A Study In Seduction

chapter Eighteen




He was asleep, and beautiful in his slumber. Lydia’s heart tightened. His dark hair was a stark contrast to the white pillow. His chest moved with deep breaths. And though even in sleep his features remained set, a faint softness eased the angles of his jaw and cheekbones. If she looked at him long enough, she might believe he possessed more than a touch of vulnerability.

Lydia dragged her gaze from Alexander’s face and reached for her chemise. The embers of the fire burned low and red, emitting wisps of smoke and little heat. She pulled on her shift and reached for her corset just as he spoke.

“Lydia.”

His baritone voice rumbled into the cold. She stopped. Apprehension skittered across her skin as she turned to face him. Her breath caught at the sight of his naked body burnished in the pale light. All traces of softness gone from his expression, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his trousers.

Arousal tugged at Lydia as she watched him hitch the trousers over his hips, his muscles shifting as smooth as cream beneath his taut skin. Her fingers tingled with the urge to slide her palms over his shoulders again, to feel the flexing of his body, the tense grace that coiled through every one of his movements.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Back to my room.”

Anger flashed in his eyes as he moved to stoke the fire, jabbing at the smoldering logs as if they had somehow wronged him. Sparks cascaded onto the hearth. He stabbed harder. The wood split beneath the poker.

“You’ll go nowhere until we’ve settled this.” The poker clattered back onto the stand. He paced to the bed and back again, pulling a hand roughly through his disheveled hair. “The risk of an affair is too great. I will not tolerate it.”

The irritation in his tone stung her. “You appeared to tolerate it quite well several hours ago.”

He glowered, even as heat flared in his eyes. “No man could resist a woman half undressed as you were.”

Her stomach twisted. She’d known enough to expect this reaction, not that she could blame him. “If you believe it was a mistake—”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Alexander interrupted. “It was inevitable. The minute I saw you, I knew I would have you in my bed.”

The beat of her heart increased, the sound pulsing into her thoughts and masking the admission that she had known the very same thing.

Before she could respond, he crossed the room to her and gripped her wrists in his hands.

“But this stops now,” he said. “I will give you two weeks.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Two weeks,” Alexander repeated. “If at that time you don’t agree to marry me, our relationship is over.”

Her heart thumped. “Is that a threat?”

“It is a fact. I will not risk an affair.”

“Why two weeks, then?” She struggled to infuse her voice with steel. “Why not pose the ultimatum now?”

“Because two weeks gives you time to prepare.”

She stared at him in astonishment. “You think I’m going to agree, don’t you?”

“Of course you’re going to bloody well agree,” Alexander said, a muscle throbbing in his jaw. “You will be my wife.”

“I will not.”

Anger and something else—desperation?—split through his expression like lightning. “For God’s sake, I’m heir to an earl, you foolish woman.”

“I am well aware.”

“We’ve weathered scandal, yes, but my fortune alone is considerable.”

“That alone is not reason to marry you.”

“I’ve told you you’ll have plenty of freedom, funds, time. You’ll continue your work, do whatever you want during the day.”

He moved closer, his eyes burning into hers and filled with remembrances of past lusty encounters… and promises of many more. His hot breath brushed her lips.

“And at night,” he said, the words almost a growl, “you will be mine, wholly and utterly. Without reservation.”

Lydia’s arousal heightened, pulsing against her skin, between her legs. Her cheeks darkened with a flush, her chest rising with increased breaths. “I don’t mean to imply that sounds unacceptable—”

A trace of amusement flashed in his expression. “Of course it’s not unacceptable. It’s a goddamned paradise.”

Hardly a poetic sentiment, and yet a deep happiness flowered in her soul because he believed—he knew—a marriage between them would be a thing of glory.

Lydia stared at the beautiful, strong column of his throat, the damp hollow where she had tasted the salt of his skin. She rested a trembling hand against his chest, felt his heart pound against her palm and reverberate through her arm. His fingers closed around her wrist.

All the hopes and dreams and wishes of her life flooded through her—the goals realized, the opportunities missed, the chances taken. The strange combination of happiness and despair that pulsed through her blood.

The deep-seated knowledge that she would change nothing about her life, nothing, not even if it meant possessing the freedom to accept his proposal, to embrace all the glorious advantages of being Alexander Hall’s wife.

“If I were ever to marry,” she said, “I would wish for no other husband except you.”

“Then say yes.”


Frustration slammed hard against Alexander when Lydia didn’t respond. He tightened his grip on her wrist until her wince made him realize he was hurting her.

Muttering a curse, he released her and stepped back. He felt her gaze on him. He fought the urge to pace. Instead he picked up the poker again and stabbed at the burning logs. He reined in his anger, knowing it was hardly the most effective way to convince her to accept him.

Lydia sank into a chair beside the fire, wrapping her arms around her knees.

Silence fell between them for what seemed a very long time before she spoke.

“It’s required of you, isn’t it?” she asked. “That you marry well. I can see why the daughter of a baron would have been an excellent match for you.”

Alexander tightened his fist on the poker.

“She was nothing of the sort,” he said. “And you are not the daughter of a baron, but I still—”

“Exactly,” Lydia interrupted.

“What?”

“There are vast differences between your former intended and myself.” She rubbed her hand over the arm of the chair and studied the pattern of the upholstery. “I know nothing about society, Alexander. I’ve not the faintest notion what style of dress is fashionable or how to conduct an afternoon tea.”

“Talia can assist you with that sort of thing, if it’s a concern.”

“But that’s not enough.” She lifted her head to look at him. “I would not be an asset to either you or the earldom. Can you not see that?”

“You’re wrong. You’re well regarded, Lydia, as your father was before you. I learned that shortly after meeting you. Your talent for mathematics is cause for fascination rather than disapproval.” He took a step toward her, willing her to believe in his sincerity. “And you would be an asset to me. Yes, I’ve a duty to marry well, but beyond that we are undeniably compatible. Never have I met a woman like you. A woman with whom I wish to spend my life.”

An unbearable sorrow darkened Lydia’s eyes. A sorrow Alexander had seen before. One whose source he could not fathom.

She ran her forefinger over the floral design of the upholstery, tracing the leaves up to the open flower. Her head was bent, her tumble of long hair partially obscuring her features, her lashes lowered.

“Mutually inverse functions,” she said.

“What?”

“That’s what marriage should be like,” she continued. “Mutually inverse functions. Suppose a function travels from point A to point B. An inverse function moves in the opposite direction, from B to A, with the idea that each element returns to itself, so if you were to—”

“Stop.”

She looked up at him, her dark-fringed eyes wide. “It’s a mathematical way of—”

Alexander strode forward and grasped her shoulders, pulling her from the chair and against his body. “No. There are no mathematics to this, Lydia.”

Her generous breasts pressed against his chest, firing his blood all over again. He gathered the folds of her shift and pulled it up to expose her legs, her rounded hips. Lydia softened, her palms splaying against his chest as her breathing quickened.

“You can’t formulate an equation to explain this,” Alexander whispered, stroking one hand along the slope of her waist, the curve of her hip, down to the warmth between her thighs. “You can’t find a pattern in love, in desire. You can’t calculate what makes a man want a woman. You can’t quantify attraction and passion. All you can do is feel it.”

Lydia gasped as his fingers explored farther. Her blue eyes darkened, her hands tightening on his shoulders.

“I… I just meant that if you—”

“Feel it, Lydia.” Alexander cupped his hand beneath her chin and lowered his mouth to hers. “Just feel it. Do you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her body fitting with ease against his, as graceful as an elongating flower stem. “Oh, yes.”

Hot anticipation seeped into Alexander’s blood, inundating the growing awareness that this woman had filled a place inside him he hadn’t even known was empty.

And when she was beneath him, her body lush and supple under his, her broken gasps hot against his ear, he fought the urge to demand her surrender again, fought the compulsion to make her admit she belonged to him. That she would only, could only, ever be his.