Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)

“Shocking similarities, my lord,” said White. That straight, unblinking gaze seemed subtly mocking in Gareth’s mind.

The tips of Gareth’s ears heated. He grabbed the edge of the desk and squeezed, as if to throttle that damned fortune-teller by proxy. There was a good reason Gareth didn’t attempt to make friends. He wasn’t any good at it. And he hated not being good at things.

He was making a scapegoat of her again.

If she ever found out about this, she’d mock him, and she would be right. He knew he used his social status as a shield to prevent this awkwardness. It had worked. It had worked ever since he was twelve.

It was only now that it failed. The import of that failure hit him directly in the chest. If he couldn’t even talk to a man who depended upon him for his livelihood, who would he ever connect with? He would be isolated all his life. Gareth fumbled for a topic of conversation.

“What’s it like, then? Marriage.”

White leaned back. Puzzled lines crinkled the corners of his eyes. “It’s a marvelous state.”

“But doesn’t Mrs. White ever lie to you?”

White was no fool. Those lines relaxed and smoothed away, as if he’d finally understood the reason for the inquiry. “All the time. The benefit of marriage is that it becomes so easy to recognize when one’s spouse lies.”

Gareth frowned. That state of hypocrisy seemed unbearable. It reinforced all his reasons for avoiding lengthy relationships. “What sort of lies does Mrs. White tell?”

White put his hands to the side of his head and batted his eyes in a manner Gareth supposed was intended to be femininely flirtatious. On the man’s sharp, masculine features, the expression was closer to frightening. “Oh, no, William. The shawl was quite inexpensive.”

The high falsetto proceeding from his normally baritone man of business made Gareth sit back in surprise.

“Of course,” White added in his normal voice, “I lie to her, too.”

“Oh?”

“Just this morning, I told her, ‘Nonsense, my dear, you haven’t aged a day.’”

Gareth shoved at the papers on his desk morosely. He had no experience with this sort of interaction. It sounded mundane and comforting. How could it seem both foolish and enviable at the same time?

White laid a piece of blotting paper over the letter he had been working on. “This may be an impertinent question, my lord—but hypothetically speaking, is there a particular woman that you are thinking about?”

“Hypothetically speaking?” Gareth sighed. It was not as if he could possibly lower himself any further in White’s estimation at this point. “Yes.”

“And has this, uh, hypothetical woman perhaps told you lies?”

“Hypothetically, everything out of her mouth has been a lie,” Gareth complained, much aggrieved. “Everything except her kisses. She meant them.”

White nodded, as if he regularly dispensed advice on women to lovelorn lords. “Are you wondering if you can trust her? Hypothetically, of course.”

“Oh, I know I can’t do that. What I really want to know is…” Gareth’s thoughts slowed like sap. He really wanted to know if his near-obsession with a woman whose name he didn’t even know would end if he took her to bed. He wanted to know if he’d ever eradicate that cold, lonely emptiness in his heart, the one that still longed to have people about him he could not intimidate.

He wanted to know when his mind had split on the subject of Madame Esmerelda. One half demanded he take her in simple, sexual conquest. The other wanted to…to make her his friend. He swallowed.

That wouldn’t happen anytime soon. Not after the way he’d behaved.

He doubted he’d ever see her eyes cloud with lust again. Not when he’d shown her what an ass he really was. He glanced up at White, who watched him attentively. Envy at the man’s calm complacence flickered in Gareth’s breast. He’d wager White knew what to do in situations like this one.

“White,” he said uncomfortably, “what I really want to know is—do you know how to apologize to a woman?”

THE CLOCK SHOWED ten minutes before eight. Ned’s gut clenched and beads of sweat dampened his forehead. The Arbuthnots’ annual gathering should have been no cause for consternation. But Ned had a plan and it stewed, like an indigestible lump of gristle, deep in his stomach. His every instinct told him he should stop the madness he’d set in motion before it sprouted heads like a mythical hydra. His infernal sense of honor had been twinging all day. Everything he had ever been taught counseled him that what he schemed was wrong. Really, really wrong, in a life-changing, reputation-destroying way.

This would not have been much of a test if the work had been easy. He knew what needed to be done. Madame Esmerelda had told him the matter was entirely in his hands. Her words tumbled through his mind, over and over.