My Fair Temptress Read online

  Throckmorton nodded. “As you say. I simply hoped that—”

  “Believe me,” Jude said, “I tried in every manner to convince myself that body was not my brother’s, and the more I tried, the more I convinced myself it was.”

  Celeste’s eyes swam with sympathetic tears. “You have done so much with no thought for yourself!”

  “I think too often of myself.” Jude rubbed the hardened round scar in the palm of his hand. “That’s why my brother was killed.”

  “You accept blame when it is not due. He was killed because someone wanted him dead.” Celeste had lived in France for several years, and occasionally Jude could hear the echo of French pragmatism in her tone and accent.

  “Because that’s true, I’ll be able to forgive myself—when I have my vengeance.”

  “Good. Self-loathing makes a good man bad. Vengeance is a great cleanser of the soul.” She nodded in satisfaction. “I have help for you. I found two gifts that were given to Garrick and me on the occasion of our marriage. You can present them to the Moricadian gentlemen as a bribe to get their attention.”

  Throckmorton cleared his throat. “Would the gifts be the snuffboxes that Uncle Julian gave us?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” Celeste’s voice was crisp and clear.

  “Because they are expensive—”

  “And in dreadful taste, and suitable only for a man, and just the sort of thing you would expect from someone who disapproves of your marriage to the gardener’s daughter.” Celeste tapped her slipper-clad foot in annoyance. “What difference does it make, anyway? When the time is right, Maltin’s going to break into the Moricadians’ apartment, steal everything back, and do another search for clues as to their purpose.”

  “I know.” Throckmorton put his hand on her shoulder. “I know, darling.”

  She took a steadying breath, then closed her eyes as if she were groping for her temper. She must not have found it, for she snipped, “You cannot help it if some of your family are jackasses.”

  Throckmorton met Jude’s gaze and made a gesture over his belly, then sliced a glance at Celeste.

  Ah. She was increasing. That explained her sensitivity about a matter she would have normally shrugged away. In a chatty tone, Jude said, “Comte de Guignard and Bouchard believe that Englishmen are worthless, good-for-nothing fribbles, and I’ve worked hard to confirm their prejudice.” He had tagged along after them, contrived to meet them wherever they went, and played the part of a simpleton and a sycophant so in love with Continental culture as to be oblivious to insult or innuendo. “I’ve succeeded. They believe me to be the country’s biggest fool.”

  “Have they realized you’re Michael’s brother?” Throckmorton asked.

  “Yes, but they don’t know I was in Moricadia at the same time as Michael.” Bitterness etched Jude’s smile. “That’s part of the reason they despise me so much. They ordered the death of my brother, and I appear to be so stupid that I want their approval.”

  “Do you yet have any inkling why they’ve come to London?” Throckmorton asked.

  “No, but they’ve begun to lower their guards. It’s Bouchard we need to watch,” Jude leaned forward. “The key lies with him.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.” Throckmorton leaned forward, too, caught up in the recitation of the facts and seeking the answers that must be there.

  “I do. I lived in Moricadia for months waiting for Michael to stop gambling…although now I know he was doing more than gambling.” He had been playing the hero. Damn him. “It was Bouchard who advised Comte de Guignard and Prince Sandre to bring in the spas and the gambling, and their success is beyond anyone’s imagining. Along with the money, Bouchard brought in the criminals to run the country. He’s a thug in fancy dress clothes. The people in Moricadia are downtrodden and angry, and they hate him as they do no one else. They fear him as they do no one else.”

  “When I lived in Paris, even then there was talk that France should absorb Moricadia, take over the spas and the gambling, and put the money into their own treasury.” Celeste sounded almost normal.

  “De Guignard and Bouchard don’t want that—but why not go to France to argue against union?” Throckmorton demanded. “Why come to England?”

  “To make trouble between the two countries,” Celeste said.

  That was easy enough to do. The state of affairs with the Russians had grown dire. They wished to take over the continent of Asia, and Britain and France had too much money and power at stake to allow that to happen. So the two unlikely allies were putting aside centuries of distrust to join together and fight the Russians.

  At least, that was the plan. In truth, the French diplomats despised the English, the English diplomats despised the French, and certain men were willing to go to any lengths to destroy the alliance. “If de Guignard and Bouchard make enough trouble, they’ll distract France from Moricadia.”

  Celeste dabbed at her eyes. “Like a house of cards, the peace between France and England would be easy to knock down, and that would mean war.”

  A faint tap sounded on the door, and in his low voice, Throckmorton’s secretary said, “Sir, she’s here.”

  With a flounce and a smirk, Celeste said, “How fortunate you’ve come tonight, Lord Huntington, for our visitor concerns you.”

  Throckmorton’s mouth grew tight, and to his secretary, he replied, “Send her in.”

  The most extraordinary young woman walked through the door. She was young, perhaps twenty, beautiful and plump in a toothsome way, petite in height with a presence that commanded the eyes. Her sumptuous bosom quivered as it spilled over the top of her low-cut gown, which was sewn to perfection, yet the scarlet color easily outshone Jude’s most outlandish costume. Her abundance of blond hair was caught at her neck, and her slumberous green eyes surveyed the room, then settled on Jude.

  She moved toward him, her skirts swishing with each step she took. He found himself on his feet, watching her. As she drew near, an earthy scent swam in his head, and when she placed her hand on his arm, he discovered a heretofore overlooked affinity for petite, curvaceous, green-eyed blondes. “What a glorious gentleman you are.” She drew each word into a caress that made him wonder what her order of business might be—and he knew that if she wished to make him her order of business, he would submit to her demands.

  But Celeste interrupted her, and pointed at Garrick. “This gentleman is Mr. Throckmorton.”

  “Oh.” The woman glanced at Throckmorton’s somber, distinguished outfit and sighed. “Of course he is. I beg your pardon, Mr. Throckmorton.”

  “He doesn’t mind,” Celeste said blithely. To Jude, she explained, “Miss Gloriana Dollydear is an opera singer, and our newest weapon in this war. Sit down, Miss Dollydear, while I explain the situation to Lord Huntington.”

  Chapter 5

  “A lovely afternoon after so many days of rain, Lord

  Huntington.” Lady Rutherford’s affected voice brought Jude to a halt.

  “Indeed, Lady Rutherford. So good to see you and your lovely daughter, Miss Jordan!” Jude bowed so extravagantly he might have been in the courts of Versailles rather than a gravel path in Hyde Park. “A most splendid day, and a chance to try out the newest spring styles.”

  Poor Miss Jordan. She was only seventeen, new to

  London, and was torn between acknowledging him as the heir to a dukedom, a man wealthy in his own right, one of the prime catches of any Season…or as one of the most laughable men in London.

  When, with deliberate insouciance, he tossed his emerald-and-tan paisley scarf over one shoulder, Miss

  Jordan lost the battle. Covering her mouth with one gloved hand, she dissolved into muffled laughter.

  Her mother jabbed her bony elbow hard into the girl’s ribs.

  Straightening at once, Miss Jordan choked, “How lovely to see you, my lord. Your costume is most magnificent.”

  “But of course!” His brow knit with sham concern. “Yet you sound as i
f you’re not well, Miss Jordan. I fear from your glassy eyes you’re coming down with an indisposition.” He drew back as if from the plague. “Please! I’m too important a gentleman, and too much in demand at parties, to be exposed to such a threat.”

  This time, she couldn’t contain a snort, and he stepped back to the far end of the path. “Really, Lady Rutherford, she should be in bed and away from the rest of polite society. Away from me.”

  Lady Rutherford nodded, grabbed Miss Jordan’s arm, and jerked her down the path.

  He strolled on, doffing his tall hat—his very tall hat—to every lady he passed. The wise mamas and their title-hungry daughters curtsied gravely to him, but there were always the young ladies like Miss Jordan who couldn’t contain their amusement, and to them he gave a special smile. His oblivion caused further gales of merriment as he minced along.

  As he had hoped, the first spring sunshine drew enough people to Hyde Park to make his outing unremarkable. Unremarkable, that is, except for the vibrant lime green greatcoat he matched with a brown-checked suit and brown, high-heeled ankle boots, making him the most outrageously dressed man on parade—and a nincompoop of the highest order. Such was the title he had cultivated with painstaking care.

  Sometimes he wondered if, after this escapade, he would ever return to his former self, careful of manners, of propriety, of all matters that were unimportant, and contemplative to the point of indecision.

  He thought not. He hoped not. None of the ton who strolled the paths imagined that he noted each of them: how they walked, the tones of their voices, the attention they paid to their surroundings, and, of course, what they wore. It was possible to tell a lot about a man or a woman by their attire, and Jude watched and weighed everyone who crossed his path as, all the while, he avoided the puddles left by the rain and kept a lookout for the two Moricadians who were his prey.

  He also watched for his tutor.

  His tutor. The dour female his father had hired to teach him how to flirt. The one his father said, “looked well enough”—a euphemism if Jude had ever heard one.

  And there she was, a horse-faced female carrying a nosegay of red roses held under her chin. Her complexion was absolutely white, either painted on with powder or caused by a lamentable lack of sun. Her nose was squashed flat, as if she’d walked headlong into a door. Her shoulders were rounded, her bosom unremarkable, and she wore fine clothing so badly she would have done as well to have donned a sackcloth.

  What in the devil had his father been thinking?

  The tutor batted her brown eyes at him in vapid adoration.

  Lifting his hat, he bowed, and resolved to return to Nevett’s town house as soon as the lesson had ended and ask.

  She skittered forward, then stopped a few feet away as if uncertain.

  Fiend seize her, she was playing coy. Hat still held high, he bowed again, and indicated the place before him.

  With a triumphant glance around at the aristocracy strolling past, she minced toward him and curtsied.

  Settling his hat back on his head, he said in a low voice, “I don’t suppose I could convince you to tell His Grace I’ve reformed.”

  She narrowed her eyes as if in confusion—or as if she needed glasses. “My lord?”

  “Silly of me to ask.” How was he to flirt with this…this creature? The gossip would no longer be about his clothes, but his taste in women. His friends would think he’d run mad, and if he tried to explain that his father had blackmailed him, they would laugh themselves into bedlam just as Throckmorton and Celeste had done. “His Grace will have made this whole travail worth your while somehow. So we shall do this thing, heh?”

  She visibly swallowed. “What thing, Lord Huntington?”

  “The politeness, the flirting, the courtship.” Looking on the bright side, Jude knew his interest in this female would, without a doubt, cement his reputation as a cretin with Comte de Guignard and Monsieur Bouchard. “Must make it look good, and the sooner we succeed, the sooner we are done. Very well.” He indicated the path. “Shall we walk?”

  In a voice with all the appeal of chalk on a slate-board, she said, “Why…yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord. I would be delighted—”

  “My lord,” he finished for her.

  She blinked at him. “My lord?”

  “Nothing. I realize the circumstances are unusual, and we have not been formally introduced, but you know me, and I would be delighted to make your acquaintance.” She didn’t seem to know what he meant, so he prompted, “Won’t you tell me your name?”

  “Yes! Of course! I’m…” She paused and gasped, her pale lips opening like a fish out of water. If he didn’t know better, he would say she had forgotten her name. At last she managed, “I’m Lady Pheodora Osgood of the Rochdale Osgoods.”

  “Indeed?” She surprised him. There really were Osgoods in Rochdale, a respectable family although singularly plain. “Now that you mention it, I see the resemblance. I hadn’t realized—” He paused, on the verge of being indelicate.

  “You hadn’t realized what, my lord?”

  He hadn’t realized they suffered from the loss of fortune that required them to send one of their young ladies away to earn her living—but he had been out of the country. “I hadn’t realized the Osgoods had brought a young lady of such exceptional beauty here to town.”

  She squinted up at him. “My lord, are you completely well?”

  “I’m fine, I thank you.” He bent his most charming smile on her.

  “Are you sure? Because no one has ever called me…that is, I have never before heard…” She squinted at him yet more.

  Irritated beyond belief by her stammering and her uncertainty, he snapped, “Do you wear spectacles?”

  Deliberately, as if she’d been instructed to do so many times, she widened her eyes. “Spectacles? What do you mean, spectacles?”

  “Eye apparel which would make you see more precisely. Here.” Taking her reticule off her arm, he rummaged inside. “There they are.” Taking the plain gold frames, he perched them on her nose.

  She stared at him, and this time her eyes were sincerely wide—and a rather pretty brown.

  “That’s better. Now we can get along swimmingly. And after all, it’s not as if you have to truly impress me with your beauty.” Remembering his father’s injunction to flirt, Jude added in a low, seductive tone, “I’m already overwhelmed.”

  She stopped in the middle of the walk, and said to herself, “I did hear that while abroad you had run mad.”

  “Is that one of the rumors?” He laughed with wholehearted amusement. “I suppose that is to be expected. No, I’m not mad—but then, madmen never realize their insanity, do they?”

  “No.” She backed up a step. “No. It was good to meet you, my lord.”

  “Is the lesson done for the day?” Her retreat rather surprised him. “I suppose you want to go at it slowly.”

  “Yes, my lord. The lesson is done, and you should go at it slowly.” She took another step back. “Perhaps it might be wise to return to your rooms and rest. Take it all slowly.” She stepped back, and back.

  At that moment, he spotted his quarry. As he had hoped, the sunshine had brought Comte de Guignard and Monsieur Bouchard out for a stroll.

  “There they are!” At once Jude sunk back into his role as a dilettante and a coxcomb, examining his cravat as best he could, twisting his fingers in his hair to create an extravagance of curls on his forehead.

  “Yes. There they are. Of course. Excuse me.” Turning, Lady Pheodora fled back up the path.

  Staring after her, he said, “What an odd girl. She’ll never have a career that way,” and without another thought for her, he hurried to catch de Guignard and Bouchard. His tall walking cane touched the ground with every step, and in an affected voice, he called, “Wait! Comte! Monsieur! Oh, wait, I don’t want to splash my clothes with these nasty puddles!”

  As the men glanced at him, he saw the contempt they didn’t bother to conceal. They di
dn’t feel they had to. They thought him oblivious to any insult, and that meant he played his role well. But they didn’t stop.

  So he called, “I was hoping to meet you most excellent gentlemen. I’ve brought you each a gift. It’s only a trifle, a snuffbox, but I think you’ll find the gold work is quite admirable, and the jewels are of wonderful clarity and cut.”

  The bribe stopped them in their tracks. Extending their hands, they accepted the boxes he offered, the boxes Celeste had given him. Bouchard, a short, stout man with an amazingly large black mustache and an equally amazing shiny bald head, pocketed his immediately and returned to puffing on the fat cigar he smoked at any possible occasion. But de Guignard opened his box and examined it. Jude thought if he’d had a jeweler’s glass, he would have popped it in his eye and assessed the stone right there.

  The comte was a man of perhaps forty-five, thin, tall, and handsome, with a gray, well-trimmed beard along his jaw. He spoke fondly of the days of Napoleon and France’s position at the heights of power—and Moricadia’s rise on its coattails. He also treasured an overweening grudge against the English, who had stripped their glory away, and at the same time, a tight-lipped resentment for the French, who looked down on the Moricadians. He wasn’t an easy man to understand; yet he liked gold and he liked women, and on those traits Jude pinned his hopes.

  Satisfied by the quality of the gift, de Guignard nodded brusquely. “Thank you. It was good to have seen you.”

  Jude grasped their arms before they could turn away. “You can’t go off yet! I wanted to ask how you liked the opera last night. I thought the soprano sang off-key, but perhaps that’s because she’s Mr. Throckmorton’s mistress. That’s enough to throw any woman off her stride!”

  The two men caught their breaths. They looked at each other. Moving in unison, they separated enough to allow him to walk between them.