The Problem with Seduction

Chapter Six

“I AM NOT YOUR WIFE!” Elizabeth darted her eyes toward her nursemaid for help, but Mrs. Dalton only gaped at Nicholas in horror.

“Elizabeth,” Nicholas said, taking three more strides toward her, “give me my son.”

“He’s not yours!” She half-turned from Nicholas, shielding Oliver with her body. “Leave us alone!”

“Er…” The innkeeper’s head swiveled from her to Nicholas and back. “The rules posted in the common area specifically disallow disputes of a domestic nature.”

“Which room is ours?” Nicholas barked over his shoulder. “We’ll take our dispute there.”

“She don’t have a room—” the innkeeper started, but his wife interrupted, “Number five.”

“No!” Elizabeth cried, but no one was listening. The innkeeper’s wife rifled through the keys at her belt and turned up a long hunk of metal that she handed to Nicholas. “Ten shillings.”

Nicholas’s angry eyes never left Elizabeth. Long fingers probed the pocket in his coat. He flipped a guinea at the woman. “Keep the change.”

“I’ll scream,” Elizabeth threatened. “I’m not his wife. I’m nothing to him.”

The innkeeper regarded her with pity. “You seem to know him, and the baby does look a bit like—”

Elizabeth’s fury broke in a single teardrop. It drew a scalding path down her cheek. “He can’t just charge in here and act like he owns us! He’s married! To someone else!”

The innkeeper’s wife’s eyes went wide. She elbowed her husband in his ribs. “Now it makes more sense.”

Yes, it made all the sense in the world, and she’d been stupid to ever think otherwise. She’d never had the possibility of holding all of his heart. He was married. He’d always been married.

“Look here,” the innkeeper said, shaking himself from a surprised stupor, “you need to keep your private business private. This is a proper establishment. I can’t have folks thinking it’s a—a bawdy house. They won’t come back.”

“I will not be quiet,” Elizabeth said through clenched teeth. “I will never go willingly with him.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can’t have a woman like you here alone,” the innkeeper said, to Nicholas’s evident amusement. “If you could at least pretend to be married…”

Nicholas twisted his lips into a tight smile. “No hardship at all. Come along, then, Beth. Bring the baby and let’s go upstairs. I’ll even get down on one knee and apologize, if that’s what you want.”

Elizabeth stood rooted to the floor. What did she do? If she refused to go with him, the innkeeper would toss her out and there would be only her servants to protect her from Nicholas. If she went upstairs with him, she’d be at his mercy anyway. He looked murderous, though she didn’t truly believe he would do her bodily harm.

This was a man she’d been in love with?

A rap on the door’s frame drew the attention of everyone in the room. Elizabeth looked, too, and her breath caught. Lord Constantine.

Nicholas’s weathered face darkened. “Get out.”

Con relaxed his forearm against the doorcase, clearly making no move to leave. “Why? I’ve only just arrived.”

“This doesn’t involve you.”

The innkeeper’s and his wife’s attention bobbed back and forth between the two men. They must have forgotten their desire to maintain the appearance of propriety.

Con’s overly dramatic wince implied that he couldn’t credit what he’d just heard. “I’d have thought a dispute involving a man’s mistress, his babe and her ex-paramour would naturally be of interest to him.”

The innkeeper’s wife nodded her head in agreement.

Elizabeth didn’t know if she should be relieved or suspicious of Lord Constantine’s bald-faced lie. Nevertheless, she was glad to have an ally against her ex-lover, who fairly growled, “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, Alexander, but it’s a dangerous one. Do you know what manner of woman she is? Have you experienced the depths of her selfishness firsthand?”

Elizabeth recoiled at his verbal slap. Oliver let out a wail of disapproval, too.

“No.” Con’s only trace of disgust was directed at Nicholas. “We were only just getting on when you called her back to your bed. Is this how you seduced her last time? Chasing her, calling her names, embarrassing her in a public place for all and sundry to see? I think, then, it should not be so hard for me to woo her back.” He flashed a rakish grin.

“What a handsome young gentleman,” the innkeeper’s wife said to no one in particular. “A pretty way with words, too.”

“I just want my boy,” Nicholas said. While he’d never hit Elizabeth, his feelings about striking her alleged lover were less clear. He’d undoubtedly schooled whelps as cocky as the one braving his ire now. Nicholas was five and forty, much older and brawnier than Lord Constantine. Moreover, he was emotionally invested, which Lord Constantine couldn’t possibly be.

Con pulled an apologetic face. “I can see how much you want this baby to be yours, and I sympathize with you, I truly do. But she was with me nine months before he came along. I am very sorry about that, but it’s time you leave my son alone.” He indicated Oliver, who had started to drool.

Nicholas turned a furious red. He’d always been overbearing, but there had been kindness, too. When he hadn’t been breaking her heart with his dalliances with other lightskirts, he’d been generous, showering her with fine apartments, jewelry, and an enviable annuity, paid out of the massive settlement of his wife’s dowry. Elizabeth had provoked a perfectly ordinary man to this new fury, and for that she was sorry.

“I know you’re lying,” he said through gritted teeth.

Con shrugged. “It’s a matter of simple math, as I said to begin with. Were you with her?”

When Nicholas didn’t reply, Con asked it again. “Were you with her nine months—even ten months before she was, uh, confined?”

Nicholas continued to look at Con with stony disapproval. Elizabeth felt the last of her love for him disappear. What could he say? The truth? That there had been so much between them a year ago, but now he couldn’t even remember when last they’d taken a turn between the sheets?

“No answer?” Lord Constantine taunted. “Drat it all, but my mother explained this to me just the other day. I’m certain your participation was required.”

Elizabeth held her breath. If he remembered that last night together… Their passionate argument over his most recent dalliance, followed by even more passionate lovemaking, followed by the birth of their child... But he didn’t.

Nicholas gritted his teeth, then, with one last, longing look for Oliver, he loped toward the door Con obstructed.

Mrs. Dalton regarded Con with adoration. The innkeeper and his wife began to fidget, perhaps realizing the show was about to come to an end. Elizabeth’s relief almost made her dizzy and yet, she couldn’t get Nicholas’s stricken look out of her head. Was he here because Oliver was his property and he commanded what he owned, or because he cherished his son? Was his determination to have Oliver hardly different than his treatment of his wife, who must endure his philandering because he was her husband and therefore her master, or because he couldn’t bear to be separated from his only child?

Nicholas stopped just short of Lord Constantine blocking the exit. “She’s using you, Alexander. I’d pity you, if I were a man to waste time on fools.”

Con stepped to the side as if he meant to allow the other man to pass. At the last minute, his arm shot out to bar the doorway. It caught Nicholas hard across the chest. “Don’t follow my mistress again, Captain. Indolence has its benefits.” He looked sideways at the officer. “I have plenty of time to waste on fools.”





Con had known something wasn’t right when he’d left her townhouse several mornings ago. It was something in her eyes as she’d looked at him before she’d darted upstairs to see to her babe. Sadness, he’d thought then. Maybe a touch of anger. Since he’d just said some beastly things to her, he’d assumed he’d been the cause of it.

Now he suspected there was more going on. Finn had been following her. Constantine could only guess how long. He was an ancillary party to all of this, and really, he shouldn’t be here now. If he’d kept on past the door instead of stopping to assist, he might even have remained uninvolved. Hell, if he’d stayed home instead of riding out here, he wouldn’t even know Finn was threatening her. Then he’d be pleasantly clueless, and she’d be frightened out of her mind.

He was glad now that he’d gone back to her townhouse a day later to apologize for the unconscionable ass he’d been to her. The house had been all but vacant, which he hadn’t expected. With a few questions, he’d learned the small number of servants remaining stayed on with the lease, while she’d taken her personal servants to Shropshire. It was then that he’d become suspicious. That suspicion had turned embarrassingly selfish when he’d realized she’d taken his ability to make things right along with her, for if she wasn’t in London where he was, he couldn’t possibly perform due diligence as a father. Then what would he tell his family?

He’d decided on the return walk to Merritt House that he must fetch her back. If it was his fault she’d left, if he’d offended her somehow with his proposal, he had to make things right. And if it wasn’t, well, he couldn’t have her stealing away in the middle of the night, or whenever it was she’d left, without leaving him a forwarding direction. He had a duty to her son.

And so it was the baby he’d ultimately gone after, not the mother, although the woman standing before him now turned him inside out as she raised those lovely hazel eyes to his. Her inner strength appealed to him in a way he hadn’t suspected would attract him.

“Thank you.” Her voice trembled, exposing a tiny swath of vulnerability he immediately wanted to shield. “I fear what might have happened if you hadn’t come.”

He shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t meant to be a hero, even if he did rather like the way she was looking at him. “’Twas nothing.”

A portly fellow who must be the proprietor exhaled loudly and turned toward him. “Well, I’m glad we resolved that. Can’t be having brawls in my private rooms. Now, do you want to take number five, my lord, or do you prefer larger accommodations? The other gent paid up, so you may as well make use of the bed. I think the poor nurse could use a lie-down.”

If he meant the slight-looking young woman in the corner whose face hadn’t recovered its color, he had a point. She looked ready to swoon. Elizabeth wasn’t faring much better. She collapsed into a chair and hugged her baby to her shoulder. “We won’t be moving on tonight.”

Con had a feeling his pound of flesh was in for far more than the devil’s bargain he’d initially signed. How the hell had he become embroiled in such a mess? “There you have it, then. We’ll take another room for the nurse and a place for the servants. Have the trunks been fetched from the carriages?”

The proprietor smiled, revealing empty spaces where teeth had once been. “We’ll be right on it, my lord, and a stall for your horse, too. I’ll start a bill.”

A mistress and her massive entourage required money. Of course.

He would worry about it later. After the proprietor and his wife left with pound notes dancing in their eyes, Con went to Elizabeth. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. Her gaze fell to the baby drooling onto her shoulder. “We’re fine.”

The nursemaid approached shyly. “Let me take him, madam. Else I fear you won’t have the strength to rise.”

Elizabeth appeared to consider resisting before giving into exhaustion. “He needs to be freshened up,” she said, holding him out. “I’m sorry.”

Con reflexively stepped back. The nursemaid’s eyes slid sideways at him, and she smiled puckishly. “Babies always do.”

Con supposed he must grow used to it, then.

When she, too, had gone, he dropped to his knees beside Elizabeth. She’d been towered over enough today. “How can I help?”

Her hands fidgeted in her lap. “It’s always so odd not to have him in my arms. Who would have thought I would take to being a mother this quickly?”

Con hesitated a fraction of a second before he took her delicate hands in his own. He honestly had no notion what to say to that, but it was clear she needed comfort. He ran his thumb soothingly over her bare knuckles. “You seem to be doing an admirable job of it. I’m not an authority by any means, but surely there are worse ways to parent a child.”

She cracked a smile. “You’re in danger of turning my head with your left-handed compliments, my lord.”

“Is that so? I’ll work on it.” His heart gave a kick when she smiled at that. “There’s plenty for us to talk about, but a good night’s rest should come first. Do you feel up to moving to your room? I’d be honored to play the gallant and escort you.”

She withdrew her hands and looked away. “I don’t see how I can sleep tonight.”

He stood but he didn’t back away. She craned her neck to see him and lifted her hand inches from her lap, almost as if to reach for him, but when she realized he wasn’t leaving her, it dropped suddenly. A pale blush brought some color into her face. “How did you find me?”

“That?” He chuckled softly as he recalled just how easy it had been to follow her here. “Two resplendent carriages trundling in the direction of Shropshire and then Ellesmere are enough to draw even the most oblivious villager’s attention, my dear. I don’t doubt that’s how Finn tracked you, too.”

She pressed her lips together as if silently berating herself. He didn’t see the point in dwelling on what she might have done differently, not when the threat was already passed. “I was going to kick my heels in the common room until I felt like sleeping,” he said, returning to his offer to take her upstairs. “Why don’t we both retire to my room instead? I’d enjoy the company.”

Her eyes met his levelly. Indignation lifted her chin a fraction. Despite her exhaustion, she’d found one last drop of strength. “I am very grateful for what you did just now, but I’m not interested in an—”

“Oh, no! I never meant that.”

Relief crossed her face so blatantly that an awkward silence stretched between them. She seemed awfully relieved to be free of his attentions. Was he so disagreeable to her, then?

He scrambled to fill the void before he actually asked her if she found him unattractive. It would have been wholly inappropriate given the scare she’d just been through, but evidently, he was a vain man. “You said you don’t see how you can sleep tonight. I’m happy to bore you into slumber, if you’d like to while away the hours with me. I think the proprietor must have a deck of cards or a chessboard to pass the time. Do you play?”

He sensed her wariness. To be alone with him? Or did she doubt his intentions? At last she nodded. He offered her his arm—he would get to play the gallant after all—and together, they made their way to the clerk’s counter.

A hint of some flowery soap wafted up from her crown of dark hair. She must have heavy tresses to form braids that thick. What would her hair look like taken down? Would it curl around her shoulders? Around her…

He shook himself. Never, in all the ways he’d imagined their agreement working, had he thought he’d take more from her than ten thousand pounds. Rescuing her tonight had been the last thing he’d expected when he’d drawn his horse up behind her unmistakable carriages. He’d thought only of asking her if she’d meant to abandon him in England without even giving him a fare-thee-well. Now he was protecting her, in a way, and he wasn’t even sure how that had come about, or how it was to go on.

That she’d needed him at all struck him as improbable. There was a self-possession about her that made it hard to think she’d ever been any man’s plaything. One thing he did realize as they collected his key and a deck of cards and made their way back down the hall toward the stairs: not enough people needed him. It was a disquieting realization to have, though not surprising, now that he’d given it some thought. It would be interesting to see what became of it. He’d had so little useful to do in his life, that the hope he might now have a purpose put an extra spring in his step.

She relaxed her grip on his coat sleeve as they walked arm in arm past a bank of rooms. On the other side of a wall, he heard the lilt of a lullaby being sung. Before he could stop her from leaving his side she released him entirely and hurried ahead to the room’s door. She tapped lightly on it, then opened it when a muffled voice said, “Come in.”

“I’ll just be in Lord Constantine’s room,” Elizabeth said, poking her head through the narrow opening. Then she turned back to Con. “I’ve forgotten the number.”

“Five.” He glanced down the hallway. It must be the one at the end. It suddenly seemed very secluded.

Elizabeth leaned into Mrs. Dalton’s room again. She lowered her voice so that he couldn’t hear her exchange with the nursemaid. Then, apparently satisfied, Elizabeth closed the door. She turned toward him and patted her coiffure self-consciously. “I’m ready.”

He indicated the last door at the end of the hallway. Wordlessly, they continued on. The easiness of their previous company changed over the last few steps. She became increasingly wary of him. When he turned his key in the lock, she jumped at the sound of the tumbler catching. He waved for her to precede him, and she hesitated.

“I’m not going to bite you.” Blast it, his voice was suddenly too deep to be reassuring.

“I wouldn’t let you.” She gripped her skirt with one hand and entered. He wasn’t so much of a gentleman that he didn’t appreciate the sway of her backside as she attempted to show him she wasn’t afraid.

She turned, surveying the place. It had all the usual accommodations: washstand in the corner, window overlooking a busy yard, a narrow table on which to place his things, and a spindly chair. The lamp had already been lit and a fire burned in the grate. Surely it was as good a place as any to chase nightmares away.

“Would you like the chair?” he asked, closing the door behind him. The sun would cast light through the one window for a few more hours. Then what? One lamp and a dying fire would feel like utter darkness.

She quirked a smile. “The alternative is your bed.”

He was a man. When she looked up at him from beneath long, dark lashes and said anything that put him in mind of a soft mattress, tangled sheets and her, he couldn’t help reacting. While he wasn’t a lust-crazed beast, he readily admitted she was one thoroughly desirable woman. What the hell had he been thinking to invite her in here?

He needed to do something before he began to think too hard on his intentions. He took up the chair in one hand and nudged the table with his boot until he had both beside the bed. Her skirts swished as she seated herself in the chair. There still seemed to be something missing. Thinking quickly, he called over his shoulder, “I’ll just be a moment,” and left the room. He took the stairs quickly and went to the clerk’s counter again. He requested a bottle of wine and two wineglasses from a skinny scrap of a girl who must be the innkeeper’s daughter. That accomplished, he returned to Elizabeth and squeezed himself between the table and the bed to perch on the edge of the mattress.

“Refreshments will be here in a trice. Now, what is your game, my dear?” He began to shuffle the deck of cards.

She didn’t hesitate. “Speculation.”

“Oh? But we have no fish.”

She pursed her lips. Then a mercenary gleam came into her eye. “We have no need of counters. I’m not likely to forget what’s owed me.”

She no doubt meant it as a joke, but the promise turned his stomach. While he enjoyed a harmless game of chance between friends, he detested formal gambling. He was careful not to let on how he felt about bookmaking, however, lest she probe him about it. “I’ll deal, then, and you may pretend to ante up.” He swiftly dealt three cards facedown to each of them. Then he indicated for Elizabeth to turn the trump card.

Jack of diamonds.

“Do you bid for it?” he asked.

“No.” She turned her top card faceup. Nine.

He was still winning, then. “You should have offered me a fish,” he teased.

She glanced at the empty place where her counters should have been. “I think not.” Then she turned up a king of spades. A quirk of her lips gave away her satisfaction.

His turn. He flipped his top card. Two. He wouldn’t get very far with that. He turned the next. King of diamonds. Much better. “I’ll buy your card,” he angled, feigning exaggerated indifference.

“You can’t afford it.” That gleam in her eye turned downright ruthless. “Ten counters.”

“You’re right. I can’t afford that.” He rested his hand on the bed and leaned onto it, then indicated for her to show her last card.

A four. She frowned.

He came forward again and grinned at her as he mimed scooping his imaginary winnings across the table. “Another round?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, please.” But he had a feeling it was no longer just a silly game to her. Her competitive streak had been pricked.

He won three straight rounds, because he wasn’t one to lose out of sympathy. Though, even if he did like to think he owed his success to a bit of skill, he could admit he had an advantage. She was distracted tonight. He was not.

“You’ve played this before,” she mused as he dealt another six cards. The more rounds they played, the more cards were revealed. It was almost too easy to win now.

He wore a smug smile anyway. He liked the sport of card playing, even if he usually avoided gaming hells. “Most in England have, I think.”

“Not like you. I’d swear you’re counting cards, my lord.” Her hand rested languidly atop her card stack. She looked up at him with a slanted eyebrow.

He grinned. He liked that she thought him capable of card counting, even if he didn’t approve of such a skill. “Are you accusing me?”

A small smile crept across her lips. “I can’t think a man with your reputation for debt is any good at counting cards.”

His lips tightened. Now here was a subject he didn’t find at all amusing. “The rumors are exaggerated.”

Her eyebrow rose again. “You seemed willing enough to accept my money to pay it down. I assume the debt was real.”

“Yes, but not because I’m a gambler.” He instantly regretted his sharp elucidation, but she didn’t so much as blink.

They played another hand. She murmured when she bid, and he grunted in reply. The easiness was gone.

She broke the silence first. “I think I’ve touched a nerve.” She played the last card in the deck.

He collected their discards and shuffled them. After his flare-up, he owed her at least a partial explanation. As much as he didn’t want to talk about it, was there any harm in sharing what every person who traveled in her circles must know? “Deep play costs far more than just your ten thousand pounds. I know, because my father was a gamester. It killed him. I haven’t the stomach for it since.”

Her finger paused, poised over a card. “Then where does your money go, if not to gaming debts?”

He laughed darkly. “I have no money. Father gambled it all away and Montborne is barely able to rub two pennies together without one of them vanishing. My brothers and I try to help, but…” He shrugged. “Some of us help better than others.”

Her attention was on him fully now. Con shifted against the sagging mattress. Perhaps there was harm in telling her. Now she’d pity him.

“Does Lord Darius help?” she asked, causing him to flinch. “Surely the rumors aren’t exaggerated there, too.”

Con struggled to maintain his jovialness while being scrutinized by a woman he barely knew. Not to mention how protective he felt of his twin, who, it was true, hadn’t escaped the family vice. Con didn’t like sounding defensive of Dare, given how much he detested his brother’s scourge. But he wouldn’t let her judge Darius, either. “He’s never got in so deep that the rest of us couldn’t pull him out.”

Her eyes turned to her card stack. “Is that where my money went?”

A quick scan of the window told him it was going to be a long night. “It’s more embarrassing than that.”

Her lips parted. “Oh?” Her eyes flicked to him, then to his card bared on the table. “Now you have my attention. What could possibly be embarrassing for a man of your class? Is it an intimate sort of addiction?” She slid him a sidelong glance. “The privileged may indulge in whatever fantasies they like.”

He squirmed. “Not that.” After rejecting his misunderstood offer to take her to his room, he hadn’t expected her to turn this subject in a direction that risked his sanity. While he was glad to be off the topic of his twin, her suggestive glance did uncomfortable things to his anatomy. It had been awhile since he’d been with a woman. A normal, duck-between-the-sheets-and-that-was-all kind of woman.

“But you do like women.” A small smile played on her lips. She was toying with him.

It took him a moment to realize it. He’d never been teased this way by a woman. “Of course I do,” he replied too quickly. Then for good measure, he added, “I just can’t afford them.”

“If you don’t gamble and you don’t whore,” she said, smiling when he flinched at her foul language, “why, then, are you light in the pockets?”

He shrugged, back to wishing she’d leave off the serious topics. “It’s not difficult to be suddenly short when you don’t have much to begin with.”

She laid her top card on the table and folded her hands over it, abandoning even the pretense of playing the game. “Most people who can’t afford to do so don’t become ‘suddenly short’ ten thousand pounds. What kind of endeavor have I involved myself in?”

He stiffened and folded his own cards into the palm of his hand. He didn’t like it when his brothers swept in and inserted themselves into his doings. It didn’t feel better when a woman whose favors he wasn’t even tasting did the same. “I wouldn’t phrase it that way. You’re not involved.”

“I suppose it is none of my affair.” She tried to look abashed but he wasn’t fooled. “I’m curious, though—and we do have all night. What are you into that has left you ‘suddenly short’ a staggering sum of money?”

What business of it was hers? Verbalizing his bad decisions didn’t make them any more palatable. “I’d really rather not speak of it.”

Her eyes laughed at him as she gathered her cards from the table. She fanned them before her face. “Oh, there is no fun in prying at a man who wishes to keep his secrets. What should we talk about instead?”

If they were to avoid talking about how she’d come to be running from her ex-lover, and give a wide berth to his disastrous credit situation, they had absolutely anything else to choose from. Not that a single more suitable subject came to mind…nor did he trust her not to think up something worse.

He glanced at the window. The last of the sun’s rays were about to seep into the earth. Still too early to sleep, for a London man-about-town like himself.

“If I don’t tell you now,” he grumbled, “you’ll wait until the wine has had its effects and ask again. I won’t be able to explain it in a way that makes sense, and you’ll come to believe I’m the greatest buffoon. There is nothing for it, then, but to tell you that my situation is terribly embarrassing to me and I hope that what I’m about to reveal will remain a confidence kept between us.”

She leaned forward, and he was finally able to see a hint of cleavage. “I would not divulge it for the world,” she replied dramatically.

A knock at the door seemed fortuitously timed to the precise moment Con required the aforementioned wine. It would be easier to explain his situation with a bit of warmth in his veins.

He rose and returned with a tray bearing two glasses and a decanter. After sitting again on the mattress and tipping the spout over each of their glasses, he said, “I made a few bad investments.”

Her brow arched. “To the tune of—”

“Not ten thousand pounds. God, no.”

She sat back, taking with that his opportunity to look down her gown. “That’s quite the mistake.”

He couldn’t keep sarcasm from his voice. “Yes, thank you. Being moments away from being hauled off to the gaol did nothing to apprise me of that.”

She ignored his acerbity. “What were they?”

He shrugged and studied the imprint curling across the back of the cards without seeing it. Now that she had him thinking about it, he actually had made ten thousand pounds’ worth of bad investments. Dare was a god-awful investment. But a few thousand of those quid had been his own choices. Terrible ones, as it turned out. “A few different interests,” he hedged. “There’s a project in Devon that the Grand Canal Company can’t be bothered to complete; that’s the main one. Luddites destroyed a cotton mill in Lancashire several months ago. That cost me a pretty penny. My schools were never intended to be profitable, but other investments aren’t providing the returns I’d anticipated and children are confoundedly expensive creatures.” And his twin brother was just one more child to care for. A spoiled one. He looked up from the cards. “It adds up monstrously fast.”

Her lips were parted just enough that he could see the pink of her tongue, as if she wanted to say something but it hadn’t quite rolled off yet.

“What?” he asked, feeling very sure now that he shouldn’t have told her. Women pitied men who floundered.

“Schools? As in, more than one?”

Her odd little puckered brow wasn’t about his failings? He felt a bit better.

“I had no idea you were involved in anything so noble as the upkeep of schools,” she explained. “Whenever anyone speaks of your debts, it’s assumed you’re a gambler or a womanizer or both.”

He was careful to keep a smile pasted on his face. “No, just a poor capitalist.” He wouldn’t tell her twice how discomfited it made him to know he’d chosen his investments so poorly time and time again. Keeping his brother and himself out of the clink was starting to cripple him. At some point, shouldn’t he learn what constituted a worthwhile venture?

No, he needed a subject that might hold her interest without making him deuced uncomfortable. “I wonder where those rumors originated,” he mused, keeping his voice charmingly light. “Shouldn’t there be witnesses? Men who have sat at the tables with me and women who can tell stories about my prowess in bed?”

She laughed despite his crass language. “There are always women willing to lie for the honor of claiming to have seduced you,” she replied sagely, proving he needn’t mind his tongue with a woman as worldly as her.

“Do I have a lover, then?” he asked with a wolfish smile. “Is she beautiful?”

She glanced at the bed behind him. As though she couldn’t help but connect their conversation to their current, intimate situation.

His body hardened in response. She was supposedly his mistress. The idea wasn’t as far-fetched now as it had been when he’d blurted it out earlier.

His gaze caught hers. A pink flush stained her cheeks. Her gaze dipped and she reached for her wine. “Surely gentlemen do not invest in schools often, though. That can’t be a regular interest.”

“Nor a particularly profitable one.” He sounded a touch defensive, despite his growing desire. Hell, he felt defensive. The more he wanted her, the more he wanted to protect her opinion of him. “As I said, I never expected it to be. The headmistress is a family friend who can be frighteningly convincing at times. I should have asked for more specifics, but I heard the word ‘children’ and my pocketbook opened itself.” He shrugged. He wished he felt as indifferent about his failing as he sounded. “After I gave her institution a thousand pounds, I felt I should do the same for my own sex. She’s keeping her head above water, but the Academy for Inopportune Young Men threatened to close its doors last month.”

He felt like a fool for admitting his loss, but Elizabeth was looking at him as though a heavenly light had broken through the rafters to shine down on him. He sat up a little straighter as she asked, “I take it you were moved to contribute?”

It was nice to have her admire him for his good intentions, especially given what they’d cost him. He did sleep easier knowing fifty orphaned boys would have meals and beds for the next year, even if it meant he hadn’t been able to treat himself with the money left over from paying his and Darius’ debts. “I couldn’t bring up the entire donation asked of me, but I found a few quid and it was enough to save the school from immediate penury.”

Her lips twitched. “You found a few quid just jingling in your pocket?”

“Something like that.” He returned her smile, knowing as well as she must that if she hadn’t happened upon him, he never would have had the money to help.

She played a card. He hadn’t consciously realized they’d restarted the game. “I imagine the men extending you credit are unsavory sorts,” she said, looking up from beneath long, black lashes.

He turned up another ace and tossed his winning card onto the table. He flashed his teeth charmingly. “What can you possibly mean? Men who loan money to people who have little hope of paying it back—why, those must be the nicest men in all of Britain.”

She laughed. She had a husky, pleasant laugh that left little goose pebbles on his arms. “Why not marry a rich girl and be done with it? Why chance a thrashing, or prison, when you might simply sell your bloodlines to a wealthy merchant’s daughter and have done with it?”

He recoiled from her suggestion. “I’m not a ware.”

Her gaze remained steadily on him. “What about me? I’ve bought your services, haven’t I?”

“That’s different.” He wasn’t sure why. He’d never laid out his thoughts on the subject, but he didn’t need to do so just to know it felt wrong to him. “You paid me to do a job. The job is done. I’m not at your beck and call. Our arrangement left us free to go our own ways.”

Her eyebrow rose. “Like how you followed me?”

He ground his jaw. He couldn’t perfectly account for that. “I was worried.”

She blinked as though taken aback. Then her lips pressed together. “About Oliver?”

“A bit of that.” Actually, exactly that. But the way her eyes dimmed a bit made him add, “I thought I’d offended you.” Which was true. He’d initially returned to her house because he’d felt like a fool for disappointing her.

She looked so perplexed by this, he felt even sillier for admitting it just to win her favor. “Really? How?”

Of course she hadn’t been offended by his bungled proposal. She’d said as much at the time. There must be some ridiculous streak of romanticism in him that made him think he’d hurt her. Either that, or he was conceited.

He was possibly conceited. “I botched my proposal like a stupid oaf. I thought I’d hurt you.”

She looked stunned. “It wasn’t the finest masterpiece, I’ll grant you that.”

He wasn’t going to stay conceited very long if she kept this up.

After a moment of silence, she tapped the long edge of her cards on the table. “It wasn’t anything to do with you.”

“I know that now.” He’d been pretty quick to realize she hadn’t given him a second thought after he’d walked out of her door.

She half-laughed at this. “You must regret your rashness. But…” She raised her eyes to his. “You followed me all the way to Shropshire—the very middle of nowhere—because you thought you’d hurt my feelings?”

He wasn’t sure if she was testing him for a lie or if she really couldn’t believe he’d done something so stupid. The way she kept asking him if he liked women and if he leaned toward histrionics made him feel like she doubted his virility. “I thought it was strange of you to up and disappear. I feel a bit responsible for you now.”

She looked horrified. “You’re not.”

He smiled sheepishly. “I suppose not.”

He’d just said he wasn’t. She’d paid him for a job. The job was complete. Why, then, had he followed her?

She was quiet a moment. “Did you go to my parents’ house, too?”

He cringed. Now here was a topic that strayed safely away from his own misfortune. “Lamentably, yes. I knew your parents were in that county—my brothers have done little else of late but lecture me on you. I missed you by a few hours. I’m sorry about my mother, by the way. I had no idea. Certainly, I didn’t put her up to it.” Maybe he should have married by now. His mother deserved to have at least one of her children settled and carrying on the family name. He hadn’t realized she was desperate enough for a grandchild that she’d traverse half of England to appeal to two of the most horrendously snobbish people he’d ever met. He felt responsible for exposing her to their abuse.

“My father threatened me,” Elizabeth said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. “Did he tell you that?”

Con shifted uneasily. He’d had a distant relationship with his own father, whose detestableness had culminated in the near-destruction of their family’s finances and returned in his youngest son’s ghastly affliction. Her father had done nothing to improve Con’s opinion of fathers. Lord Wyndham terrified him. “He gave me an earful. I’m not sure I remember all that he said.” Mostly because Con’s instinct had been to get out of there as quickly as possible before Lord Wyndham pointed a fowling piece at his head.

Elizabeth’s eyes blazed. She tossed her cards facedown onto the table and flattened her palms on either side. “Allow me to summarize for you, then. I have one month to give Oliver over to either you or Finn, or my father is going to help Finn take me through the courts, where I’ll be massacred.”

No, he hadn’t heard that. He set his own cards down. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to run.”

“That’s why you’re traveling toward Ellesmere,” he guessed aloud. Then he heard what he’d just said. She was going to Ireland? There must be a better solution than leaving the country entirely. There had to be, because her leaving with Oliver was the last thing he wanted.

“And now?” he asked, as if she might have reconsidered since a moment ago. Since he’d become involved.

She pursed her lips, looking at once lovely and disgusted by his question. “Do you think your catching me changes anything?”

Not in and of itself, no. He didn’t think he made a difference. And yet… “You can’t run.”

She looked him square in the face. He’d never seen a more beautiful, or more determined-looking, woman. “Can’t I?”

He managed to keep his voice even. What he wanted to do was seize her wrists and force her to accept his help. She was a spitfire. He didn’t think she ever paused a moment to consider anything but her own impulsive feelings.

That was the pot calling the kettle black, wasn’t it? He’d gone to her house to apologize for a proposal he’d blurted out in haste, and now they were sitting in a room a hundred miles away, simply because he’d felt intrigued by her sudden disappearance and had developed the urge to follow her.

Perhaps they were more alike than not. “I don’t think you want to leave,” he said slowly, feeling out his opinion of her. “Your home is here. That’s why you went to see your parents, isn’t it? There’s no other reason to come within a county of them, unless you truly wanted to see them.” He was glad he’d never encountered them before. They were really, truly awful. But he did know a bit about wanting to please family, even if his wasn’t nearly as difficult.

She drew away a fraction, enough to tell him he’d set her back up. “I’ll thank you not to make assumptions about me—”

He placed his hand over hers. She yanked her hand away. “You asked me a question,” he said. “Let me answer. If you settle in Dublin, your son will be raised believing I’m his father, because that’s the story we’ve told. He’ll think I don’t give a farthing about him. Whatever happened between you and Finn, it’s probably better if I don’t know. But don’t take Oliver away and make it all but impossible for me to be there for him. My father didn’t give a farthing about me and I don’t wish that on any child. I would do my best for him, if you’d let me.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t ask that of you. It’s not even reasonable. Who would do that?”

He knew without thinking. “I would.”

Her head tilted slightly as though she was trying to make sense of him. He couldn’t explain his answer, even to himself. “Why?” she asked quietly.

“Let me do what you’ve paid me to do.” And with that, he knew why he’d followed her. His job was not done yet. Ten thousand pounds was a lifetime of being her child’s father. Not a few hours.

For a few, buoyant seconds, she looked like she might agree. Then she tucked her hands into her lap, becoming very small. “You didn’t even know us before last week. Just…take the money. It’s yours. All I ask is that you never reveal the truth.”

There was no going back. His only path forward was in front of him. “It’s not that simple. I can’t have Oliver think I don’t care. I wouldn’t be able to face myself in the mirror.”

Because his mother was right. He couldn’t just walk away as though nothing had happened. He’d made a commitment. By God, he intended to honor it.

Now he knew why his brothers had been so adamant. He hadn’t been man enough to see it.

Elizabeth bit her lower lip. She looked away. “I won’t tell him it’s you, then. It’s not, anyway. You are not responsible. Please, leave us alone.”

He bit back a flippant argument that Oliver did need him. She needed him. The last hour proved it. “But I will know. Don’t you see? I will know I took him from his real father. How could I live with the guilt? A boy needs a father. If you won’t allow it to be Finn—”

“Finn!” she came out of her seat again. “Finn would take him! I can’t…I can’t be separated from my baby. I will die.” Her voice cracked. Tears glistened in her eyes. “Nicholas has no use for me.”

He well understood the despair born of feeling useless. He hated knowing she felt that way about herself. Not even the threat of one of those tears falling, however, could sway him from his position. He folded his hands on the table. “You can’t leave.”

“Ha.” Her eyes slid away. “Spoken like a man. The law is always in your favor, isn’t it?”

He didn’t have a defense for that. “The thing is,” he said matter-of-factly, so as not to provoke another passionate outburst, “I don’t want you to leave. We must be able to think of a way to keep you here, where you belong.”

She darted him a surprised look so full of hope, he knew without a doubt that he would do anything to make good on that promise.

Her gaze fell to the rickety table between them. “I can’t stay.” She did sound more even-tempered, as if she were considering his request rather than swinging wildly at her demons. “Even if I wanted to. Finn will easily prove you and I don’t have an agreement. There’s already no proof we knew each other a year ago.”

He set his hands flat on the table. “That’s only true from your perspective. Me? I’ve been aware of you ever since I became a man. I’m positive we have more of our past in common than you think.”

She gawked at him. “You watched me?”

Even he was surprised by his admission. He hadn’t meant to tell her that.

Going for the whole pound, he continued, “You’re one of the most beautiful, sought-after women in England. I’d have had to be dead not to notice you. I’m sure we can remember an event we both attended. Some dazzling night that might have ended in bed. Can’t you imagine it?”

Her breath caught. He could almost believe she was considering what that magical night might have been like. Then she shook her head, and the spell broke. “He won’t believe I was with anyone else. He only did at first because you caught him by surprise.” Her lip curled up with satisfaction. It had been her idea to shock him.

Then her expression turned bitter. “He knows how much I lo—how devoted I was to him. He even tried to prove I’m still attracted to him.”

Con’s eyes narrowed. In jealousy? As ridiculous as that seemed, he couldn’t help but wonder what Finn had done to her. Where he had touched her. Or when. “Are you?”

Blast, but he even sounded jealous.

Her answering recoil gave him immense satisfaction. “No! I hate him for what he’s done to me.”

That did simplify the situation, even if he took his burgeoning jealousy out of the equation. If she’d had latent feeling for the father of her child, Con wouldn’t have wanted to interfere in their lovers’ spat.

But since her antipathy toward Finn was palpable, Con’s inquisitiveness when it came to her was equally pricked. That surprised him. He hadn’t expected to become so interested in learning her story.

Ah, but he wouldn’t pry. He must be patient. A virtue he’d mastered dealing with his twin. Her past should be something she decided to share with him, once he’d earned her trust.

Why did he need to earn her trust?

He raised his wine to his lips and finished off the glass. The fact was, he had a soft spot for a dark horse. He set his wineglass firmly on the table. “Be my mistress. That will resolve any concern Finn has that we didn’t actually spend the night together. We’ll do our best to appear smitten; the rest of the world will believe it and Finn will look dotty for saying otherwise.”

She pressed her lips together, looking doubtful.

“You’re my ‘mistress’ tonight, and it’s not so bad, is it?” Con smiled reassuringly, feeling as though he were putting on the performance of his life. “We can continue on like this. An arrangement in word only. I can’t afford your services and even if I could, that would be a deuced awkward arrangement.”

Her puzzlement deepened. “You think it would be odd for us to—”

“Don’t even say it.” God, please don’t say it. “While I find you very attractive, I feel strangely friendly toward you. I don’t know how it’s been in your experience, but I can’t think that’s a usual sort of arrangement between a man and his paramour. How would we undress in front of each other?”

She looked at him as if he’d gone daft. Earlier when she’d teased him, she’d sent him suggestive looks. Now he was left in no doubt that had been an act. Not that he cared if she’d been playing a role, since they were just friends from now until forever. Platonic, asexual friends.

What was he thinking?

“You should take up the townhouse again,” he continued, as if his mind weren’t racing with all the many ways he was setting himself up for a lifetime of ball-crushing pain. “I assume you can afford it? Then I can see Oliver from time to time, and my mother may, too.”

Elizabeth frowned, considering. “I never thought that you would have people in your life who would take an interest in us. Now, it seems, they are all involved.”

His family was a fixture in his life that he’d taken for granted. He felt a touch of sadness for her lack of close family. What would it be like to be that alone?

“They are,” he said firmly. “They will always be. And they must never know. Mine is the best sort of mother. I can’t tell her I lied to her. I must continue on as if Oliver is truly my child, if only so she will never have a chance to be disappointed in me.”

He had a reasonably good idea why Elizabeth was still regarding him as if he were babbling nonsense. He’d met her parents, after all.

“Your relationship with your family is incomprehensible to me,” she said, confirming his suspicion that she truly didn’t understand why he didn’t want to hurt his mother. “I suppose of the two of us, you are of a healthier mind when it comes to family matters.” She appeared to think it over. He tried not to look too hopeful.

“Very well,” she said at length. “I will set up as your mistress under three conditions. The first is that you keep your word that you won’t try to seduce me. The second is that you allow me to compensate you for your time with Oliver, as if you were his governess or tutor.”

“No,” Con said firmly.

She silenced him with a slashing motion. “No matter how much you argue otherwise, this was a business arrangement intended to last only the time it took you to wrest Oliver back. I won’t be beholden to you for the rest of my life. Which brings me to my third requirement: if you or I should choose to form an attachment with someone else, we will terminate our arrangement amicably.”

“No,” Con said again. She was already thinking of leaving him? But then, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life attached to a woman he wasn’t allowed to touch intimately, did he? If so, he could be married by now.

“I’m not giving up on Oliver,” he said, “and I don’t want to be any more in your debt.” He didn’t say anything about the “friendly” part of her terms. That had been his own stupid idea.

She laughed low. He felt it all the way to his toes. “Oh, my lord,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I fear it’s far too late for that.”