a horse was involved. And Shaldon had plenty of fine horses to bargain with.

  There was the Denholm money, of course, but the Shaldon earldom had plenty of that also. No, his father had some other motivation.

  “Well, boy, what say you? Will you marry my daughter?”

  And have a lifetime of Denholm at one end of the table and Shaldon at the other?

  “I have spent all of five minutes with her, Denholm. She’s lovely and very young, and my strong sense is that she deserves better than me.”

  The man’s thick eyebrows drew together as he sorted through the words. “Ah. Because of Lady Arbrough.” He rubbed his hands together. “A man wouldn’t want to give that up. Glenna has been taught the way of the world. She’ll not mind.”

  His stomach roiled and his head began to ache, the revulsion he felt seeping inward. Lady Arbrough had seemed a great prize a few months earlier. That she’d picked him as her first liaison in widowhood had raised his spirits. But marrying a young innocent and keeping his mistress on, like some eastern potentate? Bink would not do so, nor would Hackwell. Nor, he suspected, had his father so many years ago, else he would have brought Bink’s mother to England.

  He didn’t give a damn if that were the way of the world. It would not be the way of his world.

  “Denholm, she’s a lovely young girl, but still a girl. She needs some seasoning, a year making her way through the ton. Let us all understand one another—I am not going to marry her.”

  “Wife won’t like it. She wants her girls married off in their first season like she was, to the best catch. We can agree to a long engagement.”

  “No, Lord Denholm.”

  His eyes wheedled. “Ah. You’ve been snared. Lady Arbrough has set her cap.”

  His head felt like it was gripped in a vise. “No. However, I did hear about a stallion coming up on the market down in Kent. Descended from the Darley Arabian, they say. You were in need of a stud, were you not?”

  Denholm was soundly diverted. They talked through another drink about horses and racing, giving Sirena plenty of time to escape. Shaldon observed in his quietly menacing way, and then they all returned together.

  At the door of the music room, Denholm left them to find another drink. The music had stopped and the guests were mingling.

  “You have dodged for the last time,” Shaldon said. “You will marry.”

  “Or?”

  His father actually sighed. Another fake sigh, because there wasn’t much he could threaten him with. The estate was entailed, and his mother’s settlements had provided generous portions for all her children, even the heir.

  “I should like to bounce the next Viscount Bakeley on my knee before I die.”

  Perry smiled at him over her shoulder and pivoted to reveal Lady Sirena, whose smile disappeared when she saw him.

  “Denholm, Father? What were you thinking?”

  “You would have the damned horses in common. And his money is not soiled by war profits.”

  And he is not Irish. “Yes, well, I’m done with the war profits.” He strode away before his father could add a snide remark.

  He must make a trip to the jewelers tomorrow.

  Sirena sat very still on the coach ride home. Her head no longer hurt, but her insides felt filled with bubbles. Excitement trembled within her, and why, she couldn’t tell, except that all she could think of was the feel of Lord Bakeley’s warm hand resting upon her bottom and his whispered promise that he would call on her tomorrow.

  And why would he promise that? She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want this troublesome lord interfering. She needed to find out about Jamie.

  And she couldn’t share any of it with anyone, not Lady Jane, nor Lord and Lady Hackwell. All of them conversed, and she pretended to listen, but heard not a word.

  “Sirena, are you still unwell?” Lady Hackwell asked.

  “I’m better. Only a little fatigued. London is so very exciting after Dublin.”

  “You must sleep late tomorrow,” Lady Jane said. “None of this running off to the market.”

  “A good night’s rest will set me straight, and you shall have your warm bread, my lady.”

  The Hackwells exchanged a glance but said nothing. Thank heavens. Good people they were, and not inclined to pry. A pox on Lord Bakeley’s kisses, his promise to visit. She’d rise early tomorrow, as usual. Walter and his brother were bringing a man to meet her. It had taken all of her persuasion and most of her meager funds to arrange it, for this was a man well and truly on the run, much more so than the O’Brians.

  Early the next morning, Sirena saw Walter’s tall, lean figure in the shadows of a shop doorway, and he was not alone. The other man moved, and the twist of tension in her stomach relaxed. It was Josh, Walter’s brother.

  Walter tipped his hat to her. “We’ll both be going along with ye, milady. He’ll not come here. And we must go to him, and not a good place neither.”

  That hadn’t been the plan.

  “I mustn’t be gone long. How far is it?”

  “The East End, milady, near the docks. A place called the Sign of the Bull. Faster, if we can hire a carriage.”

  She thought of the coins tucked away in her pocket alongside her gram’s good luck charm, the quaternary knot. She’d brought it along just in case…well, it was the only identifying thing she had of her brother.

  Gram had used up all the good luck in Queen Brighid’s knot, which was probably why this morning was going awry, and money spent on a hackney left less coin to buy information. “We’d best go afoot. We’ve walked farther at home.”

  She set off and they came up on either side, escorting her into a part of London she’d heard of but not seen. Lady Hackwell had spoken of it in the one meeting of her Lady’s Relief Society she and Lady Jane had attended.

  There’d been no more meetings. Not that she and Lady Jane didn’t sympathize, no. They sympathized aplenty, but they had no money to help.

  And back in Donegal, she herself had seen plenty such hardship.

  A poor woman with two urchins in tow shouted out for a coin.

  “Off with ye,” Walter growled.

  Her heart lurched, but she kept her eyes straight ahead. She needed every farthing to find news of her brother.

  At the end of the block she turned and saw the woman shaking a hand at her.

  “A faker, that one is,” Jo
sh said. “She’ll be in the gin mill drinking away her coins.”

  “And the children?”

  “They’ll be with her, chewing a crust of bread and swilling gin also. Not much further now.”

  But it was. The sun was full up before they’d stopped at a tavern with a swinging sign of a bull.

  “Wait here with Josh, miss. I’ll get the man.”

  Bakeley rapped on Lady Arbrough’s door just as Lord Pelham was making his exit, at an extraordinarily early time of day.

  Pelham opened his mouth and seemed to not know what to say. A bachelor also, he had inherited his title when he was still in leading strings. Pelham had far more experience in keeping well-bred mistresses, yet this awkward moment was making him nervous.

  “Be at ease, Pelham. I won’t call you out.”

  “You always were a good egg, Bakeley.” The butler hovered at a discreet distance. Pelham leaned closer. “Yielding the field are you?”

  Bakeley nodded. “Yes.”

  Pelham’s eyes brightened. “Denholm’s daughter? I thought congratulations were in order when I saw you enter with the old man. Everything’s settled then?”

  “No. Denholm’s daughter is still on the market. Beware, old man.”

  Pelham laughed. “Dodged the parson’s trap, did you? Thank you for the warning.” He clapped Bakeley on the back and left.

  He found Lady Arbrough quite at her leisure amid a field of flowers that occupied every spare inch of table. Pelham wasn’t the only one making overtures.

  She extended her slender hand and he kissed it.

  “That was very courtly of you, Bakeley, but not quite what I was reaching for.”

  So, she was going to make this easier. He pulled the box out of his pocket.

  She opened it. “Ah. Rubies.” She studied them for so long she began to remind him of his father.

  “Is a speech required?” They had always been direct with one another.

  She smiled, and it seemed almost wistful. “Heavens, no. And you may tell Pelham it will not be quite so easy as he might think. I have not at all settled on your replacement.”