Don't Tempt Me

  “Everyone is so predictable,” said Marchmont.

  “Indeed we are. And now she’s turned the tables, and we’re all falling all over ourselves trying to meet her standards.”

  That would be me, Marchmont thought. I’m the standard. Because she hadn’t met other men.

  He had the unpleasant suspicion that he’d set the standard too low.

  “It’s a great bore for you, I know,” said Adderwood. “As silly as watching everyone chase after Harriette Wilson a few years ago. No, sillier, because this time it’s a lady and we must be on our good behavior. Poor Marchmont, what a martyr you are. I don’t blame you for wanting another bottle—or another dozen. But I know you well, and I can see you’re rapidly approaching the point where you start quoting Shakespeare and falling into the fire. Either you must begin drinking tea or we must make our excuses.”

  “Tea?” Marchmont said. “I’d rather hang. I do not spout Shakespeare when I’m in my cups.”

  “Always,” said Adderwood. “Henry IV, usually.”

  “Oh, that. ‘I know you all, and will awhile uphold the unyoked humor—’”

  “Uphold yourself for a bit, there’s a good fellow,” said Adderwood. “It’ll be over soon. She’ll be off your hands in no time, and wed before the Season ends.”

  Marchmont’s gaze went across the room, to where Zoe sat with Amelia Adderwood and the indigent cousin, the three of them giggling.

  “If she takes—as it appears she’ll do—I wager she’ll have her pick of suitors,” Adderwood said.

  “Suitors, undoubtedly,” said Marchmont. “Whether any succeed is another matter entirely.”

  She wouldn’t. Not so soon.

  I was married from the time I was twelve years old, and it seemed a very long time, and I would rather not be married again straightaway.

  “She’s a woman,” said Adderwood. “They all want to rule their own households.”

  “I shouldn’t count on that in her case, if I were you,” Marchmont said. “Certainly I shouldn’t be so foolish as to wager on it.”

  Adderwood’s eyebrows went up. “Marchmont advising a fellow against a wager. Now I’ve heard everything.”

  “I tell you because you’re my friend and I deem it unfair to let you throw money away in that cause,” Marchmont said. “Miss Lexham has told me she doesn’t want to be married straightaway. This shouldn’t surprise you. Having read her story, you must understand her wishing to enjoy her freedom for a time.”

  “Women change their minds,” said Adderwood. “They’re famous for it.”

  “Do you fancy you can change hers?”

  “Perhaps. If I can’t, somebody will. Once she’s going about in Society, once she begins meeting Englishmen and finds herself endlessly wooed and pursued, I think she’ll change her mind. How do you know what ‘straightaway’ means to her? It could mean tomorrow. Next week.”

  “You don’t know Zoe.”

  “And you don’t know everything,” said Adderwood.

  No one knows her better than I do, Marchmont thought.

  “A thousand pounds,” he said. “A thousand says she finishes the Season as Miss Lexham.”

  “Done,” said Adderwood.

  Zoe, as always, was aware of everything going on about her. She was most palpably aware of Marchmont prowling the room like one of Yusri Pasha’s caged tigers.

  She was aware, too, that her plan wasn’t working.

  Papa had shaken his head over Marchmont’s list and muttered something about “old men” and scratched off most of the names. Even so, even though he’d kept the two youngest ones and added Lord Winterton, and even though these younger men had seemed disposed to admire her—well, at least Adderwood and Alvanley seemed to do so; Winterton seemed merely to find her amusing—even so, she found herself as unmoved in their company as she had been with Karim.

  Alvanley was not handsome but very witty. She felt nothing.

  Adderwood was not only handsome but charming and witty. She felt no heat, no thrill.

  Winterton was as handsome as Marchmont, and others might view him as more romantic, with his dark hair and eyes, but she felt no excitement of any kind in his company, either. He was the man who’d rescued her, and she would always be grateful. But she couldn’t feel more than gratitude.

  None of them had succeeded in blotting Marchmont from her mind.

  Still, that was only three eligible men, she told herself. When she was finally moving freely in Society, she’d meet many, many more. The odds were in her favor.

  In the meantime, she must do something about Marchmont. He’d had a great deal to drink. He must have an unusually strong head for liquor. Any other man, she thought, would have been carried out to his carriage by now.

  She knew he was uneasy about this dinner. She knew he thought it a bad idea. Otherwise he wouldn’t have put a lot of elderly bachelors and widowers on his list of “eligibles.” He was worried she’d misbehave and spoil everything.

  Too, he was jealous.

  It was very difficult to enjoy the company and concentrate on other people when he was prowling about, cross and bored and wanting to fight somebody.

  Men, she knew, would fight over women merely to prove who was the bigger and stronger male. It didn’t matter whether they really wanted the woman or not.

  She drifted from one group of guests to the next until she saw him talking to Alvanley, near the windows. Then she approached. “I should like a word with His Grace,” she said.

  Alvanley gracefully made himself scarce, as she’d known he would. He was not as competitive with Marchmont as Lord Adderwood was.

  “What word is that?” Marchmont said when his friend had moved out of earshot.

  “I lied,” she said, lowering her voice. “I have bushels of words. But first—I’m sorry you’re so bored. I know this isn’t the group you chose. But for some reason Papa seemed to think your list was a joke.”

  “The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe,” he said. “That’s what did it, probably. An agreeable fellow—but his eldest daughter is three years older than you. I know what you’re thinking.”

  She was thinking he was a man, and possessive. About her. She knew this signified nothing. It was merely competition with other men. But her body, which noticed no other men, was aroused by this one, a snake drawn to the heat.

  “You were trying to protect me,” she said. “You thought I’d be safer with more mature gentlemen.”

  “Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “I’m thinking, too, of how grateful I am,” she said. “Your friends Lord Adderwood and Lord Alvanley are amusing. And your cousin Miss Sinclair is very clever.”

  Miss Emma Sinclair had proved to be not only clever but informative. She thought the world of her cousin Marchmont and didn’t hesitate to say so. Tonight Zoe had learned that the duke supported this lady, along with numerous other relatives. Though a woman of high rank, Miss Sinclair, like too many other spinsters, had no income; and, like them, she had no respectable means of earning a living or even any idea or training in how to go about earning one.

  Marchmont, who made such a show of caring about nothing and nobody, obviously cared about Miss Sinclair. He supported her. Generously. And that was only part of the story. Miss Sinclair had told Zoe that he not only supported his mad aunt Sophronia but let her live in grand style in a magnificent old house he owned, a few miles from London. These, Zoe had learned, were by no means the only relatives to whom he was generous.

  She knew it was a gentleman’s obligation to look after his dependents. She knew a duke had a great many dependents. All the same, the discovery had made her heart ache. In so many ways he’d changed, and not for the better. But in other ways he was Lucien still, impossibly annoying at times—as he’d always been—yet kind, deep down, in the heart he kept so well hidden.

  “I’m glad they amuse and entertain you,” he said. “You needn’t worry about my being bored. I am not so dangerous as you are when that happens.?
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  He was a great deal more dangerous than she. His mood hung over the drawing room like a storm cloud. She wasn’t sure others felt it—or recognized what it was if they did feel it—but she did, and it was wearing on her nerves.

  She smiled up at him. “But I’m not dangerous tonight. I can be proper when it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “You’ve done well,” he said. “Everyone’s in love with you.”

  But not she with them.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the harem,” she said. “You seemed displeased.”

  He waved this away, the slightest gesture of his hand. “It didn’t signify.”

  “And you shouldn’t worry when men stare at my breasts,” she said.

  She caught the flicker of surprise before he hid his eyes again. “There they were—are,” he said, and she felt, rather than saw, his green gaze drift downward. “Unavoidable.”

  “But that’s the purpose of evening dress,” she said. “To display.”

  “You have undoubtedly achieved the purpose,” he said.

  “You’re very protective,” she said.

  “Yes, like a brother.”

  Oh, she was trying to be patient and understanding. She reminded herself of how much he’d had to drink. She reminded herself that men could be the most irrational of creatures. She told herself a great many sensible things, yet she felt her temper slipping.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt your manly pride,” she said, “but it would be best for everyone to think of us in that way. One must change the way people view us—I had in mind our public quarrels. It’s the same as letting Mr. Beardsley believe I was the slave of Karim’s first wife. In people’s minds I stopped being a concubine and turned into a Jarvis.”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” he said. “No need to. I was…amused.”

  She very much doubted he’d been amused, but before she could respond, Lord Adderwood approached.

  And in the nick of time, too, because she was strongly tempted to pick up the nearest heavy object and apply it to the duke’s skull.

  “Monopolizing the lady again, I see,” said Adderwood.

  “Not at all,” Marchmont said. “I was about to take my leave. I thank you for a most entertaining evening, Miss Lexham.” He bowed and walked away.

  Zoe did not pick up a porcelain figurine from the pier table nearby and throw it at him. He continued walking away, unmolested, and not long thereafter, he was gone.

  Later, at White’s

  The Duke of Marchmont waved his wineglass as he declaimed:

  I know you all, and will a while uphold

  The unyoked humor of your idleness:

  Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

  Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

  To smother up his beauty from the world,

  That when he please again to be himself—

  “I knew it,” Adderwood said. “I knew we should have Prince Hal tonight. Someone call a servant—better yet, a brace of them. Let’s get him home before he falls into the fire.”

  Ten

  Afternoon of Thursday, 23 April

  The Duke of Marchmont had arranged with Lexham to collect the ladies and take them to the Queen’s House in his state coach. The vehicle was one he employed on ceremonial occasions, and it was large enough to accommodate comfortably a pair of ladies in hooped petticoats and two gentlemen encumbered with dress swords. Only three would travel in the carriage today, though, because Lexham was otherwise engaged.

  Marchmont arrived a little before his time, more uneasy than he’d ever admit to being. He’d attended too many levees and Drawing Rooms to view them as anything more than social events.

  This occasion, though, could determine Zoe’s future. It could decide whether she would move freely in the ton, as all her sisters did, or be pushed to its fringes, permanently on the outside looking in.

  While he waited at the bottom of the main staircase, however, his mind wasn’t on the challenge ahead but on the dinner party of the previous week. In the cold light of the following day, and in the dark misery of the world’s vilest headache, he had not been happy with his behavior.

  He hadn’t seen her since then. He’d told himself he didn’t need to. He’d done all he could. He’d helped her order her wardrobe for the Season—or at least the start of her wardrobe. He’d accomplished the impossible by finding a horse lively enough to suit her while not the sort of fire-breather liable to kill her. He’d had her measured for a saddle and fitted for riding attire. He’d obtained the crucial invitation to the Drawing Room.

  The rest was up to her, and if she—

  The sound of rustling fabric made him look up.

  She appeared at the landing.

  She paused there and smiled, then flipped open her fan and held it in front of her face, concealing all but her eyes—while meanwhile, below, the low, square neckline of her gown concealed almost nothing.

  The deep blue eyes glinted as they regarded him.

  “How splendid you are,” she said.

  He wore a satin frock coat with an extravagantly embroidered silk waistcoat and the obligatory knee breeches. Under his arm he carried the required chapeau bras. His court sword hung at his side.

  “Not a fraction as splendid as you,” he said.

  She was beyond splendid. She was…delicious.

  Younger women viewed court gowns as ridiculous and old-fashioned. They were, certainly, when one tried to combine today’s fashion for high waists with the great skirts of olden times. But he’d told Madame Vérelet to drop the waistline of Zoe’s court gown. The bodice and petticoat were a deep rose sarsnet. The combination of vibrant color and lowered waist created a more balanced effect. The layers of silver net and the delicate lace trimming the drapery and train made her seem to be rising out of a cloud upon which sunlight sparkled, thanks to the diamonds her mother and sisters must have lent her. The gems adorned the gown, her neck and ears, her plumed headdress, her gloved arms, and her fan.

  It helped, too, that Zoe didn’t seem to regard hoops as an encumbrance. Judging by the way she descended the stairs, she seemed to have adopted them as an instrument of seduction.

  She closed the fan and made her way down slowly, every sway of the skirts suggestive.

  His mouth went dry.

  “Ah, well done, well done,” came Lexham’s voice beside him.

  Belatedly, Marchmont discovered his erstwhile guardian, who must have come out into the hall while Marchmont was gawking at Zoe and getting exactly the sorts of ideas he strongly suspected she wanted him to have, the little devil.

  When she reached the bottom of the stairs, her father walked to her and kissed her cheek. His eyes glistened with unshed tears. “How glad I am to see this day arrived at last,” he said.

  If all went well, this day would give Zoe the life she would have had if she had grown up in the way her sisters had done.

  If all went well.

  Lady Lexham followed Zoe down the stairs a moment later. “Isn’t she lovely?” said she. “How clever you were about the dress, Marchmont. There will be nothing like it at court today—and next week, everyone will want the same thing.”

  “That’s why he’s a leader of fashion,” said Zoe.

  “And all this time I thought it was my wit and charm.”

  “Try to be dull on the way to the Queen’s House,” Zoe said. “I have a thousand things to remember: what to say and what not to say. Mainly it’s what not to say. If I were wearing the usual kind of dress, I could simply tell Mama to kick me if I said the wrong thing—but with all this great tent under me, it would take forever to find something to kick, and by then I should have disgraced myself.”

  “Never fear,” said Marchmont. “If I detect the smallest sign of your going astray, I’ll create a diversion. I’ll accidentally trip over my sword.”

  “There, you see, is the mark of a true nobleman, Zoe,” said her father. “He’ll fall on his sword for you.”
r />   “I said I’d get her through this and I shall,” said Marchmont. “I shall do whatever is necessary.” His gaze reverted to Zoe, floating in her cloud of rose and silver. “Ready, brat?”

  She smiled a slow, beatific smile, and a summer sun broke out upon the world.

  “Ready,” she said.

  It was the most amazing sight. As they neared the Queen’s House, Zoe watched long lines of carriages advancing through the Green Park from Hyde Park. Others—from the Horse Guards and St. James’s, Marchmont said—came by way of the Mall. Along both routes people crowded, watching the parade of vehicles. She heard the blare of trumpets and the crack of guns.

  As they neared the courtyard, where they were to alight, she saw another line of carriages going the other way, heading toward what Mama said was Birdcage Walk.

  “I wish I could open the window,” she said.

  “Don’t be silly, Zoe,” said her mother.

  “You want to hang out of it, I don’t doubt,” said Marchmont. “Your plumes will fall off into the dirt, and the dust will coat your gown. You may open the window when we depart. Nobody will care what you look like then.”

  “It’s beyond anything,” she said. “Everyone said there would be a great crowd, but I had no idea.”

  The carriage stopped and she took her nose away from the glass to which it had been pressed. She smoothed her skirts, not because they needed it but because she relished the feel of the silver net, like gossamer. “I feel like a princess,” she said.

  “The princesses are agreeable enough ladies, but I fear you’ll outshine them,” said Marchmont. “Perhaps I should have let you hang out of the window after all.”

  She smiled at him. She couldn’t help it. He’d tried her patience the week before, but she had missed him, and seeing him at the bottom of the stairs today had made her heart lift. Descending the stairs, she’d felt as light as a cloud.

  He had called her “brat,” as he used to do so long ago.

  And though he’d stood in all his grandeur of court dress, looking every inch the duke he was, descended from a very long line of them—for all that pomp, he was Lucien, too.