How to Seduce a Bride

madam, but we are not dancing. What did you tell them?”

She shrugged. “I mentioned she’d been a convict; I spoke of Botany Bay. I didn’t know her crimes so I didn’t detail them. I merely said she’d been a prisoner in the Antipodes, had married there and now was a widow. A wealthy one. Or so I surmised. Unless the earl has been paying her bills, in which case she was something else as well.”

“Well, that makes sense,” he said with quiet fury. “Sorrowful sense, but it accounts for why they were aghast. A gentleman doesn’t invite his mistress to your soirees, is that it?”

“A gentleman,” she said icily, “does not take his mistress to any gentlewoman’s home. Indeed, he doesn’t even invite them to his own. But, of course, you never understood that, did you?”

“That stung, did it?” he asked. “All those years of privation. Was it the fact that you were excluded from your lovers’ homes that rankles, or that you couldn’t have them at yours?”

She didn’t reply.

“It hardly matters,” he said. “So, all I have to do is tell your guests and the immediate world what she was in prison for to set matters right. And that she is wealthy enough and principled enough to pay her own way. That’s simple. But why did you do it? You think Geoff’s going to marry her? Who knows? He may. And why not? She’s bright, charming, and very unlike you in that she’s highly moral, thoroughly prim, even prudish.”

He strode to the door. “Then, good day, madam. I’ve work to do, or rather undo.”

“Haye?” she said.

He stopped and looked at her.

“Do you really think he means to marry her?”

“I’ve no idea. Why? Did you think there was a chance he’d marry you? Unthink it, Mama. I believe you terrify him.”

“Indeed,” she said with a smile of bitter satisfaction. “I see. And what did you tell him about me?”

His smile was thin-lipped. “Nothing. That’s the truth. What could I say, after all? I can only gossip about people I know. I never knew you, did I?”

He nodded, clapped on his hat, and left her house.

She sat in the salon for long moments, thinking, before she got up and left it herself.

“I don’t want to go to any party,” Daisy said plaintively. “You can say that you’ve explained things and eased my way, but I don’t want to risk it. Why must I go? Does it mean that much to you, Geoff?” she asked the earl. “I thought you hated the social world.”

“I don’t hate it, I just… avoid it,” he said. “I’m past the age for that nonsense. You’re not.”

They were in his study. He’d called her there to speak with her and asked Helena to wait outside. Daisy thought he’d have some wonderful surprise for her, and had been musing about whether he’d offer her a trip to his estate, or his hand in marriage. Instead, she found Leland there as well, now that he was up and about, he said, he’d spent the morning assuring that she could go back into Society and not be stared at.

“You’re young and need diversion, and company,” the earl said. “What sort of friends can you make if you’re shunned by the polite world? They’re not all poseurs and fops, you know.”

“Exactly,” Leland said sweetly. “Why, just look at me.”

“Yes,” the earl said seriously, causing Leland to look startled. “Well, face it, Lee, you’re welcomed everywhere but you hardly ever go there.”

Leland laughed. “That’s the rhyme a caricaturist once put on a broadsheet about me,” he told Daisy. “It may be true. I love the theater and music, and literature. Where should I find people to discuss such things with? In taverns? With the light ladies I am said to sometimes accompany? I go to parties and gentlemen’s clubs as well as to sporting events because I need diverse friends.”

“Just so,” the earl agreed. “Daisy, you had friends in the Antipodes and I’ll wager you miss them. But they wouldn’t be suitable for you now. You need women of your position as well as of equal intelligence and wit.”

Daisy sat still. “What is my position? Do you know? I don’t.”

“You will,” Geoff said enigmatically. “So please reconsider. Especially after Lee has gone to so much effort to make you welcome. Yes, it’s another party. And yes, many of the same people will be there. But Lee will have spoken to many of them, too, as will I. You can go without fear of being rejected, I promise.”

“I’m not afraid of being rejected!” she said. “Well, I suppose I am. Who wouldn’t be worried about being in a room full of people who dislike them? Well, maybe not the viscount,” she added, and Leland smiled. “But the point is that I don’t want them as my friends. I have you, Geoff.”

Leland suddenly lost his smile and looked at her so intently that she lowered her gaze. “And the viscount, of course,” she said quickly, “I have Daffyd and… Helena, and your other boys when they come to London again. I can talk to them. I never imagined myself flitting around Town from one party to another; that’s not my way. I only need a few, good, close friends. I have them. Who needs more?”

“But I’m old enough to be your father, Daisy,” the earl said slowly. “I’m hardly a friend, at least not in the context I meant.” He looked down at some papers on his desk, and aimlessly moved them from one place to another. Then he looked up and turned the tables. “Am I your friend, Daisy?” he asked softly. “Just what do you think I am to you?”

She darted a glance at Leland, but now his face bore only an expression of polite interest. Drat the man! she thought. She couldn’t say anything to make Geoff consider a declaration with him in the room. “That’s up to you, Geoff,” she said.

He nodded. “So it is,” he said. “Well, then, my dear,” he said, looking at her with a peculiar expression, half amusement and half wonder. “Will you come with me to the party tomorrow night?”

She smiled. “Yes, of course, Geoff.”

She looked at the viscount again. He was expressionless. But she rejoiced. She’d won! she thought with barely contained exhilaration. And it hadn’t even taken that long. At least, not once she’d seen him again. All those years of dreaming about a kindly, tolerant husband were over. She’d traveled across a sea and halfway around the world to find safe harbor. Now all that was left was to go to the party, listen to Geoff’s proposal-for surely he’d have a ring for her or some other family heirloom to seal the compact with by then-and her goal would be met.

She gazed at the earl with fond possession. He looked very well for a man of his years, she thought. He wasn’t the sort to make any woman’s heart beat faster, but she’d never wanted that. Still, he was fit. He wore tolerably fashionable clothes, which meant they were tight-fitting, and yet she couldn’t see a bulging stomach. Though her father had been a similar age when she’d last seen him, Geoff was much more muscular than her father had ever been, and he certainly had more hair.

Then she glanced at Leland and saw rueful knowledge in his eyes. She remembered that he’d said Geoff also acted like younger men, as far as women were concerned. Which meant that he’d want to bed her.

The thought made the blood rush to her face, not in mounting desire, but with embarrassment. Kindly, charming, Geoff wanting her that way? The sudden vision she had of him, naked in bed with her, was appalling, repellent, beyond embarrassing. She didn’t think of him that way.

In that moment, she could swear the viscount knew what she was thinking. He looked back at her with a deadly serious, sad expression, and nodded as though confirming her thoughts. She quickly turned her attention back to Geoff.

He, at least, was looking at her with warmth and approval, and obvious affection. He wasn’t leering, but only smiling, and she realized that now he’d every right to think of her that way. Could she change the way she thought of him? Could she stroke his naked body? Could she relax in his arms as he mounted her? Would he make the same sounds, groaning as Tanner had while he was at it, carrying on like a pig at the trough? The thought was terrifying. Because then how could she ever think of him the same way again?

And unlike Tanner, would he expect her to enjoy it, as Leland had said women should? The viscount had turned her thinking so much, she no longer knew where she stood. She wondered if Geoff’s kiss would shatter her defenses as Leland’s had. She suddenly felt ill at the thought of sharing a warm, openmouthed kiss with Geoff. She shot to her feet.

“Well, thanks, Geoff,” she said in a rush. “You’ve convinced me to go to the party. And thanks to you too, Viscount. So, should I wear the fantastic gold gown the modiste made for me, or is this less formal? What I mean is, what should I wear, do you think?”