seduce you?'
He smiled and then chuckled softly.
/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?
