How To Seduce A Duke

Chapter 9

The Harringtons’ home, though located just diagonally from Lady Upperton’s residence and the Old Rakes of Marylebone Club, was small in comparison to the other grand homes packed cheek by jowl on Cavendish Square.

Still, when Mary was ushered into the gallery room for the musicale with her sisters, her mouth fell open in awe.

Every wall was filled with paintings-landscapes, still-life compositions, and portraits with allegorical, religious, or mythological themes. Clearly, the stunning paintings were the work of a single artist of unmatched talent.

What so intrigued Mary, however, was the fact that beautiful, aristocratic-looking women-she recognized some from biting caricatures she’d seen on display at Hatchard’s-were prominently featured in almost every single one.

As she and her sisters moved past at least ten rows of chattering guests, Mary’s ears suddenly filled with a collection of random notes. She had just turned her gaze to the musicians, tuning their instruments at the front of the gallery, when she noticed Lord Lotharian in the distance.

Lotharian managed to rise from his chair situated in the first row of gallery seating. He beckoned forth the footman, who quickly guided the Royle sisters to several chairs near Lady Upperton and himself, Sir Lilywhite, and Lord Gallantine.

Lady Upperton hugged Anne and Elizabeth, then allowed them to take their seats toward the far end of the row beside the Old Rakes.

When she greeted Mary, however, she snatched up her hand and held it firm. “You may sit beside me, my dear,” she told Mary, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She gestured to a chair beside her near the center aisle.

“Why, thank you, Lady Upperton.” When Mary sat down, she realized that the chair beside her was still unoccupied.

Ordinarily, this would not have concerned her in the least, but when Lady Upperton, on two separate occasions just moments apart, shooed guests from sitting in the single empty chair, Mary knew that a plan was afoot. She studied the round old woman and the lanky lord beside her. They merely peered innocently back at her.

But Mary knew better. She only hoped the scheme did not include the wretched Duke of Blackstone.

Suddenly, from somewhere behind her, a wave of enthusiastic applause rolled forward toward the small dais where the musicians had assembled for their performance.

She twisted around in her seat just in time to see that the crowd was applauding Quinn, the famous war hero, who was just starting up the aisle. On his arm, to Mary’s dismay, was the lovely widow Lady Tidwell.

Mary felt a twinge in her middle.

Blast. She should have also asked Mrs. Polkshank if Lord Wetherly was to attend. Why hadn’t she thought to do that? She mightn’t have attended the musicale at all, or at the very least could have better prepared herself to see Quinn…with her.

As Quinn escorted Lady Tidwell closer, his eyes sought out Mary’s, and once found, he smiled brightly at her.

The click of his cane grew louder, and abruptly she realized that he was perhaps coming to speak with her. She bit her lower lip, then sucked the top one into her mouth for a moment, hoping to send a little color into them. She glanced down at her gown.

Yes, she was ready to face him now.

As gracefully as she could manage, Mary rose from her seat, beaming at Quinn. She lifted a welcoming hand to him. He reached out his hand as he moved toward her, when suddenly the musicians struck the first chord.

Quinn stilled his step, and both he and Lady Tidwell quickly began to scan the rows nearby for open chairs.

Perdition! Mary wrenched her head around and glared at the conductor. He was ruining everything. She only required a moment more to speak with Quinn.

Just time to exchange a few words, to reassure him that she would wait as long as it took for them to be together.

When she turned back to look at Quinn, she saw that he was no longer moving toward her. Instead, he and Lady Tidwell were moving back down the aisle to two unoccupied seats in the middle of the gallery.

When they were about to seat themselves, Quinn paused and did something very odd. He smiled at Mary once more, then raised his eyebrows and angled his head and eyes toward the center aisle.

Mary followed the direction of his gaze.

Oh no…there he was-Rogan.

He was wearing that cocky lopsided grin of his and, worse yet, was moving straight for the empty chair beside her.

No, no, no, this can’t be happening.

Mrs. Polkshank had told her that the duke would not be in attendance this evening! It was the only reason she’d agreed to come.

Thinking quickly, Mary tossed her reticule and lace fan on the chair, hoping he might believe the seat was already taken.

But he didn’t.

He was not the least concerned that he was distracting the musicians when he nudged past the conductor and headed straight for the chair beside her.

“Thank you, my dear Miss Royle.” Quite casually, he lifted her reticule and fan and handed them to her. “How good of you to hold a chair for me.”

Mary thought to imply that the reticule and fan belonged to someone else and that he was taking some unknown lady’s seat, but that would be lying. She looked down at the articles now sitting in her lap. No, such a lie would not have been successful anyway. After all, the fan had been created from the exact same lace as her dress. Even a man was sure to notice that.

For more than two hours the musicians played and played.

Mary had decided right away that she wasn’t going to look at Rogan, though her eyes were straining to do just that.

She would not allow herself to look.

He would just smile back at her in a condescending way, thinking to himself how he’d fooled her so completely. That she actually had believed that he had been doing Quinn a grand favor by watching over her-when in fact she was almost certain that he had devised their separation to begin with.

The beast.

To occupy herself, Mary watched the minute hand on the tall case clock in the corner start its full-circle journey around the dial.

Hardly amusing. And after just one minute her eyes were inching toward Rogan. Couldn’t allow that.

So Mary played a little game whereby she would close her eyes and count to sixty, then open them again just as the minute hand moved on.

She grew bored with that activity after just two minutes.

How would she last the evening with the duke sitting right beside her and Quinn just a few rows behind with the lovely widow? She would go mad if she had to endure it much longer.

As the moments passed, she began to wonder if Quinn was enjoying his evening with Lady Tidwell.

A quick look at the couple would not be so very improper, would it? Not if it was a small glance, and nothing more.

Mary set her fan atop her knee, and over the next seconds, removed her hand. The lace fan tumbled to the floor between her seat and Rogan’s.

She bent to retrieve it, but immediately the duke’s hand shot down between the seats and wrapped his fingers around the fan.

Luck was not with her. Of course the wretched man chose that very moment to act in a gentlemanly manner.

Brilliant, just brilliant.

Still, Mary bent at her waist and plunged her hand between the chairs as well. She fished her hand around the feet of chairs, pretending she was not aware Rogan had already picked up the fan. As her hand scrabbled around the floor, she turned her head as much as she dared and wedged her eyes as far to the left as she could manage, hoping to catch a glimpse of Quinn.

And catch it, she did. Only the appalling sight she glimpsed made her turn around completely in her chair to be sure of what she had seen.

Quinn was holding Lady Tidwell’s hand between both of his own. Oh God. He held her hand the very same way he had held hers in the parlor, not so many evenings ago.

The backs of Mary’s eyes pricked as she caught Quinn staring, most adoringly, into the widow’s eyes. He squeezed her hand in his.

A tear breached Mary’s lower lashes and splashed onto her cheek.

“Turn around, gel. People are taking notice.” Lady Upperton grasped Mary’s arm and turned her around in her chair.

“Your fan, Miss Royle.” Rogan glanced down at her, no doubt seeing her tears, as he closed her fan and placed it into her gloved hand, along with his handkerchief.

Deuce it. Mary tried hard to blink back the tears welling in her eyes without needing Rogan’s linen.

She took a deep breath, then raised her chin, trying to keep the tears poised in her eyes.

It was then that she noticed she was peering up at a very large painting positioned behind the musicians.

Focus on the painting. Not on what Quinn might be doing.

It was a full-length oil portrait of a beautiful woman. Clearly, she was highborn. She had an aristocratic look about her.

Her expression was demure, yet in her eyes Mary could almost believe she saw sparks. The painted sky behind the woman was dark and dramatic, which made her white gown vivid and fresh. Her hair was piled high upon her head, with coils of ringlets spilling down the sides of her throat. Around her shoulders, in stark contrast with her almost virginal appearance, was a crimson-and-gold Kashmir shawl.

Mary looked at the shawl, so bold and vivid, and then once more she focused on the woman’s eyes. They seemed to flicker with a sly vitality.

With feminine power.

A knowing smile lifted Mary’s lips.

She felt almost as though she knew this woman. Could see her soul through her eyes.

“Mary?” Lady Upperton nudged her shoulder.

She turned to look across at the old woman, but the moment she did, the tears she’d fought slipped down her cheeks. She scrubbed them away with Rogan’s handkerchief, then folded the linen in a square and squeezed it in her palm.

“Mary?”

Belatedly, Mary realized that the musicians had finally stopped playing at last, and that Lady Upperton was peering pointedly at her. “Oh, dear, I do apologize, Lady Upperton. I found myself quite taken by the woman in that painting.”

“You would not be the first.” Then it almost sounded as if Lady Upperton huffed. “Sir Joseph possesses many paintings by the artist George Romney, but this one is his prize.”

“Why is that?”

“Because ’tis rumored that the Prince Regent himself commissioned the painting…when the lady was his mistress.” Lady Upperton caught Mary’s arm and pulled her near. “But when she lost his favor to another, he never paid the commission or claimed the painting. So there it sat in Romney’s studio until his death, when the house and its contents were sold by his heir.”

Mary leaned back in her chair and gazed up at the painting.

From the corner of her eye, she could see that Rogan was looking up at it as well.

“She was a classic beauty,” he admitted, punctuating his words with a greatly affected sigh.

Mary did not look at him. Instead she directed her next question to Lady Upperton. “Who was she?”

“Are you serious? You really do not know?” Rogan rudely broke into the conversation. “My, you are a country miss, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.” Mary glowered at him. “But I was not addressing you, Your Grace.”

Rogan chuckled. “My, my, Miss Royle. Either you have taken a sudden dislike to me…or you are working very hard to play unattainable. Which is it?” He lifted one eyebrow, which only served to infuriate her further.

“I think you know, Your Grace.” Mary glared at him, holding her angry gaze as long as she could manage.

Those ladies and gentleman of society who sat nearby suddenly quieted and watched them, as if eagerly awaiting a sparring match between the country miss and the highborn duke.

Lady Upperton noticed the other guests’ focused attention and was quick about stopping the heated exchange.

She snorted an overdone laugh. “Goodness now, the war is over, let us not begin another.” She tapped Mary’s arm with her fan, forcing her to break her daggered gaze, then tamped down her tone. “The woman is Frances, Countess of Jersey.”

A cold finger seemed to run down Mary’s spine. “You do not mean the Lady Jersey.”

The woman who wrapped up the cold, blue babies in her shawl and handed them off to Papa?

She shook the idea from her head.

Impossible. Impossible!

“Yes, I do.” Lady Upperton sighed. “As you can see, she was quite beautiful in her day. And she took full advantage of that beauty.”

“So, she is no longer living.”

“No, Miss Royle, she is alive. I saw her only last year,” Rogan mentioned nonchalantly. “She…was an acquaintance of my father’s.”

“You actually have been introduced to Lady Jersey?” She asked, with badly feigned indifference. As much as she wished she was not interested, she was.

“I was, only in passing though.” Then, his tone grew richer, as smooth and sweet as port and chocolate. The sort of voice a man draws forth to lure, to woo. His tone dropped as well, and he began speaking so quietly that Mary was compelled to lean nearer to hear what he was saying at all.

“She no longer resembles the siren in these paintings, however,” he told her. “She is handsome enough, but no longer beautiful, unlike you, my dear.” He paused for several moments and merely stared into Mary’s eyes, making her heart pound ridiculously.

He reached out his hand then and for the briefest moment slid two fingers down the length of a dark curl dangling at her throat. “Her hair color is not silky and rich, as yours is. Instead, it is gray.”

Mary swallowed hard.

Rogan’s gaze slid slowly down her form, riding every curve like a lover’s caress. “She no longer possesses the slim yet supple body a man dreams of pressing against his own.”

Mary flipped open her fan. The gallery had grown very warm now that the audience had started to move about. How she wished he would just go away. Go speak with his brother…and his lady friend.

She turned away from Rogan, hoping that perhaps Lady Upperton had heard something of the duke’s lascivious words and would cease creating opportunities for their meeting. But the old woman was deep in conversation with Lord Lotharian, too preoccupied to have noticed that anything was amiss.

Rogan evidently noticed this too. For he brought his mouth to Mary’s ear and whispered hotly into it. “Shall I tell you more, Miss Royle? Or would you like to step into the courtyard for some cool air? I seem to recall you enjoy night walks in the garden.”

She stared at him. “I cannot believe your gall. No, no, that is not right. I do believe it. I just should have expected it.”

“You wound me, Miss Royle.” He took her free hand in his and pressed it to his heart. “I only sought to make you feel better…after your upset.”

She raised her open fan beside her mouth. “And you expect me to believe that? You are quite wicked, Your Grace,” she told him in a hushed tone.

She had wished her words to carry power, but instead they’d come out weak and missish.

It was all she could manage, for suddenly she found herself quite breathless.

Oh, botheration. Snapping her fan to her side, she tore her gaze from Rogan’s and rudely interrupted the conversation in progress beside her. “Lady Upperton, does Lady Jersey still reside in London?”

It was a valid question, not just a means to avoid Rogan and his annoyingly heated whispers. Perhaps Anne and Elizabeth could speak with Lady Jersey and put their fanciful notions of being blood royals to rest.

Lady Upperton shrugged. “I vow, I have not seen her in society in many months. I had heard she was in Cheltenham recently.”

Rogan suddenly stood from his chair, startling Mary with his overwhelming presence. She couldn’t help but stare up at him. Once again she was taken with how enormous he really was.

His height was nothing less than extraordinary, and his form, well, it was muscled and solid-so different from Quinn’s lean, elegant body.

She tried to act calm and collected as she gazed up at his strong, square jaw, glittering dark brown eyes, and…those lips. Oh, she remembered that mouth all too well. Mary swished her fan before her face.

It was sweltering in the gallery. Was she the only guest who noticed?

Rogan smiled down at her, making her flush.

She could not deny that some women might find him incredibly handsome, if they favored that dark, rugged look of his. Which, of course, she did not.

Still, there was something very appealing about him. Though that was reasonable. He was Quinn’s brother after all, and they did share blood.

Still, nothing about them was similar. While Rogan’s wavy hair was dark as ebony, so black that it glinted blue in the candlelight, his brother’s hair was fair and brought to Mary’s mind the color of wheat just before harvest.

She raised her eyes from his lips and, to her embarrassment, met his gaze directly. Lud, he’d been all too aware of her study, and the grin on his lips told her he was quite amused by it as well.

Unexpectedly, he extended a hand to her. “Despite what you think you saw happen a moment ago, I know Quinn would be most pleased to see you, Miss Royle. He mentioned his hope that you would be in attendance this evening.”

“Really? He did?”

“He did, indeed.” Rogan’s voice had instantly returned to a more civil, less rakish tone. “I was about to go and convince him and his guest to drink a glass of wine with me. Would you care to join us?”

Was it possible she had misinterpreted Quinn’s affection for Lady Tidwell?

She supposed it could have been compassion in his eyes for a widow lost in her melancholy.

She turned a smile up at Rogan. “Yes, Your Grace. I should very much like to…if Lady Upperton will permit it.” Mary looked at the plump elderly woman, who exchanged a quick glance with Lotharian beside her.

“Very well, Mary,” Lady Upperton said, “but we’ll away within the hour. Take care that you have returned to us before then.” Her painted red lips slanted with amusement. “I trust you remember where the clock is?”

Mary flushed at the comment. “Yes, I do.” She looked up at Rogan again, then, lifting her hand, placed it gently in his gloved palm.

His fingers curled around hers, and at once she felt the heat of him, even through her silk gloves.

The warmth rose into her cheeks again, much to her humiliation, as he drew her up from the chair. He offered her his arm, and together they walked past the conductor arranging his music and down the crowded center aisle toward Quinn.

And Lady Tidwell.

Mary rose up on her toes as they squeezed through the crush of guests, hoping to snare a glimpse of Quinn, her viscount. Her intended.

Rogan, whose height in this instance was a clear advantage, did not share her problem of impeded view.

“Damn me,” Rogan hissed. “He’s gone.”

“What?” Mary heard the desperation in her own voice and cringed at the sound of it.

She had no desire for Rogan to detect her lack of confidence. Though what else should she feel, when her future husband was obligated to take the arm of a beautiful, lonely widow every night?

And so Mary added, “The musicale was longer than most, don’t you agree? Your brother has likely gone to the refreshment table.” She looked up at Rogan and smiled prettily at him. “Shall we do the same?”

Rogan locked her arm tightly against his side while they walked, as if he thought she might flee. He looked down at her then with a gaze so smoldering that Mary trembled, suddenly realizing the danger of her feigned flirtation.

But he wanted her to feel that way, didn’t he? Nerve-shot and unsure of herself?

This was how rakes maintained the advantage, was it not?

And at that moment, as she and Rogan walked down the aisle together, it occurred to her that there was no avoiding the duke, no escaping him, no matter how diligently she plotted to do just that.

As much as she hated to believe it, she knew that she must accept the fact that Rogan had taken control of her relationship with his brother.

If she neared Quinn, Rogan would simply taunt her with his wickedness, and in an instant she’d be knocked from her footing.

He knows just how to shake my confidence. I should slap him. She gazed firecely at the duke. Again.

Yes, he was a master at wielding his sensuality like a weapon against her. He had had years of practice playing the rake, after all.

From what she’d heard, he’d had years of experience too, thrusting and parrying with the most skilled and beautiful of society women.

She, however, was naught but an inexperienced country miss. Clearly, I am no match for him.

Mary stilled her step suddenly as a thought occurred to her. She peered into his eyes as he gazed down at her.

Or am I?

How adept is he in warding off the advances of an innocent? A little smile pulled upward at her lips.

Well, she decided, perhaps it was time to find out.

Rogan, feeling her delay, paused too. “Are you well?” he asked.

“Perfectly.” Mary smiled up at him.

For now I have the perfect plan.

One that you, given your nature, cannot possibly be prepared for.

One that would send the Black Duke running for his country house.

Yes, the seducer was about to become…the seduced.