Seduced

by Pamela Britton

  “I will be by tomorrow, Mother. This is the first week back in town.” And she’d been procrastinating. A lot.

  Was that emotion she saw on her mother’s face? Emotion from a woman who prided herself on showing none? “I was concerned for you, Elizabeth. Deeply concerned. I hope your husband conveyed that to you. You are feeling better, are you not?”

  Elizabeth’s heart instantly softened. “I am.”

  “Good. Then I shall see you on Thursday.” She looked uncertain for a moment. Then, she leaned forward and gave her a peck on the cheek, quickly, as if afraid someone might see. “You may bring Lucien, too, of course, despite the fact that he would not let me visit your sickbed.”

  Elizabeth almost laughed. “He was worried you might catch my illness.”

  “Yes, so he told me.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I was refused admittance, too,” Lucy said.

  Her mother turned to Elizabeth’s friend. “Yes, well, that I understand.”

  The look on Lucy’s face indicated she wasn’t sure if she’d been insulted or not. Garrick choked back a laugh as Lucy covertly jabbed him with her elbow.

  The countess straightened. “Well,” she said, “I am glad you’re better.”

  “As am I,” her father added, his first words. He peered up at Lucien. “And that the charges were dropped.”

  Lucien nodded politely. It was as close to an apology he would get from the earl.

  “Come, George,” her mother said to her father. “Let us be off. I see Lady Haversham over there. The woman is all agog to hear how you are doing, Elizabeth.”

  “And I would like to dance with my wife,” Garrick said. “Now that she has said hello to you, Elizabeth, mayhap she will join me.”

  Lucy looked up at her husband, his face softening as she said, “Hmm, perhaps I shall.”

  They watched them walk away, Lucy so small, Garrick so tall. And yet they were perfect for each other.

  “Would you like to dance, too, my dear?” Lucien whispered in her ear.

  She turned, smiled. Lucien found himself smiling back. God, but she was glorious, the blue of her eyes nearly matched the topaz coronet that nestled amongst her upswept hair.

  “I’m not so sure,” she murmured teasingly. “After all, you are a known rake.”

  He didn’t respond, merely pulled her to the dance floor. A waltz played. Ah, yes, perfect timing. He looked around, clearing a spot on the floor with a mere look. It paid to be a former dastardly duke.

  “I am your rake,” he said earnestly.

  She shrugged, sighed, her right hand lifting her skirts as he pulled her to him. Their bodies connected with a familiar jolt, his hand clasping her left hand. The wedding ring she’d pawned—the one he’d moved heaven and earth to find whilst she recovered—glinted in the candlelight. Odd how he’d been so picky when he’d chosen it. A part of him must have known even then that she was special.

  “My aunt told me never to marry a rake,” she teased.

  He spun her gently, enjoying the feel of her in his arms. “Your aunt never met me,” he replied.

  She laughed again. He watched her, the other dancers receding away. She was like a painting he’d once seen. That of a pearl. Perfect. Brilliant. More lovely than any grain of sand had a right to be. And she was his pearl, a jewel he hardly understood how he’d obtained. But not a moment went by that he wasn’t grateful that they’d been brought together.

  “You’re staring at me,” she said.

  “Am I?”

  “You are.”

  He smiled down at her, loving the way she smiled back. “I was wondering if you’re as happy as I am?”

  She pursed her lips. “I might be.”

  “Might?”

  “Indeed, for my happiness depends a great deal on your ability to furnish me with bananas.”

  He stared at her in shock for a second before throwing back his head and laughing. People turned to look at them, but Lucien didn’t care. He had Elizabeth in his arms. And that was all he’d ever need.

  “Indeed,” he drawled. “And what will you do with these bananas?”

  She stood on her toes, whispering the most shocking and titillating thing in his ear. He almost fell to the dance floor.

  “Scandalous,” he said, as she drew away.

  “But intriguing,” she added.

  He chuckled. “And when you’re done doing that, ahem, thing to me, then what?”

  But it was later that night before she showed him, and it wasn’t a thing. She rested her palm against his cheek, her eyes filling with love as she said, “What I’m going to do,” she whispered softly, her mouth still moist from his kiss, “is love you forever.”

  He kissed her palm, drawing back to place his hand on her enlarged belly. The dress she’d worn tonight had concealed her pregnancy well. Granted, she was only two months along, but it still filled him with wonder as he stared at the small bulge. His child grew there. His eyes misted, his gaze moving back to hers. “Love me?” he questioned softly. “Is that a promise, my dear?”

  She nodded, her own eyes misty.

  “Then I suppose there’s nothing for it but that I must love you back.” And he tilted his head down, sweeping his lips over hers. “But first,” he said, kissing the crook of her neck, “I shall seduce you.”

  She laughed softly, the sound vibrating beneath his lips. “Oh, I beg to differ, my lord, for ’tis you who has been seduced.”

  And, indeed, he had been. Most thoroughly. Seduced.

  And loved.

  Author's Note

  Researching Regency London criminal trials when one lives in California is like trying to build sand castles in Antarctica. Oh, the pain. The pain (to quote Dr. Smith). I did my best, but please forgive me if I blundered in any way. My thanks to the University of Texas for posting the Newgate Calendar on line. Without it, I would have been horribly lost.

  I’d also like to thank my husband, Michael, for taking care of our little family so that I could write and do research. You’re appreciated more than you know, hon. You make me understand the words to Martina McBride’s “Blessed” in a way I never would have thought possible. I wuv you.

  Also, thanks go to the employees and owners of two restaurants where I wrote this book: The Faultline and Elegant Touch, both in Hollister, California. Thanks for all the cookies, guys.:)

  I hope you enjoyed your time with Lucien and Elizabeth. As always, my goal is to bring you wacky, zany stories that make you laugh out loud and (hopefully) sigh at the end.

  Happy reading,

  Pamela

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  in early 2004.

  Chapter One

  No red cape.

  No pitchfork.

  No horns.

  All in all Mary Elizabeth Callahan would say that the Devil Marquis of Warrick didn’t look a thing like she expected.

  Oddly, she felt disappointed. Of course, she couldn’t see his lordship all that well what with him sitting upon a bleedin’ throne of a chair behind his bleedin’ monstrosity of a desk.

  “Please have a seat,” he said without looking up, his eyes firmly upon a document before him, a clock on a mantel behind him tick-tick-ticking in an annoyingly sterile way. Muted sunlight from the right reflected off the flawless, polished perfection of that desk. The ink blotter lay exactly square, almost as if someone had used a measuring tape to place it. Papers were stacked at perfect right angles. A fragrant, rather obnoxious smelling tussy of red roses and rosemary squatted in a fat vase. And yet there were also black stains on the front of that desk, as if someone had thrown a jar of ink at his lordship here. And not quite erased from the desk’s surface she could just make out … a smiling face that looked to have been finger painted when the ink spilled.

  She bit back a smile as she took a seat, nearly yelping whe
n the plush blue velvet did its best to swallow her whole. She had to jerk forward, looking up as she did so to see if his lordship had noticed. No. The swell was still engrossed in his work. Hmph.

  She waited for him. Then waited some more. Finally, she began to tap her foot impatiently, her toe ticking on the hardwood floor in time with the clock.

  The scratching of his quill stopped abruptly. His head slowly lifted, his eyes widening a bit as he caught his first glimpse of her.

  Two things hit Mary at once. One, Alexander Drummond, Marquis of Warrick, had the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen. Blue they were, the color of a seashell when you turned it over.

  Two, he was not the ugly ogre she’d been expecting, which just went to show a body shouldn’t believe all the things they hear.

  He blinked at her, frowned, then said, “I’ll be with you in just a moment,” slowly and succinctly—as if she had wool in her ears—before going back to work.

  She narrowed her eyes, studying him, seein’ as how there were nothing else to do. His high-and-mightiness had an angular jaw with a cleft smack-dab in the middle of it, she noted. Wasn’t anything slug-faced about him, which was how most peers looked, to her mind at least. This peer had midnight black hair with twin streaks of gray that started at both temples ending somewhere in the back, his dark hair pulled back in a queue.

  “Did your daughter give you that?” she found herself asking.

  Once again he looked up. Once again, his quill stopped its annoying scratch, the black jacket he wore tightening as he straightened again. Thick, very masculine brows lowered. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The gray hair,” she said, pointing with a gloved hand at his hair, and then motioning to her own red hair in case he needed further clarification.

  And now those black brows lifted. “As a matter of fact, no. ’Tis a genetic trait inherited from my father. All heirs of Warrick have it.”

  She pursed her lips. “Just the heirs? What do you do if a nonheir is born with it? Shoot him?”

  His lips parted. His jaw dropped, but he was only struck all-a-mort for a moment. “No, Mrs. …” He looked down, his white cravat all but poking him in the chin as he pulled sheets of papers toward him. She recognized them as being the ones John Lasker had forged. John had the best penmanship in Hollowbrook. Actually, John had about the only penmanship in Hollowbrook. “Mrs. Callahan. We do not shoot our children.”

  Got his lordship’s ballocks in a press, hadn’t she?

  “And,” he continued, “since it would appear as if you’re determined to interrupt me, I suppose we should just begin the interview for the position. That way, you can be on your way, and I can get back to work.”

  Mary perked up. At last. Two, maybe three minutes and she’d be out of here and on her way back to Hollowbrook. For one thing Mary Callahan didn’t want was to nurse his lordship’s daughter. She’d only come today to appease her baboon-brained father, a man who’d gone a wee bit crackers in recent months with his plot of revenge against the marquis here for shutting down the town’s smuggling operations. Although now that she’d met the man, she could well understand her father’s aversion to the cull. Fact is, she didn’t particularly want the job. It entailed lying, and she loathed doing that. But it was her duty to do as her father asked, and so she’d come even though she knew she’d never get the job. She didn’t qualify, but that suited her just fine, even though she knew the people of Hollowbrook would be disappointed when she came back unemployed. They were just as determined to gain revenge as her father was.

  “I see you’re from Wellburn, Mrs. Callahan?” he asked.

  She leaned forward, placing an arm nonchalantly on his desk as she pretended to look at the papers. He smelled nice. She took a big whiff of him. His brows lifted again. He looked at her arm, up at her, then at the arm again. Pointedly.

  “Is that wha’ it says?” she asked, not removing her elbow, and not trying to smooth her Cockney accent, something she could do, if she had a mind to. She tilted her head, and Lord knows why, but when their gazes met, she smiled. Mary Callahan had a bonny smile. Truth be told, she had a lot of bonny traits—or so she’d been told. Fine green eyes. Dimples. And an endearing way of looking at a man from beneath her thick lashes, not that there was any reason to look up at his lordship that way.

  The marquis, however, didn’t appear fazed. “You’re not from Wellburn?” he asked, his face blank.

  He had the composure of a corpse.

  “If that’s what it says, then I suppose I am.” She leaned back, noticing that his eyes darted down a second, as if he’d glanced at her breasts. But she must be mistaken, for even if they were a fine, ripe bushel, his lordship here wouldn’t be noticing. That kind of thing was beneath his hoity-toity nose.

  “You suppose?”

  She shrugged, one of the seams in the blue dress Fanny Goodwin had sewn popping a bit at the shoulder. Mary should have insisted she let it out a bit more, but the woman had been all agog to show Mary to advantage. Who was Mary to protest? She planned to keep the dress once she got back to Hollowbrook. “Been travelin’ a lot. Hard to keep track.”

  “I see,” he said through gritted teeth. He went back to studying the papers. “Do you enjoy being a nurse, Mrs. Callahan?”

  “No.”

  His head snapped up again. He was going to get a bleedin’ neck ache if he kept that up.

  “No?”

  She shook her head. “Can’t stand children.”

  She had the rum-eyed pleasure of seeing his mouth drop open. “But it says here you love them.”

  “Who said that?” she asked, and she really was curious.

  “Mrs. Thistlewillow.”

  Mrs. Thistlewillow was one of her neighbors in Hollowbrook. A perpetually cheerful sort of person. “Mrs. Thistlewillow would claim Beelzebub loved children.”

  His lordship had fine teeth, she noticed. She had occasion to study them because his mouth hung open again. Not a rotted one in the lot.

  “Mrs. Callahan. I get the feeling that you have not read your references.”

  She snorted. Couldn’t help it. ’Course she hadn’t read them. She couldn’t read. “I make a point not to read what others say about me.” And she was bloody proud of that fact. She might be a poor smuggler’s daughter. She might be a wee speck on his lordship’s bootheel, but Mary Callahan stood on her own two feet. Damn the rest of the world.

  He shook his head as he picked up her references. “Mrs. Callahan. Thank you for coming, but it appears as if I’ve made a mis—”

  “Papa!”

  Mary’s arse fair puckered to the chair. Blimey, what a screech. The door swung open with a resounding boom. She swiveled toward the door. At least, she tried to. The bloody chair held her backside like a bog.

  “Papa, Simms says you’re interviewing another nurse.”

  A little girl of about eight ran by, her hair streaming behind her. Black it was, and in sore need of a good brushing. She landed in a heap in her father’s arms. “I don’t want a nurse. I told you that.”

  Ah. The little termagant herself, and no doubt the finger paint artist, too.

  Mary held her breath as she waited for his lordship to look up, to dismiss her, which she was sure he’d been about to do before the hellion had come in.

  “Gabby,” the marquis said. “Be polite and say how do you do to Mrs. Callahan.”

  Polite? Bugger it. Mary wanted to leave.

  “No,” the little girl snapped.

  “Do it, Gabby. Now.”

  The little girl drew back, her face only inches away from her father’s. They were practically nose-to-nose, the marquis’s face stern and disapproving. Lord, the man could scare kids on All Hallows’ Eve with a look like that.

  The bantling wiggled on his lap. She shimmied down, landing with a thud. The gray dress looked stained with juice, Mary noted, her slippers muddied. But she was a cute little moppet, with her father’s startling blue eyes and dark, curly hair.

 
; “How do you do,” she said, dropping into a curtsy that somehow seemed, well, mocking. And then she rose, looked sideways out of her eyes, and that cute little moppet with the pretty blue eyes stuck out her tongue.

  Mary stiffened.

  The hellion gave her a smug smile.

  Mary’s eyes narrowed. Never one to be gotten the best of, especially by some pug-nosed whelp, she stuck her tongue out, too.

  “Papa.” The little girl breathed without missing a beat. “Did you see that? She stuck her tongue out at me.

  Mary looked up at the marquis. What? Wait a bleedin’—

  “Gabby,” he said. “I know well and good that you stuck your tongue out first. Apologize to Mrs. Callahan immediately.”

  “No,” the little girl snapped, her tiny hands fisting by her sides.

  “Do it,” he ordered.

  “No,” she yelled.

  Mary covered her ears. “Land’s alive, m’lord. Don’t argue with her. I’ll lose me hearing. ’Tis plain as carriage wheels that she’s not going to apologize.”

  For the third time that day—the first being when he’d caught his first glimpse of the stunning Mrs. Callahan—Alexander Drummond, Marquis of Warrick, felt speechless. It defied belief, the things that kept coming out of her mouth.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The nurse arched red brows, and was it his imagination, or did her pretty green eyes twinkle?

  “She’s not going to apologize. What’s more, I don’t want her bloomin’ apology. Fact is, I don’t want to be her nurse, either.”

  Alex thought he’d misheard her again, but then Gabby said, “Good. Leave.”

  “I will,” she answered right back, rising from her chair.

  “Sit down,” Alex ordered.

  “Please,” he added when—good Lord—the woman looked ready to defy him.

  She slowly sat, but she didn’t look too pleased about it.

  “Gabby, you may leave. I will speak with you upstairs.”

  His daughter’s lips pressed together, something he knew from experience meant a tantrum. “I’m a bastard,” she yelled in a last-ditch attempt to put the nurse off.