The three men turned and looked at her, each of them smiling wolfishly.
Later that night, Grif lay awake into the morning hours racking his brain for a way out of his latest predicament with Anna Addison. And when no solution came to him, he lay awake until dawn trying to think exactly how he might go about teaching a woman to seduce a man.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t been seduced in his life, for certainly he had. But even in those instances he had been blatantly seduced, the complete seduction had been more of an air, an unspoken, impalpable aura of sex that engulfed him, than it was a single act.
And he could not, for the life of him, imagine that aura surrounding Miss Addison.
He was waiting for her promptly at three o’clock, the agreed-upon time, anxious to have it over and done with. Dudley showed her to the main drawing room, where they would commence this loathsome task.
Grif was seated in an overstuffed damask chair when she came in, his legs crossed, his fingers templed when she entered.
She looked, he thought, remarkably improved from yesterday’s unpleasant encounter—meaning, of course, the demon sparkle had returned to her copper eyes. She was dressed in a somber brown gown with sleeves puffed up at the shoulders and a demure neckline that hid her bosom. The gown was not quite floor-length, and he could see delicate slippers peeking out from underneath the heavily ribboned hem. In spite of knowing little about the art of seduction, he knew this—she did not look like a woman who intended to seduce a member of the opposite sex.
Nevertheless, he nodded curtly as Dudley shut the door behind her, and kept his expression carefully indifferent. “Miss Addison.”
“My, ah…lord,” she said, and tossed her gloves, bonnet, and reticule to a settee. “I beg your pardon, but now that we have embarked on a new arrangement, might you have another…perhaps authentic… name?” she asked.
“Ah,” he said pleasantly. “I see ye’ve wasted no time in removing yer gloves, as it were. If ye feel ye have a need to address me at all, then ye may as well know me as Lockhart.”
That prompted a narrowing of her eyes and she flashed a devilish smile like the spawn she was. “I knew it,” she breathed, her voice full of self-righteousness. “I knew there was a resemblance!”
Grif shrugged. “Yer suspicions are thus confirmed.”
“And your Christian name, might I ask?”
He sighed. “Griffin. Griffin Finnius Lockhart. Grif, as I’m known.”
“You’re the captain’s brother, aren’t you?” she asked, grinning triumphantly at his nod. “And Drake Lockhart’s cousin, then?”
“Aye,” he said wearily.
Her smile faded into a puzzled frown. “I don’t understand—why doesn’t he know who you are?”
He debated what to tell her. “The Scottish Lockharts are estranged from the English Lockharts, and have been for a very long time. Now, then—”
“But even so, why should you hide your true identity? And why should your brother want that horrid gargoyle? And why—”
“Ach, ye ask too many questions, lass!”
She blinked. “Are you an outlaw?” she whispered excitedly.
“No, I am no’ an outlaw,” he said gruffly. “If ye must know, I have hidden me identity from Lockhart because we are engaged in something of a family dispute. So now ye might put yer imagination to rest.”
“If it’s a family dispute, why won’t you just go to him?” she asked, brightening. “He’s really very fair, and very thoughtful—”
“Did ye come to resolve me family’s dilemma, or to learn the art of seduction?” he demanded.
She paused and seemed to debate that for a long moment. “The latter,” she said at last.
“Very well, then, Anna—”
“Miss Addison will do,” she said pertly.
“Ah, but if I am to teach ye to seduce a man, Miss Addison, it might be a sight easier if I knew ye by something a wee bit more… intimate.”
She pursed her lips, considering it.
“Anna,” he repeated softly, and pushed himself to his feet, clasped his hands behind his back, and moved toward her. “What a pretty name for the diabhal.”
She frowned. “That’s hardly polite.”
“I beg yer pardon, lass, but I believe we’ve gone well past polite.”
Anna folded her arms across her middle. “Then might we agree,” she suggested in a sweet voice that belied the look in her eye, “that you’ll not speak in your native tongue? I confess to feeling rather at a loss when you do.”
“Do ye, indeed?” he asked, and slowly circled her, openly and honestly admiring her feminine form. “We canna have ye feeling at a loss, can we? After all, ye hold all the cards, do ye no’? I’ll use the language of the Highlands only when I refer to yer body, so as no’ to upset ye, aye?”