The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

by Jillian Hunter

  Only to end up where they had started. At a wedding altar. Neither one would escape this time either. The two of them would be married to each other if they had to complete the ceremony in chains. Grayson had no intention of letting Jane get the better of him again.

  He glanced back into the room where they had become so intimate that his skin burned at the memory. Heaven only knew how many silly dances and picnics he would attend with her before he enjoyed her in his bed again. He felt a bit like the devil chasing after his own tail, but there had never been any doubt that he would catch her.

  He wondered whether this balance they had found would last or would fluctuate throughout their marriage. They understood each other now. He had a feeling the days of deceiving each other had ended. Yet he was certain there was not another woman who could unsettle him as Jane did. He was certain she would challenge him mightily in the years to come.

  He would not have it any other way.

  Jane stared from the coach window at the elegant seaside villa. She felt a pang of regret at leaving the house where she and Grayson had ended their masquerade. Still, it was gratifying to know he had never brought another woman here before. If he had, she might have been forced to insist he sell the place. Now they could return throughout the years for nostalgic holidays.

  She sat back against the squabs with a sigh. She missed him, even though he was following in his own vehicle right behind her. She wished she were at his side rather than in the smothering care of Nigel and Esther. They treated her like an abandoned child they had just rescued from an orphanage.

  “We shall all travel the road back to respectability together,” Esther said heartily.

  And Jane had to smile. It was good to have the comfort of friends when one had almost ruined one’s life.

  She was relieved to find her family back in residence at their Grosvenor Square home when she and her entourage of protectors arrived in London. Her father embraced her in a crushing hug, his face pinched with emotion. She had not expected this, had not realized how she had missed her parents. Their heartfelt anxiety forced her to forgive them for the trick they had played on her.

  In fact, forgiveness seemed to be in order all the way around. They forgave her. She forgave them. They were even polite to Nigel and Esther, acting like true aristocrats, as if the sabotaged wedding had never happened.

  “Well, then,” Lord Belshire said as he served brandy and biscuits to his guests, “all we lack is Sedgecroft for our little reunion. Where is your fiancé, Jane?”

  Jane paused, a petit four halfway to her mouth. “We aren’t officially engaged yet, Papa.”

  Her father looked as if he might faint. He glanced helplessly at his wife, who had managed to decode this mystery from what Simon had told her. “There is to be a period of courtship, Howard.”

  He turned a ghastly shade of gray. “Why? I mean, the contract is signed. They courted. Yes, they did. In this very town, in this house. I saw them with my own eyes. I—” The cool smile on his wife’s face told him to expect no help from that quarter. “I thought it was a courtship,” he finished lamely. “Was I wrong?”

  Athena’s mouth tightened in warning. She had been so guilt-ridden, so worried about her daring eldest daughter during Jane’s stay in Brighton that she was determined to mend the breach. Even if it meant naysaying Howard for the first time in their relatively peaceful marriage. “It wasn’t a proper courtship, Howard.”

  “Proper?” He blinked, once, twice, like an owl exposed to a burst of bright light. “As if anything in this household has been proper of late. Pregnant governesses. Sabotaged weddings. Conspiracies in every corner.”

  Nigel looked down at his plate. Jane nibbled her petit four with a pensive expression. Caroline and Miranda sat on the sofa like a pair of statues with their heads bend over a scrapbook. Esther took a third pastry.

  “A courtship,” Athena said, drawing a breath, “will put an end to the gossip once and for all.”

  “Only if it ends in a marriage,” Howard said, staring at his wife in frozen horror as another possibility struck him. “This is all going to end in a marriage between them, isn’t it? Jane isn’t going to change her mind again?”

  “Honestly, dear,” his wife said with an impatient shake of her head, “one simply cannot answer that question without spoiling all the romance.”

  It was a question that had clearly been answered to the satisfaction of Jane’s two younger sisters. By candlelight in Caroline’s bedchamber the pair poured over fashion plates and menus in preparation for the grand event.

  “We’ll have to start completely from scratch,” Caroline said, stretched out across the bed. “Jane cannot wear the same gown.”

  “Should we invite Nigel?” Miranda asked.

  “Yes, but we will have to reserve an entire pew for the Chasteberry. The woman must be carrying triplets.”

  “Do you think Grayson will invite his past mistresses this time?”

  Caroline’s eyes glimmered with mischief. “I think he at least ought to ask Jane first, although they do bring a certain flavor with them.”

  “I’ll say.”

  Caroline rolled onto her back, sending lists and sketches fluttering to the floor. “Can we get that French chef from Gunter’s again?”

  “We’ll want new dresses, too,” Miranda murmured.

  “I wonder if Drake and Devon will show up this time,” Caroline said absently.

  “I should think so. They seem to be a close family.”

  “A scandalous one.”

  “And passionate.”

  “So are we.”

  Miranda perked up. “What? Passionate or scandalous?”

  “I think the potential is there for both.”

  Caroline gazed up at the plump amorini romping on the plasterwork ceiling. “We should have known that Jane had something devilish in mind when she balked at the fitting for her trousseau. She never wanted to entice Nigel.”

  “How could we have known?” Miranda drew a bride holding a bouquet of weeds and droopy roses in her sketchbook. “Would you ever consider sabotaging your own wedding?”

  “I’m going to elope,” Caroline said. “If I ever meet the man of my dreams, I shall carry him right to the altar myself.”

  Chapter 27

  Patience was one of the few virtues Grayson had cultivated between his vices. If Jane desired courtship, he would oblige her. In their game of love, he had no doubt who would emerge triumphant. She might tease him to death, but in the end the male would dominate. He would gladly wear his heart on his sleeve to prove to her and the world that he adored her.

  Yet if he was confident of his ability to win, he did not take much else in life for granted. Jane had challenged him emotionally and intellectually from the moment they’d met. Until they stood before man and God at the altar, he would continue to pursue her. Even if only to prove his devotion. To prove that while seducing her had been sublimely pleasurable, it had not been his sole aim.

  He was utterly serious when he told her he needed her help to handle his family. What a wildling bunch they had become. He sensed in Chloe a revolution brewing, a deep unhappiness that, if not thwarted, could only lead to disaster. Heath also appeared to be headed for some enigmatic, undoubtedly dangerous course.

  The worry did not end there. His prim and proper sister Emma had lost her husband, and, as a widowed viscountess, stood in a vulnerable position in society, even if she refused to see herself that way. Drake and Devon had always been restless souls, drawn to trouble time and time again. And brave young Brandon would never be coming home to bedevil them again.

  The Boscastle line needed Jane’s strength and cunning to survive the perils of another century. Grayson needed her for his own survival.

  He called formally that same evening at her house to escort her family to the opera. The two of them stood alone together in the drawing room for several minutes. Grayson, in elegant black evening wear and gleaming boots. Jane, in an off-white sat
in gown draped across her soft shoulders like the petals of an exotic lily.

  They went so well together. What other woman in the world aroused and tamed his demons at the same time?

  He circled her slowly, a lion examining his prey. “That dress,” he said in a low voice, “looks a little too nice on you.”

  “Do you like it? You should. It is one you picked out for me, the only selection from the mistress wardrobe that I could wear in public.”

  He stopped, leaning down to rub his chin on the enticing curve of her shoulder. “I think I had a private affair in mind when I chose it. Did the drive back from Brighton give that devious mind of yours a rest?”

  “Indeed, my lord. And your devious mind?”

  He pressed a kiss on the arch of her throat, murmuring, “Plotting all over the place to have you to myself again. I miss you, Jane.” She shivered lightly as he placed his hands on her shoulders. “How long do we have to wait?”

  “We can’t get married until after Cecily is married, and one simply can’t throw a wedding together in a week.”

  “Elope?”

  “Except, Grayson, I do have my heart set on a proper ceremony, a wedding to remember. . . .”

  “You had one as I recall.”

  “Well, I thought this time I might invite the groom.”

  He sighed. “When is Cecily’s wedding?”

  “A fortnight from now, in Kent, at her father’s manor. Are you coming?”

  “Why not? The last wedding you and I attended was certainly entertaining.”

  “My family will be there,” Jane said, warming at the thought of showing her rogue off to the rest of her relations. “You can frighten my sisters with your appalling manliness.”

  “I suppose I shall have to get used to these family affairs,” he said quietly. He turned her around to face him, drinking in the sight of her satin-draped curves. Was she carrying his child? Had that delicate waist begun to expand the tiniest bit? They had certainly made love enough in Brighton to make it a possibility. He ran a finger beneath her throat. He felt very protective of her all of a sudden. “I want to set a date.”

  “A date for what?” she asked with a smile.

  His fingertip teased the underside of her breast. He watched in satisfaction as her breathing quickened. “For baking Christmas pudding. What do you think?”

  Jane lifted her face to his. “Wasn’t that part written into the clandestine contract?”

  “Despot that I am, I neglected that important detail.”

  “I’m surprised the other despot who is my father allowed the omission.”

  “I believe he was in shock,” he said, and stole a kiss a few seconds before the father under discussion appeared in the doorway with his wife.

  “Are you two going to stand here all night or accompany us to the opera?” Lord Belshire demanded, his gruff tone hiding his pleasure that his Jane had found a man like Sedgecroft to take care of her. “Nothing worse than arriving right in the middle of a damned aria.”

  “We shall cause a scene no matter when we arrive,” Athena said behind him, slim and elegant in a white satin shawl and an ice blue moire taffeta gown. “People are dying to know what sort of arrangement Grayson has made with Jane. I shall be delivering snubs all night long.”

  The social uproar Athena had predicted came true only seconds after they took their box in the opera house.

  Even those in the audience in the know could not quite decide what to make of this. Lord Belshire, his family, and his vibrant eldest daughter poised on the arm of a handsome scamp, the notorious lady looking radiant for someone who was allegedly ruined. Hadn’t the papers reported only two weeks or so ago that a certain marquess was shopping for a wardrobe with his mistress? And an indiscreet shopgirl had reported the naughtiest conversation in the upstairs chamber of a well-known Bond Street establishment. . . .

  Wives and daughters borrowed quizzing glasses to take a look at Jane’s ivory satin gown, recognizing the work of the demimonde’s darling modiste Madame Devine. No one remembered that particular dress on Jane before and then . . . oh, the ever-delicious Sedgecroft had just kissed her ear! Trust him to please the crowd. Yes, he had kissed his love in public. At the very moment the scandalous couple bent heads simultaneously to pick up the program Jane had dropped.

  “Everyone saw that,” she whispered with a hot blush as he glanced up, grinning into her face.

  “Your father didn’t,” he whispered back. “That’s all I have to worry about.”

  “The scandalmongers will say they were right all along, and the papers will keep printing horrible things about us.”

  “Gossip will not kill us, Jane, or I would have been dead long ago.”

  She pretended to scan her program, tempted to throw her arms around his strong neck and kiss him back. “You’re probably right.”

  He settled his large frame back in his seat. “The truth, my darling, is that anybody who is anybody will hope to be invited to all the social affairs hosted by the new Lady Sedgecroft. That would be you.”

  “Would it?” she whispered, smiling as she pictured the pair of them presiding over the ton in the ballroom of his Park Lane house.

  “I am the head of the family,” he added. “As such, it will be my privilege to enjoy watching the other eligible Boscastles be cornered at the supper parties my wife will give.” He leaned down to whisper, “That would be you again.”

  She glanced up at his handsome face and felt her heart overflow with an almost fearful happiness. Yes, this Boscastle was hers. His wonderful, wicked brood would become her children’s heritage. The prospect should have sent her straight to the sofa with a vinaigrette, but Jane had always been the type to challenge fate.

  She said, “Which of your siblings do you think will marry next? Drake?”

  His blue eyes darkened. “At the moment, I am focused on achieving that status for myself. Perhaps I shall have to make you want me more.”

  “How?” she whispered, unable to imagine how such a thing could be possible.

  “I shall not touch you again, Jane, after tonight. Not so much as a kiss until our wedding day.”

  “You, Sedgecroft, showing self-control?”

  “We shall see who weakens first,” he said smugly.

  “Did you just issue me a challenge?” she whispered.

  “I believe I did.”

  “What shall we bet?”

  “What do you have to offer?”

  “Excuse me.” Jane’s father, seated behind them, stretched forward to tap them on the shoulder. “Is the opera interrupting your conversation? Shall I ask Signora Nicola to take her solo into the alley?”

  “My apologies, sir,” Grayson replied with a straight face. “Pay attention to the performance, Jane, dear,” he added in a voice loud enough to carry.

  “Oh, I am,” she replied, giving him a scowl that might have had more effect if behind her Caroline and Miranda had not suddenly burst into giggles.

  Grayson glanced around to flash them a charming grin. “All right, you two. You’re going on the list along with the other family members who need to be married off for the benefit of Society.”

  “Which is all very well and good,” Lord Belshire said grumpily, leaning forward a final time to speak. “But let us see you married first, hmm?”

  Chapter 28

  For the next week Grayson behaved as quite the perfect gentleman, the perfect suitor. He squired Jane and her sisters to the museum, to the amphitheater, to lectures and soirées. He bought her flowers. And he did not lay a finger on her, aware that he was teasing her, torturing them both with his promise to show self-control.

  Proper she wanted. Proper he would give her, if only on the surface. There would be plenty of time for private improprieties during the course of their marriage.

  Two weeks later Cecily exchanged vows with the Duke of Hedleigh in an ancient Gothic church only minutes away from her father’s family seat in Kent. Jane served as a bridesmaid, and Gra
yson caused another small scandal when he sat in one of the front pews with her father, who kept commenting on how happy the bride and groom looked, and how he hoped to see his own daughter at the altar soon.

  A few minutes after the wedding procession drove through the wrought-iron gates of the estate, a cloud of white doves was released from the tower of the east wing. Wedding bells pealed from the village church into the mellow blue skies as the birds fluttered free.

  “How lovely,” Jane exclaimed, shielding her eyes to look up.

  “Not if they decide to fly over the wedding breakfast,” her father grumbled as they took their seats at the tables where ham, grouse, jellies, and roast beef tempted the guests. “Why can’t these affairs be held inside?”

  Jane took a sip of champagne. Where had Grayson gone? Ah, there. Strolling down an avenue of high evergreens with two young ladies in tow. She frowned as the trio turned around a corner. True to his word, he had not touched her since that night at the opera, and she was burning, positively on fire to be in his arms again. He was playing with her, proving another of his wicked points.

  His tall figure disappeared. A moment later a burst of gleeful feminine laughter drifted from the direction of the evergreens. The sound tore years and years of Jane’s good breeding to pieces.

  “What are they doing?” she asked, putting down her fork.

  Her father speared a slice of ham. “What is who doing?”

  “Grayson and those girls.”

  Lord Belshire glanced around the table. “I don’t see Grayson with any girls.”

  “Precisely. They are hidden from view, making their behavior all the more suspicious.”

  “I daresay Grayson would be a trifle more discreet if you were to announce your engagement.”

  Jane rose from her chair. “Do you think he’s trying to make me jealous?”

  “My dear child, it is beyond me to fathom what either of you is doing. All I really care about at this point is that you set a date.” He refused a second glass of champagne offered by a hovering footman. “Once you are married, the pair of you can behave in whatever manner you please.”