Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)

“I don’t know,” she said, mulishly. “Maybe because you once told me all you wanted from me was a good shag?”


“I said that?” He looked surprised, then contemplative. Then, apparently, he remembered, and winced. “God. I said that? Why did you even touch me?”

She glanced away so he could not see her heart in her eyes.

Steam was billowing from the kettle. Gareth stooped and plucked the cloth from the floor and grasped the handle. Jenny watched in fascination as he poured water into her teapot.

“What kind of a lord are you? You make your own tea?”

He set the kettle down with a faint sniff. “I’m not completely helpless. I lived with only a small entourage in a Brazilian rain forest for months. I can make perfectly respectable tea. And coffee. And porridge, for that matter.” He gestured with the cloth. “You like oranges. Here. Let me peel one for you.”

Jenny hiccuped through her tears. “How do you know I like oranges?”

“Why else would you have had one in that sack the day I met you? Now, come over here and eat. You’ll feel better.”

Jenny wrinkled her nose at him, but he was undoubtedly right. She sat and he handed her a section of orange.

“Tears,” he said as she popped the tangy fruit into her mouth, “are irrational. You needn’t fear I’ll leave you with nothing but a silver bracelet. I’ll take care of my responsibilities.” He handed her a piece of cheese.

Jenny held up her hands in protest.

“No,” she said in a low voice. “You won’t.”

“What do you mean, I won’t? Of course I will. You can’t imagine the money would mean anything to me, and so why wouldn’t I—”

She jabbed a finger into his chest. “You won’t,” she said, “because I won’t let you. I have…I have enough money. Saved. In a manner of speaking.” Where that manner of speaking was exaggeration. She licked her lips. “And I don’t want to be your responsibility.” That she was more certain about. “I’m never going to be your responsibility. Do you think I want a periodic payment from you?”

“Why ever not? Most people would.”

She shook her head mutely. Then she burst into tears again.

Gareth stared at her in horror. “What? What did I say this time?”

She kept crying.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he cried. “It’s inexplicable. You’re an intelligent woman, Jenny. There’s no need to cry because a man offers to provide a little financial assistance.”

The admonition had no effect.

She had harbored girlish dreams about her mother. She’d never wondered, though, what her mother had experienced. Had she, too, been shunted off when some man she cared for coldly offered her a stream of dreary coins?

Jenny wouldn’t accept it for herself. She’d lived on that sort of payment all her young life. Someone had employed a stream of uncaring women to raise her. She hadn’t run away from a life as a governess to lapse into another man’s responsibility. Because what a woman felt as cold obligation, a man saw as salve for his conscience. Financial absolution, as it were, in lieu of emotional ties.

She would not do this again. She’d become Madame Esmerelda because she didn’t want a master. She’d felt pushed into one box or another. She didn’t want to be another bloody line in his ledgers, and she’d be damned if she depended on another person again.

“Look,” Gareth said a bit desperately, “I’ll—I’ll send financial assistance. And an occasional fruit basket.”

Jenny couldn’t help it. She laughed at him through her sniffles. “Oh, listen to you. ‘A woman is not a millpond. She is a science.’ Good God, if the Linnean Society could hear you now, they’d drum you out of their ranks.”

“Well,” Gareth huffed, “I don’t know what to do. I was serious about the fruit basket. Or at least I would be, if it would make a difference.”

“I know. Why do you suppose I started laughing? Honestly, Gareth. Could you be any more helpless?”

“Helpless?” Gareth frowned. “I’m not helpless. I just can’t think of anything to say. And since you won’t tell me what the matter is, I can’t solve the problem.”

“If you could solve the problem, I wouldn’t be crying, would I?”

“What the devil am I supposed to do about a problem I can’t solve?”

Oh, if only Jenny knew the answer to that one. But her future loomed ahead of her with frightening blankness. There was no home for her to return to; no back to go back to.

“It would help,” Jenny said, her voice thick with tears, “if you would come over here.”

He pulled his chair next to hers and sat, somewhat awkwardly. “Like this?”

She nodded. “And you could put your arms around me.”

“Like this?”

She relaxed into his hold. “Almost like that,” she said, “but tighter. Right. Like that.”

It was an illusion, and one she’d browbeaten him into displaying. But for a moment, she could imagine that he cared.

The mirage lasted only a moment. “This isn’t a rational way to address a problem,” he complained.