The Perfect Seduction Page 2

  Laying aside his unfinished toast, Barrett brushed crumbs from his fingertips while explaining, "I was thinking that perhaps she might be waiting for breakfast to be brought up. She'd likely be quite grateful should someone think of obliging her expectations. And if there's no housekeeper to see to the task ... " He met Carden's gaze, grinned and winked.

  He saw the direction of his friend's thoughts and settled back into his chair and the usual game. ''There's no housekeeper.

  The advertisement runs in the Times today. I imagine that they'll begin queuing up within the next hour."

  ''Then hadn't you best be getting dressed for the interviews?" Aiden asked. He looked him up and down, cocked a brow, and then added, "Or do you intend to select the candidate least affected by your lack of inhibition?"

  "Now there's an idea," Barrett contributed, rising from his seat and beginning to gather items for a breakfast tray.

  "Capital one, if I may so myself,' Aiden remarked banding over the teapot. "If be were to hire the right kind of woman, he d save himself the necessity of finding a new romantic interest every other day or so. There's a great deal to be said for convenience."

  Carden snorted and passed Barrett the jam. "There's even more to be said for novelty and the thrill of seduction."

  "Boredom is such a bore, isn't it?" Barrett observed, lifting the hastily assembled but well-laden tray. He chuckled and then said, "Give me fifteen minutes to charm your latest before you come up to make yourself presentable."

  "Fifteen?" Carden asked. ''That's all?"

  "Actually, I think ten will be quite sufficient," his friend replied while moving toward the door, "but I'd rather err on the side of certainty. The young lady might be a bit uncomfortable if you walked in just as she's agreeing to slip down the back stairs with me."

  Aiden pulled a gold watch from his pocket and flipped open the ornate cover. "How long are you going to give him?" .

  "At least thirty."

  "It won't take him that long," the other replied, placing the open timepiece on the table so they both could see it.

  "He can be quite the charmer when he wants something."

  Carden smiled broadly. "He's almost as good as I am. And given the proclivities of the woman upstairs, I doubt that it'll take him much more than five minutes to convince her to shift romantic allegiance. I'm allowing another ten for her to ably demonstrate her new loyalty and then another fifteen for them to get dressed and gone. You know how it goes."

  Aiden's smile said he did. "Be honest, Carden. Won't you miss her charms just the tiniest little bit?"

  Carden considered the center of the now almost empty breakfast table. Aiden was young-just twenty-three and while able to hold his own when it came to drawing women into his arms, still maintained some of youth's romantic notions about doing so. He'd had them at that age, too. But somewhere in the intervening seven years, they'd been discarded along the roadside of experience.

  Aiden would let go of them soon enough; Carden could see no reason for him to teach the hard lessons that life - and women inevitably would.

  "I very deliberately choose women who are ... " He paused, not quite certain of the best word to use. There were so many qualities that he deemed necessary in his lovers.

  "Forgettable?" Aiden supplied.

  Carden shook his head. "Utterly disposable."

  Aiden pursed his lips and stared at the linen tablecloth.

  After several long moments, he brought his gae back to Carden's and asked, "Has it ever occurred to you that you might choose the wrong one at some point and find yourself trapped into marrying her?"

  Of course he had. That's why he'd made all but a science of selecting the women for his liaisons. Perhaps, on second thought, he did owe it to the younger man to provide some words of fundamental wisdom. "Only the daughters of peers come with that kind of power, Aiden.

  I take great pains to avoid them. Pains, I might add, that are every bit the equal of those they take to avoid so much as conversing with a third son like myself."

  "So, in short, the answer is no."

  "I have no intention of being married. By either choice or force."

  Aiden smiled, his earlier tension obviously ebbing away. "Marriage would put something of a crimp in your social life."

  "Not in the least," Carden countered as the front bell chimed. "Which means, of course, that making any vows of fidelity would be extremely hypocritical of me. And I firmly believe that there's a sufficient number of hypocrites in the world already. I refuse to add to the problem."

  "Very decent of you."

  "Thank you. I think so."

  The bell chimed again and they both looked out of the breakfast room doors.

  Aiden leaned forward for a better look down the hallway and wondered aloud, "Isn't Sawyer going to answer the door?"

  "He went to run errands for me," Carden explained, pushing himself up from his chair. "Obviously he hasn't yet returned."

  "You're not going to answer it yourself, are you? Dressed like that?"

  He looked down at his silk dressing gown, realiing that he was barely covered and a far cry from decent. The bell sounded yet again. He considered the expanse of hallway and the door at the other end. "Would you prefer to listen to the bell ring incessantly?"

  "Not really."

  "Neither would I," he admitted, drawing the sides of the gown closer and giving the waist sash a quick yank.

  "And, the matter of preserving our sanity aside, the advertisement was clear that interviews are to begin at two. It's just now noon. If the woman's brassy enough to repeatedly ring the bell two hours early, then she fully deserves to have her sensibilities shocked to the core."

  He was moving to the door when Aiden said, "I'm dressed. I could get it for you."

  "It's not your house," Carden declared and then left his friend at the table. The bell sounded again as he reached for the knob. His teeth clenched, he wrenched open the thick mahogany panel and immediately stepped into the opening, prepared to serve up a scathing lecture on good manners.

  He stopped breathing instead. She was without doubt the most exotic, lusciously curved beauty he'd ever seen. The fact that her clothes were hopelessly unfashionable, faded, and wholly insufficient for the spring weather did nothing to detract from the essential elements of her. Tall, blue eyed, and-judging by the curls peeking out from under a battered bonnet-brunette, she was an almost perfect picture of genteelly impoverished English womanhood. But where most Englishwomen of some quality had skin the color of fine porcelain, this creature decidedly departed from the norm. She was finely featured and delicately boned-which only served to make the softly burnished hue of her skin all that much more intriguing. Her hands were the same delectable color, her fingers long and graceful and without the slightest evidence of a wedding ring.

  And her demeanor ... It was a curious mixture, as well. She'd flinched as he'd flung open the door, but then stood her ground and looked him up and down without the slightest squeal of surprise at his state of virtual undress.

  At present her gae was fastened on his shoulders and she seemed to be searching for a beginning, an explanation of her presence. He didn't really need one, he decided. She was standing on his doorstep and that was enough. He was' sufficiently resourceful; if she gave him just half a chance, he could take their relationship from here.

  "Good day, madam," he drawled. She started and met his gaze as a blush swept into her cheeks. She hadn't been searching for a beginning at all, he realized. She'd been absorbed in consideration of his physical person. And judging by the guilty look in her eyes, her mental attentions had bordered on indecent. Carden only barely managed to keep his smile contained as he added, "How may I be of service to you?"

  She softly cleared her throat, squarely met his gaze, and answered, "I've been told that this is the residence of Mr. Carden Reeves."

  "It is." God, her voice was just as exotic as she was. Definitely British but with a very slight, gently rolling fore
ign accent that he couldn't place. And in that instant he knew that he'd hire her regardless of her references.

  Maybe there was something to convenience he'd been overlooking all these years. It was certainly worth a try.

  Carden smiled and leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb, saying, "The interviews are to begin promptly at two. You're welcome to wait on the walk until then. It would be unfair to the others to begin early."

  She blinked those incredibly blue eyes of hers and looked sincerely puzzled as she said, "Interviews?"

  Most actresses dressed better, but he had to admit that she had talent. Willing to play his part, he blithely supplied, "For the housekeeper position advertised in this morning's Times."

  For a second, anger flashed in her eyes like ice in the sun and then it was gone, replaced by a kind of tattered resignation that made him want to reach out for her, to take her face gently between his hands and ask her to tell him bow she came to be standing on his doorstep. She'd cry and he'd kiss away her pretty tears and draw her inside, assuring her that all would be- "I'm not here to interview for employment," she said, shattering his fantasy. "I have personal business to discuss with Mr. Reeves. Is he perchance at home and receiving callers this morning? It's very important."

  She thought he was the butler? In what comer of the British empire did butlers answer the door at noon dressed only in a silk dressing gown? Amused, he crossed his arms over his chest and inquired, "What sort of personal business?"

  "I'm sorry, sir, but 'personal' implies that it would be inappropriate to discuss the matter with anyone but Mr. Reeves."

  She'd said it kindly and softly, but the notes of censure were there nonetheless. One needed a housekeeper who fully understood and was willing to hold the line of propriety.

  At least in public. "I'm Carden Reeves. And I'm certain that I'd recall having previously met you, madam. What personal business could there be for us to discuss?"

  She drew back-not as though repulsed by any means, but in apparent shock. He couldn't tell whether it was because she'd suddenly realized that she was speaking not to the butler but to the master of the house, or because the masters of the houses in that far comer of the empire didn't answer their own doors in dressing gowns. As her gaze skimmed him from hair to toes, he decided that it must be the latter; she seemed more curious than embarrassed.

  He liked curious women.

  "Madam?"

  "Forgive me," she said somewhat breathlessly as she met his gaze again. "It's just that you're nothing at all like Arthur."

  If her intent was to give him a turn at rocking back on his heels, she succeeded. "You know my older brother?"

  She nodded. "Your brother was a wonderful, kind, and considerate man."

  He felt the earth shift under his feet and he straightened his stance, desperate to hold his equilibrium. "Was? Did you say was?. "

  She too shifted on the step, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin slightly. "I regret having to be the bearer of such news, but nine months ago your brother and his wife departed for a brief expedition into the interior of Belize. Since they haven't returned or sent word, they're presumed to be dead."

  "Presumed?" he repeated, knowing even as he did that he was grasping at straws. ''Then he might still be alive."

  Her smile was tight, and deep in her eyes he saw the tiniest, briefest flicker of irritation. "You know nothing of the jungle, do you, Mr. Reeves?"

  "He can't be dead. He simply can't be."

  "I'm afraid that is the most likely of all the possibilities."

  Christ on a crutch, this was the very last thing in the world he wanted to hear. First Percival and now, apparently, Arthur. He was cursed. And damned. If word got out of his change in status, his every waking moment would become a living hell. He didn't deserve this. Nothing he'd ever done in his life had been rotten enough to have brought this kind of divine vengeance down on his head.

  "Mr. Reeves?"

  He quickly scrubbed his hands over his face and then dropped them to his sides as he tried to focus his vision on the woman standing in front of him. The beautiful messenger of ugly news. Proof that God had an extremely twisted sense of irony. And a mean streak as wide as the Thames.

  "While I'm sensitive to your upset and grieving, Mr. Reeves," he heard her say kindly but firmly, "there are, unfortunately, matters which simply must be dealt with immediately. "

  He should ask her in; discussing personal matters on the front steps was definitely outside the bounds of social protocol. "Such as?" was all he managed to choke out.

  "I am Mrs. Gerald Treadwell," she began, her smile weak and strained. "Your brother and sister-in-law left me in charge of their affairs. It was to have been a very temporary arrangement, but the circumstances changed. I thought it best to bring what was left of their lives to you.

  Since your sister-in-law was an only child and orphaned, you are the only living relation of whom I am aware."

  His brain wasn't working properly; he heard her words-each and every one of them-but only one out of three had any sort of significant impact. He couldn't ask her to repeat it all. It wouldn't make any difference anyway.

  He considered what he remembered of her little speech. She'd said her name was Treadwell. Mrs. Treadwell.

  And something about bringing ... A dim light flickered in his awareness. Personal effects. She'd brought him Arthur's and Mary's personal effects.

  Carden nodded. "Have the boxes or trunks or whatever delivered at my expense." "I've already seen to the order and the paying of the costs, Mr. Reeves. They should arrive here within a few hours."

  He thought that should have concluded their conversation, that with that she should have expressed her condolences one more time and then bid him good day and walked away. But she didn't. She stood there, watching him with huge blue eyes filled with patient expectation.

  "Why," he wondered aloud, "do 1 sense that our conversation is not yet done?"

  "Perhaps because it isn't," she instantly countered. "I have brought your brother's children home."

  "Children?" He all but choked on the word. Good God, the woman was better than any professional pugilist he'd ever seen. She hadn't laid a hand on him and yet he was reeling.

  "Were you not aware that your brother had children?" "Arthur and I ... " Memories swept over him and with them came the usual flood of anger. In the span of a single heartbeat, the cloud numbing his mind was seared away.

  "Never mind," he said laconically. "It's hardly relevant. How many children? And please tell me that there's a son or two in the litter."

  It wasn't either irritation or impatience in her eyes this time; it was anger. She didn't make the slightest effort to conceal or bank it but instead turned her back to him and crisply nodded. A sudden movement out toward the street caught his attention and drew it past her. There was a rented hack at the curb, the driver apparently sleeping in the box, whip in hand. It had been the opening of the carriage door that had drawn his gaze.

  He watched as a young girl in a ragged dress stepped down onto the public walk. A second girl, slightly smaller, followed on her heels, her skirts too short by half and exposing far too much of her calves to be decent. A third girl - a very little one - jumped two-footed from the carriage and bounded to a halt beside what he could only presume were her older sisters.

  Carden stared at the carriage door and willed a young male-size didn't matter-to come out of the dark recesses. He was still commanding it when the eldest of the three girls turned back and smartly closed the door on his one and only hope of salvation. It was all but official. He was going to become Carden Reeves, the goddamn seventh Earl of Lansdown.

  CHAPTER 2

  What doubts Carden might have been able to entertain to their parentage evaporated as the three girls came to stand beside their nurse on his front steps. They were the very image of Arthur; the same dark eyes fringed with long, thick lashes that had been entirely too feminine on their father, the same full shape of the
ir lower lips the same way of holding their heads. And damned if they didn’t have Arthur's manner about them, as well. All the world was an adventure for them - every person in it subject to open scrutiny and finely honed analysis. And at that moment he felt very much like a bug in a jar.

  “Mr: Reeves,” their nurse said as they boldly looked up at him, “may I present your nieces, Amanda, Beatrice and Camille."

  Alphabetical. How typically Arthur.

  "Darlings, this is your Uncle Carden. Your father's younger brother."

  Out of sheer habit, he countered, "Half-brother."

  The littlest one looked as though she might cry. The eldest didn’t react at all, her face seemingly having turned to stone. The middle one cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes as though she were trying to see him more clearly. Their nurse - Mrs. Treadwell, he recalled - arched a gorgeously shaped eyebrow and softly cleared her throat. The sound reminded him of Sawyer and, belatedly, good manners.

  "Won't you please come in?" he asked, stepping back and drawing the door wide with a gesture every bit its equal. Mrs. Treadwell nodded and motioned his nieces forward. They marched across his threshold in alphabetical order and then stopped dead in the center of his entryway,.

  He closed the door, his mind racing.

  “Ah ... This way, into the parlor," Carden said, motioning yet again, this time to the small room reserved for the receiving of guests - not that he ever had any that didn't know him well enough to come in through the back door.

  ''If you'd like to have a seat, ladies," be offered even as be noted the layer of dust covering all of the furnishings.

  Someone - probably Barrett - had written "hire a maid" in the stuff that coated the narrow table backing one of the matching settees. Hiring a maid was properly within the housekeeper's duties, of course. And he definitely intended to hire one of those today. In a matter of hours, in fact. "If you'd be so kind as to excuse me for a few moments," he said as the three younger guests plopped down on the upholstery with enough force to raise a choking cloud. "I need to make myself a bit more presentable."