The Perfect Seduction Read online

  "Where is Seraphina?"

  "In the conservatory," Sawyer supplied. "With your nieces and Mr. Stanbridge, sir. Monroe took them a basket lunch a short while ago."

  His already racing pulse shot a sizzling jolt through his veins. "What's Barrett doing here?"

  "I have no idea, sit." Sawyer met his gaze and cocked a white brow. "Was I to have asked before I admitted him?"

  "No," he snarled, heading off, the envelopes gripped tightly in his hand, and feeling a strange rather ill-defined but decidedly unsettling mixture of emotions. There was certainly a healthy dose of anger in it all; he'd been working up that one all morning. First with the nameless nincompoop who had thought to build a conservatory and hold himself up as an engineer. And then Lady Caruthers who thought he should surrender all concerns about competency in exchange for her pounds and shillings. And now Seraphina Treadwell, Honoria, and Barrett seemed to be trying to elbow their way past each other to make the top of his resentment list. They might just have to share it, he decided, as he stormed toward the rear of the house.

  He couldn't decide with which of them he was more angry.

  Carden yanked open the conservatory door, took a single long stride in, blindly shoved the door closed behind him, and stopped dead in his tracks.

  There, right in front of him, semi-reposed on a chaise in a soft pool of light was Seraphina. She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. And in that small, very feminine gesture, his senses flooded. The air wrapped around him, warm and thick and moist, smelling profoundly alive and dancing through the shafts of sunlight, bathing Seraphina's golden curls and creamy skin, brightening her breathtakingly blue eyes.

  Eden. And Eve. The easel, the half-done watercolor, the small plate on the cushion with bread and cheese. Seraphina, somehow looking both serene and vibrant. If ever there was an angel of sweet come-hither ... His knees slowly weakened.

  "Ah, just in time for lunch."

  So delectable. For dinner, too.

  "Card?"

  The cocoon of his fantasies pierced by the sharp edge of reality, Carden started, realizing too late that he and Seraphina weren't alone, that Barrett sat in a wicker throne off to the side, a witness to his momentary loss of calculated control. The embarrassment of bruised pride sparked his anger anew. Thank God the girls were-judging by the sounds-Somewhere in the back of the greenhouse and hadn't seen him make a drooling fool of himself.

  "Do you know what these are?" he demanded, striding toward Sera, practically shaking the stack of envelopes at her.

  She arched a delicate brow and took them from him, her gaze searching his warily. He took up a broad stance, folded his arms across his chest, and glared down at her, silently commanding her to look and then explain as best she could. With a sigh, she obeyed, reading the one he'd already opened and simply shuffling through the rest.

  'They're invitations," she said evenly, handing them back to him. "You're supposed to reply to them in some manner approximating gracious."

  No immediate explanation. No instant apology. This wasn't proceeding as he thought it rightly should. "Do you have any notion as to why my foyer table is being littered with them even as we speak?"

  "Well," she answered blithely, "it certainly can't be because people want to revel in your sparkling good humor."

  His pulse was hammering in his temples, but not loud enough to obliterate the sound of Barrett chuckling. Carden turned, glared at his friend-who had the sense to at least cover his grin with his hand-and began to pace.

  "These are being delivered by the wagonload," he growled, "because the word has gone forth. Carden Reeves is the new earl! Polish the plate and queue up the daughters!" .

  "I didn't say a word to Honoria. I fully honored our agreement," Sera asserted, apparently unruffled by his agitation.

  "She deduced it all on her own. And in all likelihood long before I ever came down the stairs to meet her last night. But if you want to climb to the rooftop and proclaim Arthur to be alive and well in Belize: go right ahead. For a while, it would be your word against Honoria's."

  He thought about it, pictured himself on the roof. In his club. On public walkways. He stopped pacing. ''That would be pathetic."

  "Yes, it would."

  He could have done without her quick and easy agreement.

  It was salt on the battered heap of what had been his hopes for a relatively normal, private life. It was especially embittering to realize that he hadn't been allowed the time to even consider how he might go about accomplishing it.

  Not that any of it was Seraphina's fault. he knew. And that was the oddest thing. Part of him wanted to be angry - truly, ragingly, wildly angry - about the unfairness of it all. But he couldn't seem to muster so much as a sliver of the passion necessary for such a display. The notion of lying down on the chaise with Sera was another matter entirely, though. That he could do wholeheartedly and quite passionately.

  ''What's this?" he asked, suddenly aware of Barrett standing beside him, an envelope in his own hand.

  "Oh, guess," Barrett drawled as he surrendered it.

  "Make it fun."

  Carden slipped his finger beneath the flap, popped it open, and extracted the formally printed invitation tucked inside. A handwritten note had been hastily scribbled across the bottom. "Your mother, too?" he asked, meeting Barrett's gaze.

  "Everyone knows, Carden," his friend said with a chagrined smile. "Mother received two notes from friends about your elevation before breakfast was half over. Please tell me you'll be there. I really don't want her to be disappointed. She thinks she has a good chance of pulling off the greatest social coup of the season."

  Barrett's mother was a wonderful woman, kind and gentle, the perfect hostess. He'd been a guest at her table many a time and always when she'd nothing to gain socially from invIting him. To his thinking, if ever there was a person who deserved to achieve a coup, it was Melanie Stanbridge. And if he was going to hand out coups, then he was going to take the opportunity to make one for himself, as well.

  "All right," he said, his course quickly but clearly charted. "I'll go. But it's the only invitation I'm accepting. The only one."

  "Mother will be over the moon," Barrett offered, obviously relieved and grateful. "Thank you, Card."

  "I'll send the formal reply, of course, but when you tell her it's coming, also tell her not to trouble herself with finding a dinner companion for me. I'll be bringing my own."

  "Oh?" Barrett asked even as his gaze slipped past Carden and in the direction of the chaise.

  Carden chose to ignore him and turned to Seraphina With a smIle, warmed by the plans he had for her social debut. The timing was perfect - if he could get everything else to fall into place around it. "What have you heard from the great Gauthier?" he asked crisply, the gears of his brain clicking furiously.

  "He sent word that he'll be here at two. Today."

  "I thought Honoria was arranging for him to call tomorrow."

  "Apparently he's willing to scurry to attend the nieces of the new Earl of Lansdown." That was a double-edged sword, but he'd live with it.

  "And Honoria?"

  Sera either didn't make the slightest effort to hide her relief or it was simply too great to be contained; he couldn't tell which. "She sent her apologies just a while ago. She stumbled across a love poem Percival wrote her and she's prostrate with a new wave of grief."

  "Percival never wrote a poem in his life," Carden declared with a derisive snort. "Limericks, yes. Horribly obscene ones. But never a poem. Honoria's hiding from me."

  "Well," she observed, quiet laughter in the gaze she turned up at him, "I can't say that I blame her."

  He had to give Sera that one. He had been a bad tempered bear when he'd come in. But now ... He'd be damned delightful company if only Barrett would toddle off to tell his mother the good news. Irritated that his friend wasn't making the slightest effort to be clairvoyant, Carden clenched his teeth and deliberately turned his thoughts in another
direction. .

  "No, now that I think about it, Honoria's not hiding," he said. "At this very moment, she's in her carriage, clinging to the straps as her driver careens through town on two wheels so that she can spread the word as far and fast as she can. I warned you about her, Sera."

  "Oh, yes, I remember that," she instantly scoffed. "You told me she was sweet and couldn't keep secrets. You made her sound like a darling, well-intentioned, little old gossip. Ha! Honoria may be somewhat aged and tiny, but make no mistake about it, Carden Reeves, your sister-in-law is nothing short of a social shark."

  "A shark?" he repeated, rocking back on his heels, stunned by Sera's unexpectedly strong opinion. "Don't you think that's just a bit over the top?"

  She arched a brow. "No, I don't. When it comes to manipulation, she puts Machiavelli to shame."

  ''Well, yes," he conceded, deciding that he liked Sera's feathers a bit ruffled. All passion was linked and one kind quite often led to another. How, precisely, Sera's emotions were strung together remained to be seen. "But Honoria's harmless and ineffectual in the end," he said, carefully watching the light in Sera's eyes. "Isn't that what women are all about?"

  Apparently not Seraphina Treadwell, he instantly noted.

  No one would ever walk over her and not have a bruise to show for it.

  "Are you suggesting that all women are manipulative?"

  she asked ever so calmly, curling her side into the back of the chaise so that she could better look up at him. "Or are you saying that they're harmlessly ineffectual at it?"

  . "Be careful how you answer that, Card," Barrett laughingly said as he beat a retreat toward his wicker chair under the potted palms.

  ''Don't you have a crime you should be working to solve?" Carden called after him, hoping that he'd take the hint and use it as an excuse.

  "Not at the moment."

  Damn, Barrett could be a pain when he wanted. "Perhaps you ought to be out looking for one."

  Barrett dropped unceremoniously into the chair propped his feet up on the little table with the food basket' and grinned. "I think there's a very good chance a crime might be committed right here. Of course, male stupidity Isn’t criminal. Just embarrassingly common. And if Seraphina kills you - for it could be considered an entirely justifiable homicide. Either way, there isn't going to be much for me to investigate. It does, however, promise to be highly entertaining in other respects. Do go on, Carden. You were insulting the female mind."

  Yes, he had been, actually. And to his overall discredit, deliberately. Being around Sera tended to make mush of his better judgment and shred his sense of self-respect Before he could turn back to her and offer something along the lines of an apology, Seraphina glided past him asking, ''Would you care for something to eat? There's plenty left and it couldn't help but improve your general disposition.”

  "At the very least," Barrett contributed, sitting forward and ripping the cloth cover off the basket for Sera. “eating would prevent you from putting your foot in your mouth again." .

  Seraphina began to assemble a plate of food as his friend sat back in his chair again and asked, "Just out of morbid curiosity, what have you been doing this morning to have your attitude so thoroughly soured?”

  There was .something too comfortably domestic about the way Barrett and Seraphina shared the space around the little table. He didn't like it. "I went to look at Lady Godwin's conservatory,” Carden supplied, making his way to the chair next to Barrett's. "Lady Caruthers suggested that I do that so I'll know what she wants and can get the next set of drawings ... " He clenched bis teeth and forced himself to finish. "Right. " "

  "And?" Sera gently pressed without looking at him.

  "Lady Godwin's conservatory was built a good fifty years ago and mostly out of wax and spIt. I’m surprised it's still standing." He paused a moment, remembering, and then added, "But considering my disgusted departure and the way I slammed the door behind me, It may well not be now."

  Sera banded him a large white linen napkin and a plate generously filled with meats, cheeses and fruits. “Thank you," he said. noting the little smile playing at the comers of her mouth and regretting again his having baited her. "You haven't poisoned it, have you?"

  "No," she answered, settling into the chair opposite him. "Your poisonous plants were among the first to die from the neglect."

  He was pondering whether or not she'd honestly given the notion serious consideration when she asked, "Was there anything at all to like about the Godwin conservatory? Was the ventilation adequate? Was the lighting good, the heat even?"

  "I couldn't tell beyond it being stifling. There was barely room to walk into it. I had to all but back up to get out. What I know about it structurally is what I was able to discern from walking around the crumbling exterior of it."

  "Ab, that's it, then," she said softly, almost as though to herself.

  "What's it?"

  She studied him and he could see her choosing not only her words, but a path of some sort. "Lady Caruthers isn't at all interested in the structure itself," she finally ventured.

  ''What she wants is a jungle."

  ''To have a jungle in London," Carden countered, "one has to grow it inside a rather large glass box."

  "Agreed. But while you care about what the box looks like, Lady Caruthers cares only about what's inside it."

  He was about to point out that what was inside depended in large measure on what was built around it when she continued. "You said that she wanted the next set of plans done right. What did the first set look like? In a general sense."

  ''They're plans," he said simply. She arched a brow, silently informing him that it wasn't nearly as simple as he thought. "Standard engineering drawings," he clarified.

  "An idiot could take them and build the structure as long as be could read and competently use a measure."

  "Did you present her with any drawings of how the structure would look when it was lushly, extravagantly stocked with plants?"

  "I'm an engineer, not a gardener. How she fills it up is neither my concern nor my responsibility."

  "He has a point," Barrett offered in his defense, reaching for an apple and a knife.

  "That can only be maintained," Sera instantly contended, "out of sheer stubbornness and at the price of having his plans rejected."

  ''Well, I can live without building Lady Caruthers a conservatory,” Carden pointed out a bit more testily than he d intended. "Her rejection isn't going to give me any sleepless nights or have us living on the street."

  "Yes, but if you were to give her pretty pictures with lots of green and wild splashes of bright colors, she’d be happy as a lark and would let you build whatever your heart desires. Your pride and reputation needn't be bruised."

  It occurred to him that he should be bothered by Sera's ability to see through him so easily, but he wasn't. He was too interested in the way her mind worked. "You're quite confident of that, aren't you?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "Why?"

  "The last few months we were in Belize," she explained, "what money we had came from the art I was able to sell to the locals and to the travelers that passed through from time to time. The men always :preferred the subjects realistically portrayed down to the smallest detail. The women, on the other hand, wanted me to capture their dreams and, in that way, make them real. Effectively making that distinction between what I offered the two types of patrons determined whether or not we ate."

  He couldn't imagine living like that; hand to mouth, moment to moment, dependent on hawking something of yourself to complete strangers. And yet, to hear Seraphina tell of it, it had been a perfectly manageable state of affairs, a business like any other. It really was a most amazing perspective.

  "So Lady Caruthers wants Carden to design her dream conservatory. "

  "Yes," she answered, nodding. "And her vision is of the exotic treasures inside the box, not the box itself."

  "I'm not an artist, either," Carden felt ob
liged to point out. "I'm an architect. I specialize in boxes."

  "Well," Barrett drawled as he cut himself another slice of apple, ''how very fortunate you are that you happen to have an artist in residence."

  Did he honestly care about Lady Caruthers's damned floral dream? Not really, he had to admit. But there was his pride to consider. He'd never in his life had a proposal rejected. And then there were the benefits to working professionally with Seraphina. Which weren't altogether professional in their potential.

  "I'll pay you for your services, of course," he offered, his pulse racing. "Assuming that you're inclined to do the drawings."

  Her smile was soft and so in contrast to the mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "I wouldn't have broached the subject had I not been willing from the outset to offer my talents to the cause. And while pay isn't necessary, additional art supplies will be. Mine have become embarrassingly depleted."

  It was a vague feeling, one he couldn't quite grasp, much less define ...

  "You know, Card, I have the distinct impression that you've been effectively, artfully manipulated. And by wonder of wonders - a female."

  That was it. He'd all but been taken by the hand and led along. And he'd gone without so much as an inkling of what was happening in the larger scheme of things. And damn Barrett for seeing and understanding it before he had. This wasn't how things usually went. What was wrong with him? And why the hell wasn't he angry with Seraphina for having played him like the proverbial fiddle?

  IDs conscience quietly suggested that perhaps it was because he knew that he'd deserved it. "When are you scheduled to present Lady Caruthers with a revised plan?" Sera asked, gracefully moving past his embarrassment.

  "Tuesday, next," be supplied, deciding that the smartest thing to do was focus his present attention on future possibilities.

  "You'll need to see my existing plans so that you can incorporate some of the structural features into the drawings won't you?"