How to Seduce a Bride

Chapter One

“I’m flattered, my dear, and no mistake,” the gentleman said as he gently unlocked the lovely young woman’s dimpled arms from around his neck. “But believe me, I’m not worth your time.”

She let her arms drop, but didn’t move away. She pressed her body to his, put a dainty hand on his chest, looked up at him, and pouted.

“No, in all honesty,” he said with a rueful smile, stepping back a pace. “You’re such a tempting little delicacy, but I am simply not in the market. Now, Carlton, over there, is,” he said, tilting a shoulder toward a short gentleman across the green room. “He’s a baron, to boot! Plus he’s wealthy, amiable, and very generous when he’s pleased. And,” he added, raising one long finger to make his point, “I have heard women call him ‘cuddly.’ Mind, I find that appellation nauseating, but I would. I’ve no desire to cuddle him. But I’ll bet he’d want to do just that with you. So,” he added, giving her rounded little rump an encouraging pat, “why don’t you just go ask him if he’s interested in acquiring your so delectable person?”

She looked at the plump gentleman he’d indicated, looked back at the tall, thin, exquisitely dressed gentleman before her, and sighed. Then she winked at him, and turned. She strolled off toward the baron Carlton with an exaggerated wriggle of her scantily clad bottom.

“Good evening, Haye,” an older gentleman standing nearby said in an amused voice. “Giving up sweets for Lent, are we?”

“Give you good evening too, Egremont,” Leland Grant, Viscount Haye, said in an amused drawl. “Well met. I saw you earlier but didn’t have a chance to speak with you. How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine, thank you, although I hear the latest gossip has me at death’s door or up to no good.”

“That’s what you get for wanting privacy,” Leland said. “I’ve been up to worse and they’ve said less because my life is an open book.”

“A spicy one,” the earl commented. “And about as open as a miser’s purse. You show only surface; the rest is hidden deep.”

“Indeed?” the viscount drawled. “Well, if you say so. However, I agree I’ve found that tossing gossips warm red meat keeps them full and happy, and not likely to ask for more.”

The earl smiled. He was more than a decade older than the viscount, but they’d been friends since they’d met the year before at the earl’s adopted son’s wedding. The Viscount Haye had turned out to be the long-lost half brother of the illegitimate Daffyd, whose wedding it had been. The earl and the viscount had found much in common and become friends. This puzzled the earl’s friends and amused the viscount’s cronies, because two more dissimilar men were hard to find.

Leland, Viscount Haye, was a wildly successful womanizer. He loved women and they loved him, but he was resolutely single and lived in high style, entertaining females of all classes and conditions. The earl was still in love with his late wife, and only occasionally formed brief relationships with discreet women.

Geoffrey Sauvage, Earl of Egremont, was bookish, reclusive, a man with a gentle nature. The viscount Haye was said to be amazingly trivial, but also enormously fashionable and in demand, even though he possessed a cutting sense of humor.

They couldn’t have looked more different. The earl was a solidly built, muscular, middle-aged gentleman of medium height, who still had his thick brown hair, strong white teeth, and a face that was deemed handsome even though it was unfashionably tanned.

The viscount had just passed his thirtieth birthday. He was tall and very thin, with a long, bony, elegant face, and was languid and affected in speech and movement. But his lean body was deceptively strong. Most people he knew didn’t know that, or that he could move with killing force if needed, because most of the time he used only his killing wit.

They were different in age, face, and manner. But the two men got along splendidly.

The earl had discovered that the viscount’s care-for-nothing manner concealed a sympathetic heart and a strong sense of justice. He appreciated the viscount’s sense of humor, agreed with his politics, and was aware that the younger man hid his true nature except when with friends. The earl’s own son and adopted sons were among those few, and since he missed his newly wed sons, the earl was glad for the viscount’s company. He found it stimulating.

The viscount thought of the earl as the father he’d not only never had, but never expected to find. He appreciated the older man’s experience of the world, compassion, and quiet wisdom.

And so the viscount was surprised to find the earl in the green room at the theater, because that was where men went after the play to make assignations with the actresses and dancers, most of whom were for sale, or at least for rent.

He raised a thin eyebrow in inquiry.

The earl knew what he was asking. “Miss Fanny La Fey, the star of the play, is an old friend of mine,” the earl said. “I came to congratulate her. Nothing more.”

Leland glanced over at a startlingly bright-haired woman in a gown so flimsy that her modesty was preserved only because of the crush of admirers surrounding her. He raised the eyebrow higher.

“We’re friends from the bad old days,” the earl explained, “She and I met on a distant shore. She’s a rarely determined young woman. I’m happy she also found her way safely back home.”

“Ah!” Leland said. Both eyebrows went up. He hadn’t known that the actress had been in prison.

The Earl of Egremont had been wrongly accused of a crime before he’d come into the title he’d never expected to inherit. He and his son had been sent to Botany Bay. They, and two young men the earl befriended in prison and took as wards, had served their sentences and returned with him when he claimed his title and the vast fortune that went with it. The earl had already made a fortune for himself through investments, and now was one of the richest men in England. He’d been the talk of the town, and considered slightly scandalous because of his past. But London gossip faded like cut flowers, and now, a year later, he was accepted everywhere.

But he seldom chose to go anywhere that Society did.

“I’ve congratulated her,” the earl said. “I was just on my way out. I won’t keep you if you’ve business here.”

“Oh, but that business can’t be done here, my lord,” Leland said easily. “It can be arranged, but not completed. Credit me with some sense of propriety. So if you’re going anywhere interesting, I’d be pleased to accompany you.”

“I was thinking of a warm fireside, a glass of port, and an early bedtime,” the earl said with a sigh. “But I’m promised to Major Reese tonight, for a late dinner at his club. Care to join us?”

“And fight those battles in the colonies all over again with him? Lovely fellow, but I think not. I respect his zeal and regret his lost limb, but there is a limit to how many times I can enjoy vicarious warfare.”

“Yes, but he’s an old friend and I’m bound to oblige him. How about luncheon at my house, tomorrow? We haven’t spoken for a while.”

“Not for at least a week! Yes, I’d like that.”

“I’ll see you then,” the earl said, bowed, and asked a footman for his coat.

“My lord!” a sultry, thrilling, voice called. “Not leaving so soon, are you?”

“My dear,” the earl said to the star of the evening’s play, who had left the group of gentlemen she’d been with. “But you were surrounded by admirers. I just wanted to be one of them and then leave you to your well-deserved applause.”

“Old friends mean more than casual observers,” she said, but her kohl-rimmed eyes glanced over to the viscount.

“This is my dear friend, Viscount Haye,” the earl said. “Leland, may I present Miss La Fey?”

“You not only may,” Leland breathed, looking down at the actress intently. “You must. Please believe that I am more than a casual observer,” he told her, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips. “I am an enraptured one. As who would not be? Your performance was miraculous. Your presence here, next to me, is even more so.”

She smiled. “Are you leaving, too?” she asked.

“Not if you don’t wish me to.”

She stared up into his amused eyes, and shivered slightly. “I don’t wish you to. But I am occupied with well-wishers and can’t snub them. Can you wait until I do the pretty with all those I must?”

“I can,” he said, one hand on his heart. “If you will be half so kind to me.”

“We shall see. I’ll be back soon,” she promised, and gave him a long, smoldering look before she went back to the crowd of men waiting for her.

The earl shook his head. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t know that I did. I think it’s this new cologne, actually… My lord?” the viscount asked with an exaggeratedly casual air. “Care to tell me just why she was incarcerated?”

The earl grinned. “No. That should make your evening more interesting. Just-I wouldn’t suggest getting her annoyed. Or if you do, then I suggest you not drink anything that she doesn’t. Good night then,” he said cheerfully. “See you tomorrow. I hope.”

The viscount bowed. “So do I. Good to know you look after me so well,” he said with an ironic smile. But it was a wide one.

“Good, you’re just in time,” the earl said after Leland gave his beaver hat and greatcoat to a footman, and came into his host’s study, rubbing his hands together.

“Oh, ‘good,’ indeed,” Leland murmured as he went to the fireside and held his hands up to it. “I’ve seen cold days in springtime, but this one is ridiculous. I shouldn’t be surprised if the Thames froze over again.”

“In April?”

“I said I shouldn’t be surprised, which is not the same as saying I expected it. It’s freezing out there. Still, nothing would keep me from a meal prepared by your chef. The fellow could name his price at Carlton House.”

“Yes, but they’d have to take him there in chains,” the earl said.

“The way they took him away from London the first time?” Leland asked with a tilted smile.

“Now, now. You know his history is not mine to divulge. He did his time in Botany Bay, and now is free as you or I: past forgotten, future being made. Speaking of émigrés… how did you and my old friend get on last evening?”

“ ‘Now, now,’ indeed!” his younger friend said. “I am a gentleman. I never discuss my dealings with a lady, or a female who aspires to be one. Suffice it to say it was a pleasant interlude for both of us. She’d no reason to be angry with me. And so,” he added too casually, “since I never infuriated her, I couldn’t tell: Why exactly was she sent to the Antipodes?”

“She was there because she was a fair hand with a lethal flying object, or so I was told.”

Leland laughed. “Score one for you! I took your bait and ran with it. Though we parted on amicable terms, she must have thought me a strange fellow, because brave I may be, but I didn’t dare take wine with her.”

The earl sketched a bow, though his eyes twinkled. “Forgive me. Will you accept my apology in the form of a seat at my table? We’re having your favorite soup, lobster, squab, beef, and fresh green peas! They’ve come from a hothouse, but I’m promised they taste as if they came from heaven.”

“For half that menu,” Leland said fervently, “you could stab me through the heart and I wouldn’t complain. So long as you let me sop up the gravy as I fell.”

They were laughing when the butler came in, clearing his throat.

“Luncheon ready, is it?” the earl asked.

“Not quite, my lord. But you have a visitor.”

“I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“The young woman vowed you’d receive her.” The butler looked down instead of at his employer. “She said I’d be out on my ear if I didn’t let her in.” A fraction of a smile appeared on his usually stolid face. “You know her, m’lord,” he said, his accents slipping. “As do I. She’s from… the old country, y’see.”

The earl began to laugh. “I think I know who it is.” He glanced over at his guest. “You must have impressed her more than you realized.”

Leland’s eyebrow went up. “I am surprised. But maybe she has a complaint?”

“Show her in,” the earl told his butler. “I don’t know how you do it, Lee,” he commented as the butler went to show his guest in. “But you have a profound effect on females.”

Leland wore a rueful expression. He shrugged. “Actually I don’t know why, either. I see no reason why a lovely creature like that should fling herself at ridiculous, long-nosed, affected creature like me. It can’t have been for money. She isn’t a courtesan; she has talent and fame and earns a comfortable living. Mind, I do have my ways, and if I set a trap I expect to catch something. If I don’t, I start worrying why anyone would want to catch me. It’s what made me effective in France when I went there on His Majesty’s behalf. I suppose it’s also why I’m still single.”

“I doubt she was angling for matrimony.” The earl looked pensive. “Well, who knows? Maybe she was. Whatever it is, let’s settle it. She’s a good sort even if she did once make a mistake. After all, it’s a long climb from being a penniless orange seller in Spitalfields to becoming toast of the London stage. Maybe she’s after another title.”

“Then why not you?”

“I’m a lost cause, and she knows it.”

“No one knows that but you. Are you so sure?”

“Positive! Ah, here she comes. Courage!”

Both men stood straight as the butler brought the new arrival in. Then the earl blinked, before he smiled in delight.

Leland blinked, too, and for once, with no affectation, he simply stared.

The young woman was something to stare at.

She was more theatrically beautiful than any actress they’d seen on the stage last night, but her face hadn’t a hint of paint. The cold and her own excitement had been her cosmetics. Her plump lips were dark pink, the frigid air had turned her fair cheeks coral, and her small nose was pink at the tip. Her long-lashed eyes were golden brown, and bright with emotion. It was cold as ice outside, and she looked like a sunrise in a rose garden. Her rose-colored gown fitted her perfectly: a column of rose silk that showed her high breasts and rounded hips to perfection. Thick, shining gold and red hair was pulled back from her lovely face to fail in a tumble of curls on one shoulder.

She looked at no one but the earl. She hesitated; her smile trembled. A moment later she rushed across the room to fling herself into his arms. “Geoff!” she cried, hugging him. “After all this time and all the miles, I’m back, here-in England!”

“So you are, so you are,” the earl repeated awkwardly, patting her on the back. He held himself stiffly, and looked over her head to see if anyone but her maid had come in as well.

“Oh,” she said, immediately stepping back. “How rude of me to be so forward, but I forgot myself at the sight of you again. You reminded me of the good times we had together. I didn’t have many, and I needed all I could get back then, and thank you for them.”

The earl glanced over at his guest. The viscount was watching him with a peculiar, thoughtful smile. “It’s not what you think,” he said, and turned his attention to his newest guest again. “But where’s Tanner?”

She lowered her eyes. “Dead, almost two years. Didn’t you know?”

“I hadn’t heard from him, but hadn’t expected to. We were not precisely friends.”

“I thought we were friends though!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, we were,” he said quickly. “But what happened to Tanner? He was in the pink of health when I left.”

“It was an accident… honest!” She laughed ruefully. “Doesn’t everyone in Botany Bay say that when someone they know dies? Habit on their parts, I suppose. But it’s truth. He was drunk, he was wagering, he bet Morrissey-remember him? He bet he could take a really high jump. The horse did, but Tanner couldn’t stay on it.”

She raised a hand as though she was brushing away cobwebs from in front of her face. “No matter, it’s over, and long done. I waited to get back on my feet, to get my mind together. Then I decided to come home. Tanner left me rich! Fancy that! He took your advice and invested. You started him off when you were there, but then he scrimped and invested more and turned out to be a hand at it. Never fear that I’m here for a handout. The fact is, thanks to you, I’m rich, Geoff!”

He didn’t reply.

She stepped back, looking somehow smaller. “Oh,” she said in a stilted little voice, ducking her head. “I beg your pardon. I mean, Your Lordship. I forgot you were a nobleman now. Please forgive me.”

“No pardon necessary. But where are my manners? Allow me to introduce you to my dear friend, Leland Grant, Viscount Haye. Leland, this is Mrs. Daisy Tanner.”

“Enchanted,” Leland said, sweeping her a flourishing bow.

She glanced at the viscount, ducked a curtsy, and her face went pink again. She looked back up at the earl. “It was bad of me to come without an invitation, but I couldn’t wait to see you. I now see that was very rude. I’ll return another time, if you wish.”

“I wish you to stay,” the earl said.

“Should I leave?” Leland asked. “I understand old friends wanting to catch up on old times. I’m the one who can see you some other time.”

“Nonsense,” the earl said. “Stay. We’ve no secrets, do we, Mrs. Tanner?”

“No, and it’s still just Daisy, please! ‘Mrs. Tanner’ feels so cold.”

“Daisy it is then,” the earl said. “And so Geoff it must remain, too, at least in private. Now, have you had luncheon, Daisy?”

“No,” she said.

“Then you will, here with us.” He looked over her head again. “There’s your maid. But where’s your companion?”

“I have none,” she said. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Another mistake! I’ve only been in town a few days and I thought-you and I-such old friends. But I see things are different here, aren’t they? I’ll leave instantly!”

“Nonsense. I think your maid will preserve your name for the space of a luncheon. But you must find a decent companion soon, because a young woman can’t stay on in London without one. Are you staying on, and where?”

“I’m at Grillions, which is a good hotel, I’m told.”

“It is.”

“I plan to rent a house in a good district too, because I certainly want to stay on. Where else should I go? I won’t go back to Elm Hill, where I lived with my father. What would I do there alone anyway? I never want to return to that place, too many bad memories, too many bad people, or at least ones that didn’t care.”

“Then I insist you join us for luncheon. We can try to sort things out for you. I know a realtor in London. We’ll try to find you a companion, too. Let’s set things in motion for you while we dine.”

He offered her his arm. She put her hand on it and looked up at him. “I also need to know where to order new gowns.”

“I don’t know a fig about fashion,” he told her. “But the viscount is an expert on it. He’s a tulip of the ton.”

“Too true,” Leland said sardonically, one hand on his chest. “I’m the very pinnacle of frivolous knowledge. All London knows it, and you, lovely lady, may of course rely on me.”

She looked up at the viscount and saw amusement in his knowing gaze. Amusement and something more, something she’d vowed to avoid. She quickly looked away. “Thank you,” she told the earl, ignoring his guest. “I knew all would be well once I got back to London-and you. That is,” she corrected herself with a smile, “when I saw you.”

“I’m glad you remembered to come to me when you were in need,” he said, patting her hand.

“I could scarcely forget you!” she exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Whether or not I was in need.”

“What a delightful luncheon we shall have, my lord,” Leland said, as he watched his friend beam at the compliment. “Lobster and squab, and a touching reunion, too. I am in luck.”

The earl’s face became ruddy. “Daisy is an old friend,” he said.

“Yes,” Leland said with a smile. “What a lot of lovely old friends you seem to have. I can’t wait to hear how you met.”