Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)

Instead of allaying her fears, he sat in his chair and gripped his plate until the delicate edge of the china cut into his hands.

Then he’d been silent too long, an entire species of error in its own right.

“Very well.” Laura’s voice trembled. “Double it. I don’t care.”

Nothing had changed since she was four except the chairs. He was still ruining everything.

Madness, a physician had once told Gareth, was repeating the same events over and over while hoping for a different result. That was why Gareth had no fear he would fall in love, no matter what Madame Esmerelda predicted for him. Love was watching his sister choke back tears. Love hoped that month after month, she would continue to issue invitations. And love believed, against all evidence, that one day, he would get it right, that he would learn to talk to her as a brother instead of the cold, unfeeling man she must have believed him to be.

In short, love was madness.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE’D EMBARKED on a new species of madness, Gareth thought as he shifted on the soft squabs of the closed carriage. It was the night of the coming-out ball that he and Ned were to attend. It had been almost a week since he left Madame Esmerelda’s quarters, and the visceral pull she had on him should have waned. Tonight he would take the first step in breaking her power over Ned.

And yet…

He had thought he’d figured out Madame Esmerelda. Classified her, genus and species. One fraud, first class; motivated by greed. That ambition on her part was no doubt intensified by an early childhood where she’d not fit a predefined role. And, luckily for him, she was as susceptible as he to the powerful lust that burned between them.

Having identified the problem, the solution seemed obvious: Execute her tasks with maximum alacrity and minimum embarrassment, thus exposing her perfidy to Ned. Take her to bed, enjoy her thoroughly and dispel his unfortunate attraction to her in the most pleasurable manner possible.

He chanced a glance across the seat. She sat properly, her feet crossed and put to the side to avoid his own limbs. She had very carefully avoided his gaze all evening. Without saying a word to him, though, she’d destroyed the mental identification he’d made. She’d become an anomaly. Gareth’s ordered mind abhorred anomalies.

Correction: Gareth loved anomalies. An anomaly meant there was a scientific mystery to explore. It meant some mysterious unknown cause had come into play, and if he could just examine the problem from the right angle, he could be the first person in the world to solve the puzzle. No; the scientist in Gareth adored conundrums. It was the marquess in him, the responsible Lord Blakely, who feared the consequences.

Because under the circumstances, it was dreadfully inconvenient to adore anything about her.

The first burning question in his mind was—why that gown? Oh, he’d sunk to new lows, contemplating a woman’s wardrobe. Gareth was hardly an arbiter of fashion, but even he knew that these days the waist was fashionably pulled in by means of some corsetted contraption. Necklines skimmed the br**sts. And sleeves were supposed to balloon like enraged puffer-fish.

He’d looked forward to seeing that remarkable bosom framed by a fashionably low neckline. He’d have engaged in some chance ogling or a brush of his hands against a creamy collarbone. In the dress he had envisioned, such accidents would have been delightfully inevitable.

But instead Madame Esmerelda’s dress was brown—almost black, in the dimness of the carriage. The neck was unmodishly high, and the sleeves had only a hint of a puff to them. No lace, no ribbons and no fancy gold trim. No shaping of the figure.

Her choice of attire was as baffling as it was disappointing. After she’d raged at him the other day, he’d pulled out his notebook and disappeared into his scientific work. When the modiste had come to him in outrage, he’d brushed her away. He had assumed Madame Esmerelda would take advantage of his lack of focus. After all, she could have lived for a week on the price of a single gilt ribbon. Instead, she must have waged war with the modiste to obtain such an unflattering gown. And Gareth wanted to know why.

A first-class fraud, motivated by greed, would have ordered gold netting and badgered Gareth to provide sapphires to highlight the remarkable color of her eyes. It made no sense to do anything else.

He’d been staring openly at her since she’d entered his carriage. She’d gifted him with short glances that smoldered beneath his skin even after she turned her head. Kissing the woman should have given her the upper hand, should have revealed his weakness to her. A first-class fraud would have taken every seductive advantage. She would have kept his gaze and added burning promises with every lift of her brow. She would have taken advantage of the cover of darkness to rest her foot against his. After all, how better to reap the rewards, and potentially cloud Gareth’s judgment?