How to Seduce a Bride

Chapter Twelve

It was not a party. Leland smiled, the earl groaned, and Daisy gasped. The dowager viscountess Haye had invited them to what looked like a grand ball.

“Are you sure you feel well enough to go to attend?” Daisy asked again, as the carriage stopped.

“As I said, yes,” Leland said in bored tones. “There’s nothing left of my wound but the memory.”

“Well, I think I have to go home and change,” Daisy said nervously when she peered out the window to see the long line of carriages ahead of theirs, waiting to discharge their passengers at the front door to his mother’s town house.

“I think you look not only proper, but wonderful,” Helena said from her quiet corner of the coach.

Daisy shook her head. “No. I’ll look downright shabby at a ball.” She thought of the golden gown she’d never dared wear and breathed a silent sigh of relief. If they’d let her go back, she could get herself up in it and look like she belonged.

Leland laughed. “It’s not a ball. It is, however, my mama’s idea of a party. There’s no dancing, unless someone gets drunk enough to bribe the fiddlers she has on hand to play a sprightlier tune. But they’d waste their money. There won’t be room to pick up a coin if you drop it. It’s just a fashionable do, with food and conversation, and it would never do to go to it dressed to the nines.”

“Gads!” the earl exclaimed, looking at the torchlights outside and the windows inside the house ablaze with light. “It looks like an anthill that was set on fire.”

“It will feel like one, too,” Leland said. “We won’t have to stay long but I think you ought to attend, my lord. You’ll be the belle of the ball. Everyone in my mama’s circle wants to see you; you’ve made yourself scarce to them. I can’t blame you for that, but it makes it an excellent place to bring Daisy. They’ll be so busy quizzing you, they won’t have a chance to gape at her. She’ll be eased into Society and plucked out again before her feet get too wet.”

“Very well,” the earl said, “If it’s for Daisy, I’ll do it.”

He smiled, and so did Daisy. But Leland, watching them, did not.

“My lord, how kind of you to come to my little soirée,” the viscountess said, as the earl bowed to her.

The babble of voices was so loud, Daisy could hardly hear what her hostess said. Still, when Geoff gestured to her, she inclined her head in a brief bow to the viscountess. She didn’t like this kind of party any more than Geoff did, but while he knew he’d always be accepted here, she had to find out if she could be.

“Mrs. Tanner,” the dowager said coolly. “How lovely you look this evening.” She ignored Helena completely, and turned to speak to her son. “Haye,” she said, “so you grace us with your presence, do you?”

He bowed. “As you see, Mama.”

For a moment there was, in the middle of all that babble, a complete silence among the viscountess, her son, the earl, and Daisy. Then the dowager turned to greet another new arrival.

“It’s done,” Leland told Daisy as they moved away. “Now, all you have to do is make nonsensical conversation with anyone who speaks to you. Don’t worry; no one will talk to you above a minute or two. The idea is to talk to as many people as possible, so you don’t miss anything.”

“Gads,” the earl said.

Daisy looked around. There were masses of people everywhere: on the stairs, in chairs, and standing in groups that kept changing. The men dressed in black, blue, dun, and gray, with only an occasional glimpse of a red waistcoat to liven them up. She was surprised to see so few dandies, tulips of the ton, or Corinthians, because she’d expect those paragons of fashion to be at such a party. But most of the male guests were older men, and most were dressed conservatively.

She’d also expected to see gaggles of young women in white, as befit ladies in their first Seasons on the Town, and had wondered if there were any she could speak to since she wasn’t that much older herself. But she saw only a few dispirited-looking young girls. There were many more women of a certain age, wearing gowns in every color of the rainbow. Many wore large plumes in their hair that bobbed up and down as they talked, as though they were weird birds of some sort, pecking at something on the ground. And how they talked!

It wasn’t hot so much as airless, or loud so much as deafening.

Daisy nodded her greetings to everyone she was introduced to, but none of them seemed interested in her. It was the earl they’d come to see. He was immediately cornered by a pair of old neighbors who kept asking him questions about how he’d been keeping. Then an elderly couple greeted him and told him stories about their son, whom he’d evidently known in his youth. And then a trio of gentlemen, friends from his schooldays, wanted to know if he meant to stay on in London or if he’d visit with them in their country homes.

Daisy found herself standing apart, not knowing what to do. She tried to entertain herself. There was no way to see what the viscountess’s home really looked like because of the crowd. She could only see that the ceilings were embossed, gilded, and high. If this was the ton’s idea of a gala, then Daisy decided she’d prefer a tankard of sudsy beer with a few roistering friends on the beach, like in the bad old days in the colony.

Helena had been lost in the crowd; one moment Daisy had seen her, the next, she’d been swallowed up in the throng of guests. And so all Daisy could do was pretend to be interested as she stood and smiled until her jaw ached and her head swam.

“They’ve opened the doors to the terrace,” Leland said as he appeared out of the crowd and came to her side. “Come along.”

She hesitated.

“You look like you need the air,” he said. “I realize you want to make a splash, but swooning at a party has been done, and it’s such a cliché.”

Daisy glowered, but put her hand on his arm and let him lead her away. “Where’s Helena?” she asked.

“Hired away by my mother. Carried off by Gypsies. I’ve no idea. She won’t come to harm wherever she is. She might even be enjoying herself; do you begrudge it to her? Ah, here we are,” he said without giving her time to answer.

She stopped before a long windowed door, dug in her heels, and glared at him.

“Why do you hesitate?” he asked. “No stigma need be attached to your stealing away with me, at least not here. It’s as crowded in my mama’s garden as it is indoors, but there’s more air there.”

She went with him.

The terrace was not as crowded as the salon. It was also not as bright; only a few torches lit the plain, square garden. But though there was enough room for a couple to speak privately, there were no deep shadows where anything illicit could be going on. The whole area was filled with partygoers.

He was right, Daisy thought as she stepped out; at least there was fresh air. She took a deep breath and felt a little better. “Do they really think this is having a good time?” she asked him quietly.

“Yes and no,” he said, leaning on the low balustrade of the marble columns that marked off the terrace. “Yes, because if they hadn’t been invited, they’d have been crushed. And no, because they are being crushed, and that means it was a party they’d have hated to miss. But most of them are too old for this.

“Mama’s soirées usually have a broader cross-section of the ton,” Leland murmured, as his eyes roamed over the guests. “It might mean that she fancies Geoff.”

Daisy’s head turned around so she could meet his eyes.

“Young women are harder for her to compete with,” he said blandly. “You’ll note there are few here, which means she wishes to compete. Mama is rich, titled, and however cold at heart, warm of body. Excessively so, to judge by her past record. She’s been a widow for a long time. I believe she’s bored with it now. Affaires of the heart are fine when you’re young, but now I think she might prefer someone to sit around the fireside with. And Geoff is rich, titled, intelligent, and good-looking, for his age.”

“For his age,” Daisy repeated in a fierce whisper. “The man is not eighty. I don’t know why you keep going on about his age.”

“Don’t you?” he asked mildly.

She was still.

His voice softened. “Daisy, my dear,” he said quietly, “he isn’t ancient but he is nearly twice your age. Why should that rankle? It’s only truth. Those years have made him what he is, and he certainly isn’t ashamed of them. Why should you be? Oh well, I might as well ask now as ever. What are your intentions?”

She stared at him.

“I know that’s what a papa asks of his daughter’s suitor, and Geoff’s a man whose papa is long gone,” Leland explained. “But I have a care for him. As do his sons. They like you; indeed, I do, too.”

“Oh,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Such a care for him that you attempt to seduce his friend?”

“How else to find out her intentions?” He laughed. “Not so. I tried for my own reasons. Gloves off then, Daisy, because you and I are too intelligent to hint and feint and bluff, at least at something like this. I’m asking your intentions toward him. Are you merely a friend, or are you angling for more? You must know it’s odd for a woman of your youth, beauty, and wealth to be making such a dead set at a fellow like Geoff. Or at least, to give him credit, because he is a remarkable man, for you to do so the minute your feet touched England’s soil again. There are other suitable men, and you haven’t even tried to meet one. Do you mean to marry him?”

She was as startled by his presumption as by how direct he was. She knew she could slap him and storm off. But she didn’t want to create a scene. She darted a glance around. No one seemed to notice them, but if there was a quarrel, they would. She could laugh and say something cutting and witty. But she didn’t feel very witty. Or she could pretend to blush and hide her face. That was paltry.

Instead, she could only stare.

His eyes never left hers, and his voice was so soft and confidential that she’d forgotten other partygoers surrounded them, until he’d shocked her. Again he seemed to have woven a net around her, becoming the only person in her immediate world. She had to respond in some way.

“I don’t have to answer that,” she said.

He shrugged. “No, you don’t. But you don’t deny it, so that’s an answer in itself. So I’ll ask another. Are your intentions honorable?”

Now she did laugh. “Yes, of course,” she said. “Look, my lord, I come from prison, but I committed no crime. I lived among criminals for years, so I, of all people, know the penalties for mischief. But why would I want to make any? Have you thought of that? I just want to live in peace and tranquillity. That’s my goal; those are my intentions.”

He leaned back and looked at her with lazy amusement.

“And now I’ve a question for you,” she said. “If Geoff’s your good friend, then why are you making such a dead set at me yourself?”

He laughed. “If I knew Geoff was serious about you, my dear,” he said softly, “I wouldn’t go near you. But I don’t know that. Do you?”

She shook her head. “No. But if he was, I’d like it, very much.”

“I see. And why don’t you think I’m your friend?”

“Because friends don’t try to seduce friends.”

He laughed again “I can’t argue that,” he said. “But what better way to make friends?”

Now she knew he was joking. She studied him. Again he dominated the scene and made her forget all others. But why? He was tall, fair, and not very handsome. For reasons she still didn’t completely understand, he was also undeniably and utterly desirable. There! She’d thought it and wouldn’t deny it. It was amazing that he made her feel such stirrings that she’d even think about such a thing.

But he was more than seductive. She believed he was, even with his less than honorable intentions toward her, an honorable man. She hadn’t met many, but she knew one when she found one. He deserved an answer.

“Geoff was a gentleman to me when no one treated me like a person, much less a lady,” she told him. “When I was sixteen I married a man I hated, because it was my father’s wish. And, I admit, I was afraid of what would happen to me if I didn’t. It was hell. Now I’m free, but I find I’m not. I can’t be, without a husband. I don’t want affaires, or amusements, or a life in the heights of Society. I just want to be left in peace. I want to be loved by a good, decent man and not plagued by others. That’s it, that’s all, but that’s what I want. Now, can you see anything wrong with that?”

It was his turn to study her. Then he looked over her shoulder. “There,” he said. “Look there, to your left. That woman in the yellow gown?”

She turned her head to see a brown-haired woman of middle years, with a thick body that showed too plainly in her thin, expensive silken gown. If she hadn’t had such a disagreeable expression, she might have been somewhat attractive. But the expression seemed part of her general slumped, disconsolate pose.

“Lady Blodgett married at seventeen,” he said softly. “It was a match made by her family, which is not uncommon. She’s had four children in the seven years since. I know, as the world does, that she despises her husband, Lord Blodgett.”

As Daisy tried to register the fact that the woman was near her own age, Leland went on, “And there, behind her. The lady in scarlet with the improbably red hair? Nothing like the glorious natural sunrise of your own. But do you see the redhead with so many plumes in her hair she looks like a demented macaw? She’s the life of every soirée and a dashing and desperate flirt. She was married, at eighteen, by her family’s decree, to a man more than twice her age. He’s not her love, or anyone else’s; he’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work. But Lady Blodgett is the one that has affairs, not the chattering macaw. She only drinks her way through every social occasion.”

He looked at her again. “I’m sorry, Daisy, but however terrible your circumstances, they weren’t unique; you’re not the only female ever forced into marriage with a lout. You were in prison, true. But theirs was the prison of convention. Yes, you faced privation. But theirs wasn’t an easy path, either. Do you think it matters? Do you think if they’d a second chance, if their husbands keeled over tonight and set them free, that they’d be content with mere peace in the future? I doubt it. They’d look for joy. Life is to be lived while it can be, Daisy. Peace comes to all of us sooner or later, the eternal kind. Turmoil isn’t all bad, and life can never be lived in peace until you find it for yourself, within yourself.”

He stopped, and then surprised her by laughing out loud. “Oh Lord,” he said, running a hand over his eyes. “Did you hear that? What claptrap. What right have I to recommend something I’ve never found?” His eyes were dark as the sky above them as he stared down at her. “But that’s what I believe, Daisy. That’s what I want to believe.”

He shook his head. “And I never even mentioned the best reason for marrying a man of an appropriate age. What an oversight, especially from me! Pleasure in the marriage bed, my dear,” he said, bending his head and whispering. “If it’s good, it’s worth twenty years of peace, any day or night.”

She shivered at the feeling of his warm, whispered breath on her ear. “Do you mean to discourage Geoff about me?”

He cocked his head to the side. “You disappoint me, Daisy; you cut me to the quick. No, I don’t. I just wonder if you’ve thought it through. Because if you decide a decade from now, when Geoff may need you most, that you’d rather play in another bed than sleep in his, you might very well break his heart. I’ve seen that happen. I’ve no wish for Geoff to feel what my father did, though I’ll allow that I like him much more than I did that sorry old man. My father doubtless deserved what he got, but sometimes I wonder if that didn’t make him what he became.

“Mama cuckolded him with a Gypsy, to start, which is how I got my half brother, Daffyd. It didn’t stop there. She became more discreet, as well as less fertile, but no more constant. Don’t do that to Geoff, whatever you do, Daisy. Because that, I couldn’t stand, or stand for.”

“And all this is for Geoff?” she asked.

“Why no,” he said, with a huge smile. “Of course not. It may have been at first, but now? I want you; of course you know that.”

She stood a moment, staring at him, and then she sighed. “Well, keep wanting, if it makes you happy.”

“The point is, I’d like to make you happy.”

“Ha!” she said without humor. “Much luck with that. The best way to do that is to forget your desires. I don’t share them, I don’t like them, so you might as well cut line, and that’s the truth.”

“Them?” he asked.

“Don’t play the fool, you know exactly what I mean!” she said angrily. “What you were talking about.”

He looked puzzled.

“The marital act,” she whispered.

He frowned in incomprehension.

“Coupling, having it off, swiving, f-you know what I’m saying,” she hissed.

“Oh,” he said so blandly, she knew he’d understood right away and had been toying with her. “I see. So why do you want to marry Geoff? He’s a vigorous man, and though he plays the doting papa with you, I assure you he is not a monk. There’s a certain widow in Claridges Street who’d swear, happily, to that, too. She’s not the only one. He prefers relationships to encounters, but that’s not always possible.”

Daisy stared.

“Poor Daisy,” he said softly, his eyes caressing her. “You didn’t know? If you think he’d be a safe harbor from demands of the flesh, I promise you that isn’t so. If you love the man, you’ll have to love him body and soul. Come, you’re no fool. Your late husband was doubtless a beast; that doesn’t mean all men are. So many women wouldn’t be mad about lovemaking if that were true. I’d love to show you why.”

“I’m sure you would!” she said, and scowled, knowing that was a feeble retort. But she had to think about what he’d said as much as about how he made her feel just by being close, before she could come up with something clever. “I’d like to go in now,” she said stiffly. “Geoff must be wondering where I am.”

“Doubtless,” he said calmly, and offered her his arm.

“Excuse me, my lord, but have you seen Mrs. Tanner?” Helena asked the earl breathlessly. “I’ve been looking everywhere for her.”

He broke off the conversation he’d been having, said good-bye to the gentleman he’d been talking to, and took Helena aside. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “She’s with Haye.”

“Not worry?” she gasped. “Being off somewhere with him could be fatal to her reputation!”

The earl laughed. “In the ordinary way, possibly. But not here. I saw them go outside to the garden. Don’t worry, rackety he may be, but Leland knows I have her under my wing, and he wouldn’t do anything to harm her in any way.”

“But being seen alone with him would harm her,” Helena insisted.

“He can’t be alone with her, because half the party has been out that door in the past half hour, if only to breathe. It is deucedly hot in here. Would you care to come out with me, to find them?”

She shook her head. “Thank you, my lord, but I wouldn’t presume. I’ll just step out by myself.”

“No,” he said, taking her hand and putting it on his arm. “Come with me. There’s no need for you to go alone.” He smiled at her. She wore a neat blue gown with long sleeves, her hair was arranged primly, and the only ornament she wore was a golden locket at her throat. Still, if she hadn’t been a companion, he thought, she’d have gotten a companion for herself by now. Helena Masters was a fine-looking woman, and a gentle-spoken, intelligent one, too.

“You take your duties seriously,” he said, as they strolled toward the door to the terrace. “That’s good but not necessary, here at least. Daisy may be young and inexperienced at social matters, but she’s got a fine head on her shoulders.”

She nodded. “But the viscount, while a friend of yours, is a man with a certain reputation, and after meeting him, I quite understand how he got it. That’s all I worry about.”

He stopped. “Never say Lee’s got you entranced, too? The man has half the females in London ready to eat crumbs from his hand, but I thought you’d be able to resist him!”

Her eyes crinkled as she smiled, making her look much less severe, transforming her entirely, in fact, he thought. “No, no such luck,” she said, laughing. “I haven’t been enraptured in many a long year.”

“Leland didn’t beguile you?” he asked in mock amazement. “Now, that is too bad. We have to find someone who does. Maybe I’ll give it a try. What are you looking for in a gentleman?”

She saw that though he was joking, he was concerned. Her smile became sad. “I look for the impossible, my lord, because no man looks at me.”

“Untrue!” he said. “Or if true, ridiculous. At least to me, if only because I’ve so recently come from a land that, for all its faults, recognizes a man or a woman for who they are rather than for what they’re worth in pounds and shillings. You, Mrs. Masters, could name your price in rubies, were you to go to the colony at Botany Bay.”

“Really? What do you suggest I steal to get there, then?” she asked.

He’d been smiling, but now his smile was arrested, and he looked at her as though he’d just seen something new in her.

She held her breath.

And then, as though called, he looked up.

Daisy and the viscount were coming back into the room. And then the earl appeared to forget everything except that Daisy was smiling at him.

While everyone else in the room turned to stare at Daisy, with sudden avid interest.