The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

by Jillian Hunter

  Not to mention the Boscastle clan—three hell-raising brothers; one sister who would dearly love to follow in their path; another in Scotland who had virtually disowned the family; and numerous cousins, including the missing Nigel, most of whom did not appear to have a sensible bone in their collective body. To be a Boscastle meant to ignore boundaries.

  Of course if anyone had told Grayson a year ago that he would have been viewing the world from his father’s eyes, and not from his usual moment-to-moment hedonism, he would have laughed himself silly.

  If this family were to survive, it would clearly be up to him. And in recent weeks, from murky emotional depths he did not care to explore, came the realization that his wretched family meant rather a lot to him. The double loss of his brother and father had brought this startling truth home. Still, responsibility sent a hell of a shock through a rake’s system.

  “What do we do then?” Heath asked, smiling fleetingly at an attractive young woman across the table.

  Grayson sat back in amusement. “Can you tear yourself away from the females long enough to be of service?”

  “Me? This from a man who had two past paramours waiting to pounce on him from their pews. But, yes.” Heath sobered, his dark blue eyes intent. “I shall help.”

  Grayson gave a nod. Only a handful of people knew of Heath’s involvement with British Intelligence during the war. Grayson himself did not know the details; nor would he pressure his brother to reveal what he had done. The point was that beneath Heath’s quiet charm and winning manner lay a quick intellect and almost frightening disregard for danger. Privately he wished to be a little more like his younger brother, calculating his every move instead of acting rashly and regretting it latter.

  “Find Nigel for me.”

  Heath finished his glass of punch. “Consider it done. And then what happens?”

  “Then we drag the repentant rat to the altar to finish this business. Take Devon with you if you like. It will keep him out of trouble.” Grayson cast a searching glance around the table; he’d just noticed that the two places reserved for his younger brothers were vacant. Drake had not returned after escorting the jilted bride home. “Where is Devon?”

  Heath adjusted his cuffs. “Gone off with some old friends he met in Covent Garden last week. They’ve got him looking for pirate treasure off Penzance. A gypsy fortune-teller saw it in her crystal ball.”

  “God bless us,” Grayson said. “This family is going to hell in a handbasket.”

  “And you our exalted leader,” said the raven-haired Lady Chloe Boscastle, who had been sipping champagne the entire time from her nearby chair. “We only follow your example, dear brother.”

  Grayson released a sigh. The family was doomed if they followed his example. Yet he could not ignore the fact of his influence. What was he to do? Repent? Sin in secret? How long could a man pretend his actions did not affect others?

  Heaven help him, was he in serious danger of becoming a moral creature?

  Grayson glanced over his shoulder at the footman standing against the wall. Suddenly it seemed easier to ponder the sins of others than contemplate his own. Distraction would help deflect him from considering his own murky character. “Has my carriage returned yet, Weed?”

  “A few minutes ago, my lord.”

  “And how did our abandoned bride appear?”

  “Eager to be inside the house, I am told, and begging to be left alone.”

  “She held up remarkably well,” Heath said. “I do admire that.”

  Grayson tried to picture nondescript Nigel with the winsome young woman whose trust he had betrayed. It was difficult to imagine them together, oddly unsettling, in fact.

  Chloe shook her dark head in sympathy. “She’ll probably never venture from her room again. If I were in her place, I would console myself by roaming the Continent, and taking handsome lovers to heal my heart.”

  Grayson gave his beautiful blue-eyed sister a reproachful look. “Let us hope that the young lady does not take her revenge to such an absurd degree.”

  “I mean it, Gray,” she said, her voice passionate. “What happened to her today is too horrible to bear by half. I had a friend at school who threw herself into the Thames over a man who left her at the altar. A woman does not ever recover from that deep a betrayal. It has to leave a very painful wound.”

  In his mind’s eye Grayson saw a graceful back, delicate hands hidden in pearl-buttoned gloves, and a face mysteriously half revealed in the shadowy folds of a wedding veil. A composed face of classical features, a refined nose and full tempting mouth. Dark green eyes thankfully not overflowing with dramatic tears, but gazing up at him with an acceptance that almost challenged him to atone for a wrong he had never even committed.

  His heavy eyebrows drew into a frown. “The lady did not strike me as the type to do anything quite so desperate as to take her own life.” Especially over a nitwit like Nigel, he added silently.

  “But it is the death of her in polite society,” Chloe insisted, with a shrug of her bare shoulders. “You must do something to make this right, being the head of the family. If you don’t, Jane will never be able to show her face in public again.”

  Grayson thought of the enticing honey-haired maiden sitting alone in stoic misery for the rest of her life. What a deplorable waste of womanhood. “I intend to do something.” But what he could not say. God forbid that his interference should make the matter worse. He wasn’t particularly known for his eagerness to do good deeds. Yet Grayson had always felt a curious compulsion to defend the downtrodden, presumably out of guilt over his own undeserved good fortune.

  He glanced up. “Heath?”

  “I’ll be gone in an hour.”

  “Thrash the bachelor out of him, but leave no visible marks.”

  “Why not?”

  Grayson smiled grimly. “I do not want him to look disreputable when he is dragged back to the altar.”

  Chapter 3

  Forty-five minutes later Grayson rode through the ornamental gates of the Earl of Belshire’s Grosvenor Square home. As his horse was stabled, he noticed that the drapes at the bow windows of the house had been tightly drawn. A morose-looking footman escorted him into one of five formal reception rooms. His own personal visit to Nigel’s town house had yielded no helpful clues as to his disappearance.

  He stood for several minutes and watched the servants tiptoeing past the door in painstaking silence. Indeed, a pall of profound gloom enshrouded the mansion as if a family member had died unexpectedly. He wondered how the rather impulsive notion that had brought him here would be received. How the jilted bride would feel about his offer to act as her temporary protector, a social proxy for his stupid cousin. With any luck Nigel would appear before Grayson’s scheme could be launched. He had no idea how he would go about implementing it, of course. But someone would have to shield her and her family from the inevitable scandal.

  As the highest-ranking member of his own family, he supposed that dubious honor had fallen to him. After all, he had the power and popularity to help, and it provided a bit of novelty, being the white knight for a change.

  The true surprise of the day was that it had not been he who had caused a scandal.

  His motives were not entirely unselfish. For one thing, he hoped to avoid having the family name dragged into a lawsuit. For another, he intended to put an end to the self-destructive behavior to which he and his siblings seemed so naturally drawn.

  Lord and Lady Belshire seemed somewhat bewildered by his appearance in their drawing room. Lady Belshire had in fact just finished half a bottle of sherry; the earl’s graying black hair stood in disarrayed tufts, his neckcloth askew, but other than that he managed to present his usual distinguished self to this unexpected caller.

  “Sedgecroft. Have a drink. Have you found the blackguard?”

  “Not yet.” Grayson glanced over his shoulder at the two comely young ladies who sat on the sofa pretending to work on their embroidery. The chilly f
rowns they sent him between stitches could have turned his entire body to stone. As if he by familial association was responsible for their sister’s abandonment.

  “Heath is gone on that quest and will be discreet,” he added. “If Nigel is alive, he shall be brought back to perform his duty.”

  Lady Belshire hiccoughed behind her hand. “I confess I rather hope he’s found dead. At least it would be an acceptable excuse for what he did to my daughter today.”

  “Rake,” murmured one of the two daughters on the sofa.

  “Rogue,” added her sister in a crisp undertone.

  Grayson examined them from the corner of his eye. He had the distinct impression they were not referring exclusively to Nigel, although, for God’s sake, one could accuse his cousin of many faults, stupidity being foremost. But Nigel had never been known for his womanizing skills.

  Which made it all the more disturbing that the nodcock had left a beauty like Lady Jane at the altar. But then perhaps her elegant dignity had frightened off the fool. Perhaps, for all Grayson knew, Nigel had run off with a man. Stranger things had happened. Take him, for example, trying to repair a wrong he hadn’t done.

  He frowned, glancing back to the earl who had collapsed in an armchair, a fat spaniel positioned on his lap. “I would like to speak to your daughter, Belshire. In private, if you please. Someone has to make amends in the Boscastle name.”

  Grayson had no intention of asking Belshire’s permission for what else he had in mind until he presented his plan to the jilted bride. If Jane objected, well, at least he could say he had tried. There was no point in taking his scheme to her parents. Neither Athena nor Howard looked capable of decision making at the moment, emotionally crushed by the day’s unprecedented disaster.

  The two young women on the sofa rose in a surge of sisterly support. Grayson studied them. One possessed mahogany-gold hair, the other was a fetching brunette. Good looks certainly seemed to run in the females of this family.

  As did a rather disconcerting self-assurance.

  “What do you want to see Jane for?” demanded the darker-haired sister.

  The other added, “She is hardly in the mood for a social call, considering what your cousin did to her today.”

  “I understand that,” he said smoothly.

  “I doubt she will see you,” the brunette said.

  Grayson shrugged. He had a feeling she was mistaken. “It doesn’t hurt to try.”

  “Your appearance here is bad timing, Sedgecroft,” Lord Belshire said irritably. “Perhaps you could make your apologies to her at a later date.”

  “When one falls off a horse,” Grayson said guardedly. “one is best advised to remount immediately.”

  Lady Belshire plunked her sherry glass down on the side table, her eyes glittering with interest. “What sort of remounting are we discussing, Sedgecroft?”

  Grayson hesitated, choosing his words with care lest his offer be misinterpreted. “The worst thing your daughter can do is to remove herself from Society. In the event Nigel is not brought around, she will want to attract another husband.” Preferably, he thought, one with half a brain to appreciate what his cousin had so mysteriously discarded.

  “Are you offering to marry my sister?” the taller of the two other women asked in a tone halfway between hope and horror.

  “No,” he said quickly, horrified himself at the thought. “I am not. It is my intention to help relaunch her back into Society as soon as possible. The longer she waits, the harder it will be to make her return.”

  “He does have a point, Howard,” Lady Belshire murmured. “If Jane withdraws indefinitely, she will drift into spinsterhood and eventually cease to exist. And Sedgecroft is well considered in Society.”

  The earl clapped his vinegar cloth back onto his forehead. “Oh, what the devil, Sedgecroft. Do what you can to help her. Jane hasn’t spoken a civil word to me in months. She expressed doubts about marrying Nigel, but did I listen? I thought they secretly adored each other. You young people today are entirely too—oh, blast. What do I know of love?”

  “What does anyone know?” Grayson murmured, turning to find the two sisters gazing at him as if he had suddenly sprouted horns and a forked tail.

  “How long do you think this . . . relaunching will take?” Lady Belshire asked.

  Grayson shrugged his broad shoulders. “Not long. I intend to squire Jane around town only until she begins to attract the serious interest of a few acceptable suitors. In time, I would hope she would recover enough to return to her previous life.”

  “The fact that a marquess finds her desirable will certainly pique the ton’s interest,” Athena said with a thoughtful frown. “I do see potential in this, Sedgecroft. It is decent of you to consider her future. Without help, Jane is likely to become a lost cause.”

  “I mean to set an example for the rest of my family,” he replied. Although God knew that such self-sacrifice did not come naturally to him. Nor did the complications of even a superficial courtship. “I might not have ever asked a woman to meet me at the altar,” he said, “but I have never left one standing there either. I am not utterly without morals, as a few people seem to believe.”

  Lord Belshire cracked open one eye. “Setting an example is all well and good, my friend, but I do have one minor reservation. You have a bit of a rake’s reputation.”

  “A bit?” both sisters cried in unison.

  “Which could make him all the more attractive a suitor for Jane,” Lady Belshire said thoughtfully. “Only a woman of considerable charm can attract the attention of a man like Sedgecroft. It might not hurt your poor sister to be thought of in such terms. Perhaps it would even raise her social value, which has sunk to an appalling low after today.”

  Lord Belshire pursed his lips. “And how does being squired around by a rake—excuse me again, Sedgecroft—enhance Jane’s reputation?”

  His wife shook her head in resignation. “I do not know that her reputation can ever be repaired. Our only hope is that in time she will meet a young man to whom her scandal does not matter.”

  Grayson smiled at her. “Precisely my thought. We cannot undo what has been done.”

  Athena smiled back at him. “But we can detract from it.”

  Lord Belshire grunted. “What does my opinion matter? Ask her yourself, Sedgecroft. She’s languishing in the Red Gallery with all those hideous Roman statues. But do not be surprised if she refuses your offer. She’s a strong-minded minx.”

  Grayson turned to the door, smiling to himself at the warning. Of course he would be surprised if she refused. No female had ever turned down a Boscastle male when he set his mind on her. After all, he was making a gesture that would benefit both of them. What could be the harm in that?

  Chapter 4

  The gallery stretched across the second floor, a vast sunlit room decorated with red silk hangings and a collection of priceless Italian statues. An entire wall boasted an ornately carved marble chimneypiece, beneath which sat a fireplace large enough to house a family of four. No fire had been lit within. Several shredded letters had been tossed onto the grate, apparently ready to burn.

  Jane reclined on a tufted crimson couch in the corner, a half-eaten hothouse peach in one hand. A portfolio of old letters lay across her lap.

  Love letters, Grayson thought as he stood in the doorway, temporarily distracted from his task by the languid sensuality of her pose. She must have been pouring over the insipid poetry of Nigel’s that he’d sent her through the years. One pale arm was bent at an angle to support her head, a position that thrust her ripe breasts out into an enticing silhouette. Her bare feet dangled over the opposite arm of the couch. The heartbroken beauty had not changed out of her wedding gown.

  He took his time to study her in this unguarded moment. Her eyes were closed, silky black eyelashes casting shadows on her finely boned cheeks; her slender toes flexed and unflexed as if she were striving to relax. Coils of lustrous honey-hued hair tumbled over her shoulders to
the floor. Grayson imagined burying his face in that hair, shaping her curves with his hands. The unexpected fantasy warmed his blood.

  To think that Nigel could be enjoying all that sensual potential in his bed. What an utter moron. But then Grayson did not know her at all. Perhaps she had some hidden defect—well, it would have to be very well hidden. He felt the dangerous stirrings of desire just standing here.

  “May I disturb you for a few moments?”

  That deep voice wrenched Jane out of her trance. She sat up so abruptly that the letters fluttered from her lap to the floor. The afternoon sun, the tension of the morning had made her drowsy. She’d been daydreaming, wondering how to implement the next phase of her plan.

  She had been contemplating the delicious freedom that Nigel had granted her.

  The freedom to choose her own mate. To flirt to her heart’s content. To fall deeply in love as dear Nigel had been with his governess. Or to not fall in love and marry if the perfect man failed to appear.

  She had been daydreaming about what it would be like to experience true passion for herself, the sort of horrible, impulsive, tingle-from-head-to-toe sweeping passion, when that dark voice had disturbed her.

  Her heart began to thunder with accountable anticipation. A vaguely familiar shadow fell across the corner where she had reclined in a daze of self-congratulatory contentment.

  A shadow she remembered from the chapel with a shiver of foreboding. No! It couldn’t possibly be. Not here, in her home, her haven—

  “Lord Sedgecroft, this is an . . . an unexpected pleasure.”

  “Unexpected pleasure” did not even begin to describe the unsettling sensations that his appearance evoked. The sunlight played across the chiseled planes of his face and caught the burnished wheat gold glints in his hair like an artist’s brush.