The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

Chapter Two

Mary rose reluctantly from her cocoon among the cushions. She drew it out as long as she could, unfolding limb by limb, waiting until the very last moment to turn her head and face the intruder. The longer she avoided looking at him, the longer she had to compose her face along appropriate lines. She didn't want this man — this man in particular — to see her at a disadvantage.

She had known him from his voice, a slow drawl flavored with the arrogance of the last century. It was the sort of voice that had known duels and red-heeled shoes, that was as comfortable with a rapier as a powder box.

Behind him, the half-drawn velvet curtain looked as though it had been designed merely as backdrop for his presence. He stood with one foot set carelessly in front of the other, one hand resting lightly on the silver head of his cane. The cane had been cunningly fashioned in the shape of a serpent, the long silver tail writhing in spirals down the ebony shaft. At the top, the snake's mouth yawned open, bored after a long day of tempting souls away from paradise. The heavy-lidded eyes looked uncannily like those of its owner.

"Lord Vaughn." Through her prolonged ascension, he hadn't said anything at all. He just stood there watching her with detached interest, as though she were a new entr'acte at Drury Lane presented for his delectation. "I didn't hear your approach."

"Next time I shall contrive to tread more heavily." Instead of removing himself, he strolled towards her, glancing over her shoulder at the dark carapace of the window. The sleeve of his jacket skimmed again the unprotected skin above her glove. "You show a curious taste in landscapes."

"I call it A Study in Solitude." Mary leaned heavily on the last word.

Vaughn dismissed both the hint and the landscape with a wave of one ringed hand. "Better to label it Ennui."

Mary tilted her head, and found herself in far too intimate proximity with the clean line of his jaw. For a dark-haired man, he was ruthlessly well-shaven, without any of the distressing stubble one often found on other men. She hastily turned her attention back to the window.

"You don't find the party amusing, my lord?" she inquired of his reflection.

Vaughn's eyes glinted silver in the window. "I haven't — until now."

That was an invitation to a flirtation if Mary had ever heard one. What she couldn't understand was why.

Vaughn had never shown himself susceptible to her charms before, and it wasn't for want of trying. Vaughn certainly wasn't perfect — there were rumors that he had murdered his first wife — but ghosts were insubstantial things compared with three estates, one of the finest mansions in Mayfair, and the famous Vaughn rubies. He was wearing one now, buried deep in the snowy folds of his cravat, the one touch of color in his otherwise midnight-hued ensemble. Even the buckles of his shoes reflected the cold glint of diamonds, like flecks of distilled moonlight. The ruby smoldered against the white linen, pinned a hand's breadth away from the heart.

If Vaughn did have a heart, Mary hadn't been able to get anywhere near it.

Oh, she had laid her snares very delicately, very discreetly. It was simply a matter of conveniently dispatching her admirers on errands as Lord Vaughn happened by; of finding herself in his vicinity just before the supper dance; of declaring, in her most carrying tones, that she simply must have some fresh air — and making sure the balcony door remained open. These methods had all worked for her in the past. Vaughn, fresh from years of dissipation on the Continent, undoubtedly in want of a wife to perpetuate his ancient (and wealthy) line, was sure to be easy prey. Older men were always flattered by the attention of a pretty young thing. Mary wasn't as young as some, but she was still younger than Vaughn. Bat your lashes a few times, ask breathless stories about the triumphs of their youth, and they were yours.

Vaughn ignored every single lure. He had continued walking as she sent her other suitors running off for lemonade and fans and he left her to cool her heels through the supper dance. Oh, he had gone out onto the balcony — but it had been the balcony on the other side of the ballroom. Alone.

If he had deliberately followed her out of the Great Chamber, his ennui must be quite overwhelming indeed. Well, he was just going to have to find other entertainment. She was not for hire. Not by him, at any rate.

"You might beguile the time with contemplation of art," she suggested primly. "There is a great deal in the gallery of interest to the educated eye."

"How very true." Vaughn's quizzing glass traveled the sweeping circumference of her neckline. "I consider myself something of a connoisseur."

Mary rather doubted they were discussing the same type of art. "My brother-in-law informs me there are several fine works by Mytens, as well as the Holbein portrait of the first Baron Pinchingdale."

Vaughn rolled the head of his cane idly between his fingers. "I was seeking something a bit more modern. Perhaps you might be able to assist me."

Mary seized the opportunity to drift away from the confines of the window embrasure. With Vaughn standing next to her, the arch felt uncomfortably close. She waved a graceful hand at the portrait of Spotte, liberally spotted with dust. "Sibley Court tends to the antique."

"You mean the antiquated." Vaughn strolled easily in her wake. Mary felt as though she were being stalked by a particularly graceful beast of prey. "I find that being surrounded by decay generally renders one all the more eager to gather one's rosebuds."

Mary paused in front of a painting of a sour-faced dowager holding a sullen pug. "You've come at an inauspicious time for rosebuds. I'm afraid in winter we must be satisfied with the memory of summer's bounty."

Vaughn moved to stand directly behind her, so close that she could feel the tickle of his cravat against her bare shoulder, the burr of his breath against the nape of her neck.

"But my dear Miss Alsworthy," Vaughn's cultured vowels teased the edge of her ear, "it is not winter yet."

Mary's skin prickled with a heat that had nothing to do with the few sullenly smoldering torches that lined the unheated gallery. His posture echoed hers so closely that all it would take would be the merest whisper of movement to bring them into embrace. If she tilted her head just the slightest fraction, if she permitted her taut shoulders to relax…

She would be the greatest fool in all the West Country.

"I assure you, my lord," Mary said frostily, staring straight ahead at the dowager's bad-tempered pug, "there is a definite chill."

And so there was. One minute he was looming behind her, the next he had casually strolled away, as though they had been discussing the weather! Which, in fact, they had been. Mary's lips quirked in sour amusement.

"I could offer to warm you," Vaughn said meditatively, as though it were a matter of intellectual speculation, "but that would be far too commonplace."

Mary's sapphire eyes narrowed as she faced him across the width of the gallery, where he leaned casually against the plinth of a marble bust. "Not to mention unwise."

Vaughn wagged his quizzing glass approvingly, a miracle of urbane detachment. "I couldn't agree more."

Where was the man who had been oozing illicit intentions a moment before? At the moment, his demeanor was positively avuncular. Mary's head was beginning to ache in a way that had nothing to do with the smoke from the torches.

"Good," she said shortly. "I'm glad we agree."

"How agreeable," drawled Vaughn.

Mary felt rather disagreeable. Disgruntled, even. Had he never intended to seduce her? It wasn't that she wanted him to seduce her — of course not! — but it was very off-putting to be defending one's honor one moment and spiraling through empty space the next. She certainly hadn't welcomed his interest. A flirtation with Lord Vaughn was the very last thing she needed.

Mary had the uncomfortable feeling that the entire interlude, from that very first honeyed compliment, had been an extended joke. On her.

Pasting on her very best social smile, Mary gathered her skirts and swept past the painted faces of a censorious crowd of Parliamentarian Pinchingdales. She hoped all of them were preparing a particularly thorny berth in hell for one Sebastian, Lord Vaughn. "If you would be so kind as to excuse me, my lord, I should be getting back. My sister does fret so."

Vaughn's soft voice interrupted her just short of Praise-God-For-Your-Salvation Pinchingdale (Proggy, to his friends), a grim fellow in black chiefly famed for having even more warts than his friend Cromwell. "Before you go…"

It was said very quietly, but it carried all the authority of a command. Mary found herself pausing, her skirt drawn back over one white satin slipper. The toe, she noticed, was beginning to show signs of wear, the fabric rubbing thin over the stiffened frame.

"Before you go," Vaughn repeated, in that same, well-modulated tone, "you should know that I was, in fact, sent to seek you tonight."

"To seek me?" Vaughn, being dispatched, must have decided to amuse himself with a little spot of dalliance along the way. It was all beginning to make a certain amount of sense. Mary allowed herself the luxury of a small eye roll. "I suppose my sister sent you. She seems to think I ought to be fed."

"Does she?" Vaughn's gaze moved lazily over Mary's form in a way that suggested he found nothing whatever the matter with her proportions. "No. Your sister had nothing to do with it."

Mary looked at him quizzically. Her mother? Mary couldn't see Vaughn voluntarily playing lackey for her mother; he would more likely just shrug and walk away. As for the rest of the party, most of them were better pleased by her absence than her presence. She was under no illusions as to that.

"I don't understand," she said.

"I rather wish I didn't," murmured Vaughn. Bracing his cane on the ground between his knees, he looked at Mary over the silver serpent's head. "What do you know of the current blight of flower-named spies?"

"As much as anyone here," Mary said shortly, and couldn't for the life of her understand why that seemed to amuse her companion so. "I do know how to read, my lord. Occasionally, I even employ that skill. Why do you ask?"

"I come here tonight as emissary."

"From a flower-named spy." Mary didn't bother to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

The only flowery spy at Sibley Court, as far as Mary knew, was Lord Richard Selwick, the spy formerly known as the Purple Gentian. The likelihood of his seeking her out for anything — other than a good gloat — was nonexistent. Lord Richard had all but ordered fireworks in celebration when he discovered that his best friend had escaped from her clutches (his words, not hers) and married her younger sister instead.

"What does our esteemed Purple Gentian want of me?" Mary asked.

"Oh, it's not the" — Vaughn coughed discreetly, as though the name came with difficulty to his tongue — "the Purple Gentian for whom I happen to be acting."

"Oh?" said Mary acidly. "Have we been honored with the presence of other flowers? A Roving Rosebud, perhaps?"

Vaughn spread his hands wide. "Ridiculous, isn't it? But the most ridiculous tales are often the truest."

"Unless one were to deliberately invent a ridiculous tale, trusting that others might follow that reasoning."

"Why would I go to the bother of such invention? Unless…oh no. Oh no, no, no." Vaughn chuckled, a rich full sound that resonated along the vaulted ceiling.

To her horror, Mary felt the color rise in her cheeks. With anger, she assured herself. She never blushed — and certainly not for the likes of Lord Vaughn.

The lines around Vaughn's eyes deepened with sardonic amusement. "You didn't truly believe…you and I? No, no, and no again."

"I find myself exceedingly relieved," Mary said stiffly, "to find that we are once again in agreement."

Vaughn wasn't the least bit fooled. He smiled lazily. "My dear, if I had wished to arrange an assignation, I would hardly have been so clumsy as to leave you in any doubt of my intentions. This matter is purely business."

"But whose business is it, then?" Mary challenged. "Why didn't they contact me directly?"

"My dear girl, if you were meant to know, why do you think our friend would have sent me?"

"I find it even less likely that you would agree to play errand boy, my lord."

Vaughn refused to be baited. He contemplated the serpentine head of his cane, twisting it so that the fangs glinted in the light. "I prefer go-between. So much less menial."

"Whatever you choose to call it, you still haven't explained why."

"Wouldn't you rather know what?" Vaughn inquired lightly. "I should think the substance of my communication ought to interest you more than my motivations, which are of no concern to anyone at all other than myself."

"Aren't they?" asked Mary, but left it at that. Vaughn's tone might have been casual, but there was a fine edge of steel beneath that forbade further inquiry. "All right, then. What does your Roving Rosebud want of me?"

Vaughn winced. "A better name, I should think. No, no, don't bother. It will do for present. My friend seeks your assistance in the removal of a particular thorn. A thorn called the Black Tulip."

Mary took great pleasure in saying, "You are mixing your horticultural metaphors, my lord. Am I meant to know who this unusually thorny Tulip is?"

"If any of us knew who it actually was, there would be no need to enlist you." Having scored his retaliatory point, Vaughn went on: "The Black Tulip is the nom de guerre of a spy in the employ of the French government. He started off, in the usual way of such creatures, by leaving arch notes in inconvenient places. Along the way, however, he developed an irritating habit of skewering English agents. The, ahem, Rosebud would like to see him removed."

"And you want me to bring you his head on a platter?" Mary made no effort to hide her derision.

"Metaphorically speaking. I gather that the platter is optional these days." Vaughn paused to admire the effect of his rings before adding, "You have, shall we say, certain attributes that would be most advantageous to the goal in question."

Men had admired Mary's attributes before. This was, however, one of the more ingenious stories she had been presented with.

"You must think I am very green," she said gently.

"Oh, not so very green." Lord Vaughn's eyes danced silver. "Just a trifle chartreuse around the edges."

"Inebriating?"

"Unschooled."

That would teach her to fish for compliments from Lord Vaughn. "Not so unschooled as to believe that any spy would seek me out to serve as his personal assassin."

"Ah, that explains it." Lord Vaughn's understanding smile was a miracle of polite derision. "Your role would be merely a — how shall I put this? A decorative one. You do have some experience in that field, I believe. Your services are required not as assassin, but as bait."

Well, that certainly put her in her place. Mary raised a brow. "Weren't there any other convenient worms to hand?"

"None so well suited as you." Oh, bother, she had walked right into that one. Before Mary could come up with a suitably cutting rejoinder about snakes and their habits, Vaughn went on: "The Black Tulip has a curious conceit. He makes it a point to employ women with your particular coloring. They are" — Vaughn paused for good effect before delivering the pièce de résistance — "the petals of the Tulip."

"How poetic. And how entirely absurd."

"My dear girl, the whole lot of them are absurd, from the Purple Wonder in the other room to every fop in London who pins a carnation to his hat and tells his friends he's turned hero. Nonetheless, they still manage to cause a good deal of bother."

Torchlight slashed in a jagged angle across Vaughn's face, slicing across his nose, leaving his eyes in shadow. In the orange light, the lines around his mouth seemed more deeply graven than usual.

"A very great deal of bother," he repeated.

Despite herself, Mary's attention was caught. The improbable tale of rosebuds and tulips might have been nothing more than a polished line of patter, designed to capitalize on the current craze for gentlemen spies. But a man didn't feign that sort of bitterness. Not a man like Vaughn, at any rate. To acknowledge pain was to acknowledge that one was capable of sustaining a wound — in short, that one was capable of deeper feeling. It wasn't in Vaughn's style. Or, for that matter, in hers.

"And so," said Mary, "you introduce the bait."

"The Tulip," explained Vaughn, "is currently running rather short of petals. Unless his habits have changed, the Black Tulip will be in want of fresh recruits. Women of your coloring are rare in this part of the world. Hence my errand tonight."

"I see." Mary took a small turn about the corridor. The train of her dress whispered along the floor behind her, dragging with it a decade's worth of dust, undoubtedly turning her hem as murky as her musings. "You do realize that this is all highly irregular."

"To say the least," Vaughn agreed calmly. "There's no need to rush to a decision. Take some time to think about my proposition. Mull it over in the deepest depths of your maidenly bosom. I would, however, advise against unburdening yourself to your friends."

Mary nearly smiled at that. Friends. Ha. Her "friends" had been the first to claw her reputation to shreds when word of Geoffrey's defection exploded through the ton. That was one lesson one learned quickly on the bloody battlefield of Almack's. Confidantes were a luxury a clever woman could ill afford. To confide in others was to invite betrayal.

Mary lifted her chin. "I keep my own counsel."

"A wise choice. Should you accept, your duties will be minimal. There is, of course, the appeal of patria to be considered," Vaughn added as an afterthought. "Rule Britannia and pass the mutton."

Vaughn had obviously never tasted mutton. If he had, he wouldn't joke about it. "How could one help but be swayed by such a rousing appeal?"

"Spoken like a true and loving daughter of our scepter'd isle."

"I can do no better than to model myself on you."

"Alas for England." There was something oddly engaging about the way his mouth twisted up at one corner in self-mockery. "Sharper than serpent's tooth…There is something else, however, that might quicken your filial piety."

"What could possibly move me more than mutton?"

Beneath their heavy lids, Vaughn's pale eyes glinted with pleasurable anticipation, like an experienced cardplayer about to lay down a winning hand. "Something we haven't yet discussed. The small matter of remuneration."

Mary schooled her face to stillness, but she wasn't quick enough. Whatever Vaughn was looking for, he found it. His tone was insufferably smug as he added, "You will be paid. Handsomely."

Crossing his arms, he leaned back against a bust of the sixth Baron Pinchingdale and waited for her assent, the silver threads on his cuffs winking insolently in the torchlight.

He looked so vilely sure of himself — so vilely sure of her! So he thought that was all is would take to get her to say yes, did he? All he needed to do was dangle a few pieces of gold in front of the venal little creature and watch her jump.

Well, she wasn't going to jump for him. Not for an unspecified sum, at any rate. He'd have to do rather better than that.

Striking her most stately attitude, Mary raked her sapphire gaze across Vaughn's face with royal scorn.

"An amusing proposition, my lord, but I'm afraid you will simply have to ask elsewhere." Without waiting for his reaction, she turned on one heel, using the sweep of her long skirt to good effect. "I cannot imagine any recompense you might offer that would be of any interest to me."

Basking in self-satisfaction, Mary swished regally down the long corridor, giving Vaughn an excellent view of her elegant back and graceful carriage. Ha! There really was nothing quite like a good exit.

Except, perhaps, for a good last word. Vaughn's amused voice snaked after her as she sailed imperiously down the gallery.

"Can't you? I can…."