The Seduction of an English Scoundrel Read online

  “Stay out of trouble,” he told his sister curtly, his arm firmly guiding Jane away. “I appear to have enough of a problem on my hands for a night.”

  “Wait,” Chloe cried. “She’s forgotten her wrap.”

  “Then hurry and fetch it for her.”

  And as he turned, she whispered in Jane’s ear: “I shall be thinking of Congreve rockets the entire night. Be brave. And tell me everything in the morning.”

  If she lived to tell of it, Jane thought, shuddering in anticipation of the seduction she would undertake.

  Chapter 23

  Jane was spared the full brunt of Grayson’s displeasure during the short ride back to the villa by her uncle’s sudden decision to leave the ball with the two of them. Never before had she felt such icy disapproval in Grayson’s manner toward her. Never had she tested the depths of his feelings to this degree before. She could only hope Uncle Giles would provide a buffer between her and a very angry marquess.

  “At my age,” the older man explained as he followed them to the carriage, “I am more of an embarrassment than an entertainment at these affairs. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Here I was playing cards with a charming young viscount, or so I thought, until a footman kindly took me aside to tell me my opponent was a viscountess. Wouldn’t know it from that costume. Epaulets and military buttons on the Hussar jacket. You always look like a lady, Jane. Don’t you agree, Sedgecroft?”

  Grayson turned his gaze from the window, his voice laden with irony. “No one would argue that.”

  Jane shivered inside the safety of her pelisse. Had she ever heard that razor-sharp edge in his tone before?

  “You are catching a chill, my dear,” Uncle Giles said in concern. “Go right to your bed when we get in.”

  Jane was only too glad to take his advice, grateful for her brief respite when her uncle trapped Grayson in the entrance hall to discuss the following day’s race. A true gentleman, Grayson stayed to politely answer the man’s questions. But there was nothing polite in his heavy-lidded gaze as he watched Jane escape upstairs to her room. His expression warned her she would not evade his anger for long.

  Audrey’s voice mocked her cowardly retreat.

  Take him off guard, darling. A man is never more vulnerable than in the boudoir.

  “I cannot do this,” she muttered. “I cannot, cannot, cannot. . . . I’m not proving a point. I am making a spectacle of myself.”

  What had she done tonight? Taught him a lesson or unleashed a beast? One would think she had learned from her wedding scandal that schemes did not play out without unexpected repercussions.

  She heard him less than twenty minutes later in the room that adjoined hers. Her heart pounding in anxiety, she sat down at her dressing table in her rose silk robe and began to brush her hair. The door to the room opened. She saw his tall figure in the mirror. Her fingers gripped the handle of her silver-backed hair brush. The chilliness in his eyes seemed to lower the temperature in the room several degrees.

  “You haven’t changed out of your evening clothes,” she said, her breathing suspended as he took a step toward her.

  He stood behind her, his shoulders as rigid as a soldier’s. “Shall we discuss that dress?”

  “It—it was only a dress.”

  “On another woman perhaps.” His voice curled around her like the soft warning stroke of a whip. “On you it is a scandal.”

  “I was under the impression that you liked me in . . . what were your words at the modiste’s? ‘A minimum of fuss.’ ”

  His lips tightened at the corners. “That does not mean I wish you to flaunt your charms to the world.”

  “We can hardly keep our relationship a secret, Grayson.”

  “Perhaps not. But I am a private man, and I do not intend to share you either.”

  She pulled the brush down the length of her hair. Their eyes met in the mirror, and she swallowed at what she saw. Why had she dared to challenge a master at his game?

  “What did you really hope to gain?” he asked, taking the brush from her hand, continuing its downward strokes with a slow, steady hand. “What . . .”

  She stood and removed her dressing robe, utterly naked except for his diamond pendant as the garment slithered to her feet in a sibilant whisper of silk. “The dress offended you. I took it off. Is this better?”

  Grayson paused, not quite certain he could believe his eyes. His dark Jane had made another dramatic appearance.

  He tossed the brush onto the dressing table, his gaze moving slowly down her body, her rouged nipples, her rounded belly and the triangle of fluff beneath. His heart pounded against his chest. Another step ahead of him, was she? Well, he was a good sport and a man who liked to gamble. If the lady desired him, no matter her motives, who was he to deny her? In fact, he could not refuse.

  “The matter of your behavior tonight is not closed.” He began to untie his cravat, his eyes darkening with desire. “A discussion can, however, wait until later.”

  She slid her hands up around his neck. “Undressing you is my job as a mistress. Let me.”

  “As you like, but—heavens above, Jane, slow down a moment. You’re ripping my shirt.”

  Her lips formed a pout. “Can I help it if I’m eager to worship my wonderful protector?”

  He looked down at the floor in mild astonishment. “That was a button. You tore a button off my shirt.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not personally, but my tailor might.”

  She clasped his face in her hands and kissed him for all she was worth, her tongue thrusting against his until his arms went around her waist and crushed her to him. At that point Grayson took the initiative and walked her backward to the bed. She fell against him, her nude body trapped securely between his thighs.

  He lay back, still a little puzzled but receptive to what she was doing as she balanced on her knees to undress him. “Not that I’m objecting, but I am curious,” he murmured. “What is this about?”

  She threw his shirt over her shoulder and went to work unbuttoning his breeches. “Seduction.”

  “What did you and Chloe do today?”

  “Let’s not bring your sister into the boudoir, Grayson.”

  “Did you say boudoir?”

  “It’s more of a mistress word than bedchamber, don’t you think? Do you mind if I tie you to the bed?”

  With his sensual mouth curling into a grin, his muscular body bare to the hips, he looked like sin incarnate. “What brought this on?”

  “Just something I saw in a book.”

  “Ah. A book.” He ran his hands up her rib cage to her breasts, cupping their weight in his palms. “Not a book from the circulating library, I take it?”

  She gave him a taunting smile, reaching over him to the nightstand. “No.”

  “Then—” He stopped, narrowing his eyes as she took his hands, her stockings in her mouth, and deftly bound his wrists to the bedposts. “Interesting reversal of fortune,” he murmured. “Tying me up in a pretty package, eh?”

  “Those are not mere bows, Grayson. Those are the Belshire Knots of Annihilation. My sisters and I perfected them on Simon during our childhood. They work particularly well on the male who prides himself on subjugating others.”

  He strained experimentally, shoulders and biceps flexing to test the bonds. “Very nice. Please continue.”

  To her surprise Jane found she enjoyed the sense of power over him. She could feel all the pulse points of her body quickening as she remembered Audrey’s instructions. With a decadent smile she slowly removed his breeches and ran her fingers up the insides of his thighs to the dense triangle of hair that cradled his thick male organ.

  “Now don’t move a muscle.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he muttered, his hips coming off the bed as her fingers closed around the base of his engorged penis.

  “Darling, do hold still,” she murmured wickedly.

  Somewhere in the swelter of sensations that assailed h
im, he realized there was more to her aggressive sensuality than met the eye. As always she surprised him, challenged him to plan several moves ahead, but for this . . . well, whatever she was up to, there really was no strategy but to submit. He didn’t give a damn what she had planned as long as she did not stop.

  Her fingertips stroked his pulsing shaft, in light, tantalizing flutters. “Don’t try to get away. Those knots are very secure. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  Gentleman that he was, he didn’t bother to point out he could have freed himself and tossed her onto her back with a minimum of effort. In this case, turnabout was definitely fair play, and when she bent with her soft hair brushing his groin, when her moist pink tongue traced the root of his organ to the tip, he nearly exploded, his body straining in a sweet agony of restraint and sexual excitement.

  “How does that feel?” she whispered.

  “I—”

  Her mouth closed over the bulbous knob of his sex, and he jerked upward, a groan bursting from him. “Get on top of me,” he muttered, flexing his spine.

  “But I haven’t finished—”

  He tore his wrists free of her bonds, surging upward to catch her under the arms and settle her on top of him. “Show me what else you learned today at Audrey’s.”

  She stared down into his face, stricken. “How did you know?”

  “Do you think I would allow you to trick me again, Jane?”

  “Perhaps I ought to leave.”

  “You must be joking. You’re finally right where I have wanted you.”

  Several awful moments passed before Jane could manage to move, captured by her tormentor with his large hands clamped around her hips. Unfortunately, learning that her beloved was a sneakier scoundrel than she had guessed did not dampen her helpless attraction to him.

  To the contrary. Her body was already acutely sensitive to his touch. When he pulled her gently downward to suckle her breasts, she weakened and felt herself grow wet in anticipation.

  “I’m a better reference than any book, Jane,” he whispered, turning her onto her back. “There are some things that really have to be experienced firsthand.”

  She could hardly argue that. Not when he hooked her legs over his strong shoulders and buried his face between her legs. Not when she climaxed within seconds, awash in shame and sensual enjoyment, her heart beating wildly.

  “What else did you learn today?” he asked, his eyes burning into her, challenging her.

  “Let me show you,” she said softly, disentangling herself.

  “I’m all yours.”

  She straddled him, easing herself onto his swollen rod, taking his full length inside her. For a moment she actually believed she would be able to control him. He gave a low growl and shifted, caressing her breasts with his hands and mouth. Arching her back, her hair falling to her belly, she began to move. To experiment with pleasing him. He allowed this for a while then gripped her hips and flexed upward, penetrating deeper than she had dreamed possible.

  She thought she would dissolve on the spot. “Grayson . . . oh, my God.”

  He arched, his voice uneven. “You’re doing a good job. Don’t stop now.”

  “I’m going—”

  “More, Jane.”

  “It’s . . . I—”

  “More.”

  She moaned, moving in the rhythm he set, riding him up and down, her inner muscles stretching to absorb him until the moment came when she could not move at all. His hands steadied her by the hips as her body buckled in the throes of another powerful climax.

  “Grayson . . . have mercy.”

  Even then he kept up the tempo, kneading her breasts and buttocks, pounding at her until the very moment his own release came, his muscular frame shaking in pleasure.

  “I have never had sex like that before,” he admitted in a husky voice when he could finally speak.

  Jane could not find words herself, thinking she must remember to send Audrey a thank-you note in the morning. Not that this was the sort of thing one could easily put into words. She closed her eyes and slid bonelessly to his side, a beguiling blackness beckoning her. Until his sardonic voice penetrated her daze and she realized that her hour of reckoning had finally come.

  “Now, Jane, do you think it is time for our confessional?”

  She sighed and opened her eyes to stare up at his hard candlelit face, both of them finally unmasked, the last of their secrets revealed. She gave a sigh of surrender. “I’d say it was well past time.”

  Chapter 24

  She sat at the dressing table, wrapped again in her robe, the glass of burgundy he had given her in her hand. Her prosecutor paced before her chair, dressed only in his black evening breeches. He pushed his rumpled blond hair back from his face. His expression was intense, yet absent of the anger she had anticipated.

  “You did not love Nigel,” he said slowly, as if struggling to piece together a puzzle. “He did not love you, harder still to understand. But countless other couples are forced by their families into arranged marriages. The two of you might have carried on affairs after your wedding.”

  She shot him a chastising look. “Your way, perhaps. But Nigel loved Esther, and she was carrying his child. I did not expect you to understand sacrifice. Or what it feels like to be a woman forced to share her life with a man she does not love.”

  “It is true,” he said, stopping to stare at her, “that I do not understand what it feels like to be a woman. I do understand, however, your reluctance to commit yourself to a marriage without passion.”

  “Oh, Grayson,” she said with a soft sigh. “It really does not make me feel better that you have decided to be so reasonable.”

  He hesitated, looking vulnerable and hurt.

  “What I really do find hard to understand,” he said, balancing his hands on the table to brace her between his arms, “is why you deceived me.”

  “I’m not sure exactly how it happened,” she said quickly. “The situation between you and me just somehow evolved, and before I knew it, things had gotten beyond explaining. It’s not as if I deliberately misled you. One thing led to another, and then, all of a sudden, I . . . I had fallen in love with you.”

  He stared at her, steely-eyed, the vulnerability hidden again.

  “And,” she continued, “you kept making me out to be such a paragon, playing up my virtues until I was dying inside with shame.”

  “A paragon did not tie me to that bed, Jane,” he pointed out.

  “No,” she said with a rueful nod, “a very wicked woman did.”

  “I have told you I admire your wickedness. What were you hoping to prove by seducing me anyway?”

  “I found out about the marriage contract. That this mistress nonsense was all a sham to discipline me.”

  He almost smiled. “Ah.”

  “ ‘Ah.’ That is all you have to say for yourself?”

  The familiar arrogance returned to his face. “We will be married, Jane. What more is there to say?”

  “I refuse to be bullied into another wedding,” she said.

  “What do you want?” he asked curiously, not doubting for one moment that the matter had already been settled and his will would prevail. He hadn’t come this far, hadn’t countered her strategy to admit defeat.

  She took a breath. “I want to be courted.”

  Courted. Was that what she had said? he wondered in amazement. Dear heaven, how enigmatic were the workings of the female mind. Especially this female. Courted.

  “What the blazes do you think I’ve been doing these past two weeks or so?”

  “Grayson, if you do not see the difference between a courtship and a seduction, then I do not know what to say.”

  He threw up his hands, laughing helplessly. “I have never spent so much effort on a woman before.”

  She shook her head. “You make courting me sound like—like an ordeal.”

  “Well, there were times.”

  “Will anyone ever let me decide whom and
when I am to marry?”

  His smile smoldered with confidence. “You are marrying me, Jane. That part has been decided. As I recall, you have already proposed to me. You can go ahead and buy me a wedding ring if you like.”

  “It is the manner in which you went about this that has upset me. You and Papa plotting my life in candlelight behind closed doors.”

  “How did you—” Of course. There was only one possible person who could have found out. He made a mental note to have Chloe incarcerated in the Tower of London. “Plotting your life. Put that way it does sound a little unsavory. Not that your conduct hasn’t taken its own devious little detours.”

  “I know. I have apologized. . . .”

  He took the glass from her hands. His smile was faintly sardonic. “There is no need to apologize. Your devious nature is one of the things I find oddly attractive about you.”

  She rose and turned away from him, staring at his reflection in the mirror. “Then you understand my desire to be courted?”

  “I did court you,” he said, his shrug dismissive.

  “No, you didn’t.” Jane pressed her hands down on the dressing table. “You conquered me like a citadel. I hunger for the romantic, Grayson, for flowers and billets doux and intimate rides in the park.”

  “We went riding in the park, and I bought you an entire flower cart,” he said in amusement, brushing a lock of hair from her shoulder. “Do you require your own meadow?”

  “No one has ever courted me,” she said softly.

  He watched her candlelit reflection, drinking in the details of her face.

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s not as if you have lacked for male attention. Nigel might be a nodcock, but he did take you to social affairs.”

  She gave a little sniff of uncharacteristic self-pity. “All Nigel talked about at those affairs was Esther. Esther this and Esther that. Esther’s beauteous bosoms and shivery voice.”

  He chuckled. “Esther has a voice like a Prussian general.”

  “I thought so, too, but Nigel certainly responded to it.” She paused, her own voice wistful. “All I ever wanted deep in my heart was for someone to love me like that.”