Seducing an Angel

/4/

STEPHEN was feeling dazzled and uncomfortable, amused and bemused.

What the devil had he run into tonight – quite literally?

Had she really noticed him yesterday from beneath that dark veil of hers while he and Con had been noticing /her/, and then singled him out this evening and quite deliberately collided with him so that he would have little choice but to waltz with her? /I know you are not trying to seduce me. It is the other way around. I am trying to seduce you. And determined to succeed, I may add/. /Because you are beautiful, Lord Merton/. /I would rather share my bed with someone who is perfect than with someone who is not/.

Her words echoed in his mind, though he could hardly believe he had not dreamed them.

He offered his arm when the music ended, and she linked her hand through it rather than setting it along his sleeve in a more formal manner. The ballroom was emptying fast. Everyone was heading toward the dining room and the salons to either side of it. Every one was ready to eat and rest from the exertions of dancing.

And everyone was looking at the two of them. Or at least, since most people were too polite to stare openly, everyone was /aware/ of them, focused upon them. It was not something he was imagining, Stephen knew.

And it was understandable. Lady Paget's arrival at Meg's ball, uninvited, had caused a considerable stir.

He was not embarrassed by the fact that he was with her. Indeed, he was glad of it, since his escort would save her from any open insult or the cut direct, at which so many members of the beau monde excelled. He did not know any of the facts of Lady Paget's case, but Meg and Sherry had not turned her out. Indeed, they had gone out of their way to make her feel welcome. It behooved all their guests, then, to show her courtesy at the very least.

He spotted a small unoccupied table with two chairs squashed into one side of the salon to the left of the dining room and led Lady Paget toward it.

"Shall we sit here?" he suggested.

Perhaps it would be more comfortable for her here than at one of the long tables in the dining room, where she would be very much on public view.

"TГЄte-Г -tГЄte?" she said. "How clever of you, Lord Merton."

He seated her at the table and went into the dining room to fill a plate for each of them.

Had she really been offering herself to him as a /mistress/? Or did her intentions extend only to tonight? Or had he misunderstood altogether?

Had she simply been joking with him? But no, he had not misunderstood.

She had openly talked about seducing him. Lord, she had asked him if he was afraid she would kill him with an axe /while his head was upon the pillow beside hers/.

Someone caught hold of his arm and squeezed it tightly. Meg was beaming up at him.

"Stephen," she said, "I am /so/ proud of you. And of myself for having raised my only brother to be a gentleman. Thank you."

"For…?" He raised his eyebrows.

"For dancing with Lady Paget," she said. "I /know/ what it is like to be a pariah, Stephen, though no one has ever quite ostracized /me/.

We all owe one another good manners, especially when we are making judgments upon one another based solely upon gossip and rumor. Will you sit with us for supper?"

"Lady Paget is in the next room, waiting for me to bring her a plate of food," he said.

"Oh, good," she said. "Nessie and Elliott have gone to look for her.

They intended inviting her to join them. I am proud of /all/ of you.

Though I suppose you are all doing it as much for my sake as for Lady Paget's."

"Where is the Marquess of Claverbrook?" he asked.

"Oh, he has gone to bed," she said. "The foolish man insisted upon being in the receiving line and sitting and watching the first two sets, even though he was desperately tired and hates social occasions even when he is not. And then he started grumbling about the fact that we were going to allow the waltz. No one ever allowed anything so improper in /his/ day. Et cetera, et cetera." Her eyes twinkled. "That was it. I banished him to his bed. Duncan swears that I am the only person who can manage his grandfather, but so could everyone else if they were not so /afraid/ of him. He is a veritable lamb beneath all the ferocity."

Stephen joined the line at the food table and filled two plates with a variety of savories and sweets in the hope that Lady Paget would like at least some of them.

When he returned to the salon, she was fanning her face, a haughty, contemptuous smile playing about her lips. All the tables around her were occupied. No one was talking to her or even about her – not audibly, at least, but it was obvious to Stephen that everyone was very aware of her. He guessed that some of the people there had chosen the salon deliberately /because/ she was there, so that they could report on her behavior in drawing rooms across London for the next week or so and complain of the outrage of having had to share a supper room with her.

Such was human nature.

He set one plate in front of her and seated himself opposite with the other. Someone had already poured two cups of tea.

"I hope," he said, "I have brought you /something/ that you like."

She glanced down at her plate.

"You have," she said in that low, seductive voice of hers. "You have brought yourself."

He wondered if she always talked so outrageously.

She was probably – no, she was /undoubtedly/ the most sexually attractive woman he had ever set eyes upon. Her heat had seemed to envelop him all the time they waltzed, though she had danced quite properly and had not once tried to close the distance between their bodies.

"Were you afraid I would not return?" he asked her. "Have you been feeling very conspicuous and self-conscious?"

"Because everyone here is expecting me to draw an axe from beneath my skirts and twirl it about my head while letting out a bloodcurdling shriek?" she asked him, her eyebrows raised. "No, I take no notice of such nonsense."

She was very forthright. But perhaps she had discovered that the best defense was often offense.

"Gossip usually /is/ nonsense," he said.

That scornful smile still hovered about her lips as she selected a lobster patty from her plate and lifted it to her mouth.

"Usually," she agreed, raising her eyes to his as she bit into the patty. She chewed the mouthful and swallowed. "But sometimes not, Lord Merton. You must wonder."

He could only follow her lead.

"If you killed your husband?" he said. "It is none of my business, ma'am."

She laughed – and several heads turned openly their way.

"Then you are a fool," she said. "If you are going to allow me to seduce you, you ought perhaps to have a healthy fear of what I might do to you when your guard is down and you are naked in my bed."

She was becoming more outrageous. He hoped he was not flushing.

"But perhaps," he said, "I am not /going/ to allow it, ma'am. Indeed, I do not believe I would ever /allow/ myself to be seduced. If I were to take a mistress or a casual lover, it would be something I /chose/ to do because I wished it and because /she/ wished it. It would not happen because I had fallen a mindless prey to a seductress."

He really did not have any appetite, he realized as he looked down at his own plate. Why had he piled so much food onto it?

And why was he having this conversation? Had he really just spoken those words aloud to a lady – /if I were to take a mistress or a casual lover/…?

Had he completely lost all sense of propriety? Outspoken and notorious as she was, she was still a lady. And he was still a gentleman.

"And I do not fear you," he added.

Perhaps he ought to. Perhaps what he had just said to her was so much hot air. He had never kept a long-term mistress, though he was by no means a virgin. He had often slightly envied Con, who always seemed to find a respectable widow with whom to conduct a discreet affair when he was in town. A few years ago it had been Mrs. Hunter, last year Mrs.

Johnson. Stephen was not sure if there was anyone this year.

If he himself was now considering taking a mistress or a lover – and, Lord help him, he /was/ considering it – was it because he had suddenly chosen to do so quite deliberately and rationally in the middle of a ball or because he had been /seduced/ into doing so by a woman who was quite blatant about her intentions?

She was not at all his type, he reminded himself. Not the type of woman he would ever consider for a /bride/, anyway. But he was not considering her for a bride.

Unbidden, an image of what she would look like naked on a bed flashed into his mind, and he felt an alarming tightening in the area of his groin.

Enough of this!

"Lady Paget," he said firmly, "it is high time we changed the subject.

Tell me something about yourself. Something about your girlhood, if you will. Where did you grow up?"

She selected a small cake from her plate and lifted her head to smile at him.

"Mostly here, in London," she said, "or at one of the spas. My father frequented the gaming tables and went wherever the gambling crowds went and the stakes were highest. We lived in rented rooms and hotels. But lest you think this a pathetic story, Lord Merton, and one designed to draw your pity, may I add that he was as bountiful with his affections toward my brother and me as he was in wagering at the tables. And he had the devil's own luck, to quote him. By that he meant that he always won marginally more than he lost. I cannot even remember my mother, but I had a governess from an early age, and she was as dear to me as any mother could be. We saw a great deal of the world together, Miss Haytor and I – both in reality and through books. Your own upbringing would have been far more privileged than mine, but it cannot have been happier or more entertaining."

For the first time he sensed that she was lying, though it was impossible to know about which details of her story. She just sounded too defensive to be telling the truth. Such a life, if the bare facts of what she had said were the truth, must surely have left a child with anxieties and insecurities. And every child, he believed, needed a fixed home.

"More privileged?" he said. "Perhaps. I grew up at first in a vicarage in a Shropshire village – my father was the vicar – and then in a smaller cottage in the same village after his death. I lived with my sisters.

Meg, now the Countess of Sheringford, was the eldest and, like your Miss Haytor, she was a splendid substitute mother. Nessie, now the Duchess of Moreland, is my middle sister, and Kate, now Baroness Montford, is next above me in age. I was the youngest. I had a happy boyhood until I inherited my title at the age of seventeen. It was a considerable shock since none of us had even known that I was next in line for it. I do not regret that I did not know, though. It can be character-building to grow up expecting to have to work for one's living and the support of one's sisters. At least, I hope it built my character. I understand privilege and all its advantages and disadvantages better perhaps than I would had I grown up with expectations."

"Lady Sheringford is your /sister/?" she said, her eyebrows raised.

"Yes," he said.

"And she married the notorious Earl of Sheringford," she said, "who ran off with another man's wife on his own wedding day not so many years ago and had a child with her."

It always bothered Stephen that he could not tell the truth of what had happened both before and after Sherry took Mrs. Turner away from London the night before he was to marry Turner's sister. But he had promised Sherry that he never would.

"Toby," he said. "He is a cherished member of our family. Meg loves him as dearly as she loves her own two children. So does Sherry – the Earl of Sheringford. He is their son. My nephew."

"I have touched upon a raw nerve," she said, setting an elbow on the table and cupping her chin and one cheek in her hand. "Why did your sister marry him?"

"I suppose," he said, "because he asked. And because she wished to say yes."

She pursed her lips, and her eyes smiled their slightly scornful smile.

"You are annoyed," she said. "Am I being impertinent and intrusive, Lord Merton?"

"Not at all," he said. "I am the one who began the personal questions.

Have you just recently arrived in town?"

"Yes," she said.

"You are staying with relatives?" he asked her. "You mentioned a brother."

"I am not the sort of person relatives would wish to claim," she said.

"I live alone."

His eyes met hers.

"So very alone," she said. But her lips were smiling too now, as though she mocked herself, and one gloved finger of the hand that had been cupping her face a moment ago was now tracing the low neckline of her gown, as if absently. The top joint of the finger was beneath the emerald green fabric. Her elbow still rested on the table.

It was very deliberate, he realized as he felt the heat of the room more acutely.

"You came alone in your carriage this evening, then?" he asked. "Or did you bring a m – "

"I do not own a carriage," she said. "I came alone in a hackney carriage, Lord Merton, but I had the coachman set me down outside the square. It would have been lowering to arrive at the red carpet in a hired carriage, especially since I was uninvited. And yes, thank you, I will."

"Will…?" He looked inquiringly at her.

"Accept your offer to escort me home in your own carriage," she said, and her eyes were laughing now. "You /were/ about to offer, were you not? You must not embarrass me now by telling me you were not."

"I would be happy to escort you home, ma'am," he said. "Meg will lend one of her maids to accompany us."

She laughed softly, a low, seductive sound.

"How very inconvenient that would be," she said. "How would I be able to seduce you, Lord Merton, with a maid looking on, or take you inside with me when I arrive home with her trailing along behind?"

He was being drawn deeper and deeper into this scheme, he realized. She really did mean to take him as a lover.

It was perhaps understandable.

She had arrived alone in London recently to the discovery that her reputation had preceded her. She was a pariah. Even her brother – if he was himself in London – had abandoned her. If she was to see any company, attend any entertainments, she must do so alone and uninvited as she had tonight. She was indeed very alone. /And doubtless lonely/.

She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. She was a widow and only twenty-eight years old. Under normal circumstances she might now be looking forward to a brighter future, her mourning period at an end. But Lady Paget stood accused in public opinion of having murdered her husband. It seemed clear that she did not stand accused by the law – she was free. But public opinion was a powerful force.

Yes, she must be dreadfully lonely.

And she had decided to try to alleviate that aloneness and that loneliness by taking a lover.

It was perfectly understandable.

But she had chosen him.

"You are not going to be tiresome, are you," she asked him, "and insist upon being the perfect gentleman? You are not going to hand me out of your carriage outside my door and escort me to the door-sill and kiss the back of my hand as you bid me good night?"

He looked into her eyes and realized that sexual attraction and pity were a lethal mix.

"No," he said, "I am not going to do that, Lady Paget."

She removed her elbow from the table and looked down at her plate. But nothing took her fancy there. She looked back at him. There was a pulse beating quite noticeably at the side of her neck.

"I really have no interest in staying at this ball any longer, Lord Merton," she said. "I have danced and I have eaten and I have met you.

Take me home now."

He felt that tightening of the groin again and fought the onset of lust.

"I am afraid I cannot leave yet," he said. "I have solicited the hands of two young ladies for the next two sets."

"And you must honor such solicitation?" she said, her eyebrows arched upward.

"I must," he said. "I will."

"You /are/ a gentleman," she said. "How very provoking."

The salon was emptying fast, Stephen realized. From the ballroom, he could hear the sounds of the orchestra tuning their instruments. He stood and offered Lady Paget his hand.

"Allow me to escort you back to the ballroom and introduce you to – " he began.

But Elliott was making his way toward them, and it was obvious to Stephen why he was coming. The family was rallying round – though whether for Meg's sake or his own was not clear.

" – the Duke of Moreland," he said, completing his sentence. "My brother-in-law. Lady Paget, Elliott."

"It is a pleasure, ma'am," Elliott said, bowing and looking as if it were anything but.

"Your grace." Lady Paget inclined her head and grasped her fan as she stood. She looked instantly aloof and haughty.

"May I have the honor of dancing the next set with you, Lady Paget?"

Elliott asked.

"You may," she said, and set her hand on his proffered sleeve.

She did not look back at Stephen.

There was a grayish film on the surface of the untouched tea in their cups, he saw. Only two items had gone from her plate, none from his.

Just a few years ago it would have seemed an unpardonable waste.

He had better go and claim his next partner before the dancing started again, he decided. It really would not do to be late.

Was he really going to sleep with Lady Paget tonight?

And perhaps begin a longer-term liaison with her?

Ought he not to know more about her first? More about the death of her husband and the facts behind the very nasty rumors that had preceded her to London and made an outcast of her?

Had he been seduced after all?

He feared he had.

Was it too late to change his mind?

He feared it was.

Did he /want/ to?

He feared he did not.

He strode off in the direction of the ballroom.

The Duke of Moreland was the man who had been standing with the Earl of Merton when Cassandra had arrived at the ball. He was the man who looked very like yesterday's devil – Mr. Huxtable.

But the duke's eyes were blue and he looked somewhat less devilish than Mr. Huxtable and considerably more austere. He looked as if he might be a formidable adversary if one did something to cross his will.

She had done nothing. It was /he/ who had asked /her/ to dance. But he was, of course, a brother-in-law to Lady Sheringford and was doing what he could to contain the potential disaster of her appearance at his sister-in-law's ball. Perhaps he had also thought to rescue the Earl of Merton from her clutches.

Cassandra set her slightly scornful smile firmly in place.

The set was a lively one and offered very little opportunity for conversation. What little there was they spent in an exchange of meaningless pleasantries about the beauty of the floral decorations and the excellence of the orchestra and the superiority of the Marquess of Claverbrook's cook.

"May I return you to your… companion, ma'am?" the duke asked her when the set was at an end, though he surely knew that she had none.

"I came alone," she said, "but you may safely leave me here, your grace."

They were close to a set of open French windows. Perhaps she would slip outside and stroll awhile. She could see that there was a wide balcony out there and not too many people. She suddenly longed to escape.

"Then allow me," he said, taking her by the elbow, "to introduce you to a few people."

Before she could excuse herself, a brightly smiling older lady with a sober-looking gentleman approached them unbidden, and the Duke of Moreland introduced them to Cassandra as Sir Graham and Lady Carling.

"Lady Paget," Lady Carling said after they had exchanged bows and nods,

"I am positively green with envy, if you will excuse the pun, over your gown. Why can I /never/ find any fabric half so gorgeous whenever I look? Not that I would look good in that particular shade of green. I do believe I would fade into invisibility behind it. But even so… Oh, dear, Graham's eyes are glazing over, and Moreland is wondering when he can decently escape."

She laughed and linked an arm through Cassandra's.

"Come, Lady Paget," she said. "You and I will stroll together and discuss dress and bonnet fashions to our hearts' content."

And, true to her word, she led Cassandra off on a slow promenade of the perimeter of the ballroom floor as couples gathered on it for the next set.

"I am Lord Sheringford's mama," Lady Carling explained, "and I love him to distraction – though if you ever quote me on that, Lady Paget, I shall stoutly deny it. He has led me a merry dance over the years, but he will not have the satisfaction of knowing he has made me suffer, the wretch.

However, he has, despite himself, I believe, made an extremely good match with Margaret. She is a treasure beyond compare. I dote upon her and upon my two grandsons and one granddaughter even if the first son /was/ born out of wedlock, a fact that was not in any way his fault, was it?"

"Lady Carling," Cassandra said quietly, "I did not come here tonight to cause trouble."

"Well, of course you did not," that lady said, smiling warmly at her.

"But you /have/ caused something of a sensation, have you not? And you had the nerve to wear that bright dress into the bargain. I suppose you had no choice but to bring that glorious red hair too, but of course the gown /does/ draw even more attention to it than would otherwise be the case. I applaud your courage."

Cassandra looked for irony in the words or in Lady Carling's manner but was not sure she could find any.

"I scolded Duncan a few years ago," Lady Carling continued, "when he attended a ball uninvited after returning to London with all the baggage of a horrifying scandal weighing him down. It was all /very/ reminiscent of what you have done tonight. And do you know what was the very first thing he did after arriving at that ball, Lady Paget?"

Cassandra looked back at her, her eyebrows raised, though she thought she knew the answer.

"He collided with Margaret in the ballroom doorway," Lady Carling said,

"and he asked her to dance with him and then marry him – all in one sentence, if he is to be believed. I /do/ believe him because Margaret tells the same story and she is not prone to exaggeration. Yet they had never set eyes upon each other before that moment. Sometimes being daring and defying the /ton/ can be a worthwhile venture, Lady Paget. I can only hope that you will be as fortunate as Duncan has been. For of course I do not believe there is any truth to that axe business. You would not be free or even alive, I suppose, if there were. Unless the problem is simply lack of proof, of course. But I do not believe it, and I am /not/ going to ask. You must come to my at-home tomorrow afternoon.

My other guests will be astonished and outraged – and will talk of nothing else for the next month. I will be famous. Everyone will come to all my other at-homes for the rest of the Season lest they miss something equally sensational. Do say you will come. Say you will have the /courage/ to come."

There was perhaps goodness left in the world after all, Cassandra thought as she smiled her half-scornful smile and looked about the ballroom. There were people who would treat her with courtesy even if their main motive /was/ to avoid further embarrassment at the ball. And there were people who would reach out the hand of friendship even if they /were/ perhaps partly motivated by selfish concerns.

It was far more than she had expected.

If she were not so desperately poor…

"I will think about it," she said.

"I am sure you will," Lady Carling said, and told Cassandra where her house might be found on Curzon Street. "I have been delighted to take this break from dancing, Lady Paget. I never like to admit my age, but when I dance more than two consecutive sets or when I spend more than an hour playing with my grandchildren – the two who are not still nicely settled in a cradle – then I /feel/ my age, alas."

The Earl of Merton was dancing with a very young and pretty lady, who was blushing and gazing up at him with worshipful, sparkling eyes. He was smiling at her and talking to her and giving her the whole of his attention.

He was going to sleep with /her/ tonight, Cassandra thought, and afterward she was going to do business with him. She believed she had done well. She knew she had attracted him physically. She had also very subtly engaged his pity. He thought her alone and lonely. It did not matter that it was at least partly true. /She would have it no other way/.

But she would draw him into her web, whether he really wished to be there or not. She needed him.

No, not /him/.

She needed his money.

Alice needed it. So did Mary and Belinda. And even dear Roger.

She had to remind herself of them. Only so could she bear the burden of self-loathing that suddenly descended like a real physical weight across her shoulders.

He was an amiable, courteous gentleman.

He was also a /man/. And men had needs. She would service those needs for the Earl of Merton. She would not be stealing his money. She would give good value in return.

She need not feel guilty.

"I have enjoyed the break from dancing too," she told Lady Carling.