London's Most Wanted Rake

Chapter Five

Channing was as good as his word. By the time Alina sat down at the tables for cards after dinner, all was in order. Channing had arranged to partner her while they played against Roland Seymour and a Mrs White from Richmond. It was the most subtle of organisations from which natural conversation and association could grow. She couldn’t have asked for a better opening. Seymour would have no reason to be suspicious of her motives.

But that didn’t make sitting down next to such a man any easier. It galled her that she had to sit there, concentrating on cards, laughing and pretending to have a good time, while all she wanted to do was strangle him, or call him out and expose him to the present company for the fraud he was. Strangling was unfortunately against the law. She wasn’t sure about ball-ripping though, there might be some potential there. Either way, torture would have to wait. She didn’t have the proof she needed, not yet. But she would soon. The house party was just the beginning of what she intended for Mr Roland Seymour, deceiver of widows and unsuspecting families. Under the table, Channing’s foot kicked her leg. ‘It’s your play, comtesse.’

‘Thank you, my mind must have wandered.’ She gave Seymour an apologetic half-smile and fingered the pearls at her neck while she studied the current trick in play. ‘Perhaps you could remind me what was led?’

‘Your partner has led the ten of hearts, Mrs White has followed with the jack,’ Seymour supplied helpfully with a touch of the patronising in his tone.

Alina kept her tongue in check. There were things she’d like to say to that tone, but demure was the watchword for tonight. If last night had been more dramatic, tonight was about showing a slightly softer side to the comtesse. Seymour might be more open to the tragic, exposed French comtesse. Goodness knew he had a penchant for helpless women.

Channing kicked her again under the table. This time it had nothing to do with wool-gathering. He knew she was out of hearts and wanted her to trump the trick so she could lead back with a spade that played to his voided suit. Alina would have sluffed a club just to be irritating if she thought he wouldn’t risk another kick. Her shin was likely to be black and blue tomorrow if he kept it up and she was already sore from her fall in the stream. But Channing was competitive and she was, too. If she had to choose between giving in to Channing or losing to Seymour, she’d choose the former. Alina tossed down the trump.

* * *

‘That gives us the second game,’ Channing declared an hour later, setting down the pencil beside the score pad. They’d won the first game, too, although it had been close. Mrs White and Seymour had played well, or perhaps, Alina thought, she and Channing had played well enough to give the illusion of closeness. Around them, other games were breaking up and people were beginning to mill about the room, waiting for the evening tea cart.

Alina rose and smoothed the aquamarine folds of her skirts. ‘I thought I might take a stroll before tea. I’ve wanted a moment to admire the painting on the far wall.’ She gave Seymour a hopeful glance and played with her pearls, drawing the eye to her discreetly displayed expanse of bosom.

‘Might I accompany you?’ Seymour predictably offered.

‘I would like nothing better.’ Alina smiled coyly through her lie. There were a million things she’d like better, starting with seeing him deported for his crimes, both those he’d committed and the ones he’d meant to commit. How many young women had there been before he’d tried to marry her sister?

‘Are you enjoying the house party, comtesse?’ Seymour began with the usual small talk as they strolled the perimeter of the room. Others had followed suit, perhaps exploring potential new relationships formed at the picnic that afternoon.

‘Yes, very much. It’s a blessing to be away from town for a while.’ Alina sighed. ‘There’s so much business to take care of and I often fear I haven’t the head for it. What do I know of rents and crops? I know fashion and parties.’ She forced herself to brighten. ‘But those are my troubles, not yours. I should not burden you with them. It’s just that I didn’t think being alone would be so difficult.’ She let her words drop off, infused with a reflective tone while she waited to see if he would bite.

‘My dear comtesse, I know we are but new acquaintances. Still, I would offer my services. I cannot bear to see a lady in distress. I have some knowledge of land matters. If I could help, I would be glad to do so.’

Alina smiled softly as if she couldn’t believe her good luck. ‘I would be grateful. Your offer is most generous.’

The tea cart arrived shortly after that and Alina made sure to mingle carefully, not spending any more time in Seymour’s company although he was certainly willing to continue their association. It would be best to leave him wanting more. There was no need to appear too clingy, too desperate. Even snakes like Seymour appreciated a small show of strength. It served to make the appeal for assistance all the more sincere—here was a woman who didn’t ask for help often, but she’d asked him. He would be feeling quite assured. She was careful also to avoid Channing. No good would come of being too closely associated with him. It would make Seymour wonder why she’d simply not asked Channing for help, why seek out a stranger when Mr Deveril was prepared to dance attendance on her?

Channing was among the first wave of guests to head upstairs. She waited and exited with the last so that Seymour could clearly see she was unattached. Not that such visual evidence meant anything at house parties when one dissected the logic of it. Everyone knew there would be several furtive journeys in the dark to various bedrooms not one’s own before the sun rose.

Alina opened the door to her bedchamber and stifled a scream. She would not give Channing the satisfaction of knowing he’d startled her. The arrogant man hadn’t even bothered to be furtive. He’d come up and directly helped himself to her bed. There he lay, hands behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles and looking entirely too comfortable. She boiled to take him down a notch. ‘I think the rule is that you’re supposed to wait until the house settles for the night.’

Alina set down the lamp on the dressing table and crossed her arms. For all her bravado, she was startled to see him. After his lecture at the stream about the need to protect her reputation, this seemed to do the opposite. ‘Did anyone see you come in?’ She had just put the next step of her plan in motion and it depended on convincing Seymour she was alone.

‘Of course not,’ Channing scoffed at her worries, arrogant in his own way.

‘What are you doing here? I’m sure there’s nothing that can’t keep until morning.’ Alina unfastened her pearls. ‘Unless it is an apology for kicking me all night.’

Channing snorted. ‘I kicked you twice and you deserved it. You were flirting with Seymour. Which raised a burning question in my mind. I don’t think I could sleep without an answer.’

‘If I tell you, will you go away?’

Channing shrugged. ‘Maybe. This bed is pretty comfortable, though.’ He paused and fixed her with his gaze, the humour fading. ‘Why is it you insist on seeking out men you don’t like?’

There was a great riposte in that, but this was not the time for teasing. ‘What makes you so certain I don’t like Seymour?’ Alina slowly pulled the pins from her hair, gathering her thoughts. It was easier to think when she was doing something. There was less time for her brain to be distracted by the sight of Channing lying on her bed.

‘You wanted to eat him alive at cards tonight, not exactly an attitude that matched the soft colours, and innocent pearls.’ Ah, Channing had noticed. He was far too perceptive. ‘Whatever “business” you have with Seymour, I’m starting to think it’s not friendly.’ And now he was meddling, too, just as she’d feared.

She shook down her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders. Channing shifted on the bed. He was in a poor position to hide any effects of her toilette. Well, good, let him be the uncomfortable one for a change. ‘Are you going to come over and help me with my gown?’ She made a show of reaching for the impossible back fastenings.

Channing rose from the bed and came to her, standing close enough to smell, close enough to kiss. She thought she had him, aroused and distracted. Even in dark evening clothes, the former was evident. But apparently she hadn’t succeeded with the latter because his answer surprised her. ‘No. I am not going to help with that gown. We both know what will happen if I do. It won’t stop there.’ His words were a whisper between them, part anger, part a seduction of his own. ‘I don’t want you like this, Alina. I’m not a game. I will not be used.’

Alina would not retreat. Her arms went about his neck, her lips kissed his throat. ‘I thought you said those two weeks in France were the best of your life,’ she whispered.

‘They were, which is why I refuse to tarnish them with something like this,’ Channing growled, setting her away from him. ‘Not all men are like your husband, Alina. Not everyone can be manipulated with sexual favours, nor does everyone expect to be.’

She froze at the words, all thoughts of distraction fleeing in the wake of her anger. ‘Are you calling me a whore? Considering your line of expertise, that would be quite like calling the kettle black.’

‘Am I mistaken? I thought it was you who was so fond of saying there wasn’t much difference between prostitution and marriage because we all did it for money in the end.’

‘You would know. You’ve done it more times for money than the rest of us.’ They were hurtful words. She knew what the League of Discreet Gentlemen meant to him. She knew it was about more than the money and the sex. But she hurled the words anyway because he’d hurt her and she was angry. She made a sharp gesture towards the door. ‘Get out!’ She was shaking with rage. ‘Don’t even think you can lecture me on the way I managed my marriage. You don’t know what that man was like. You don’t know what I had to do to win my freedom.’ She’d told no one about the degradations that had gone on behind closed doors. Not even Channing with his keen intuitions could guess at half of it.

‘A thousand pardons, comtesse.’ Channing gave her a frigid stare and exited the room.

Well, at least he’d dropped the matter with Seymour. But it was small consolation. This had not been how she’d wanted to do it. Still, she’d known from the start how things could explode with Channing. They’d been too intimate, too close, once upon a time. They knew each other far too well for objective games of manipulation to work without consequence. They knew just how to prod the sleeping lions each carried within them as this last demonstration had proved.

Alina rang for Celeste, disappointment blooming where anger had resided. Channing had been a source of strength for her once. Those two weeks had given her power, had taught her that she was strong, that she had value, the taint of a bad marriage could not diminish.

She was facing another important trial right now in exposing Seymour. Channing’s strength would be welcomed. But she couldn’t risk it. She didn’t want him involved. He had the League to protect. If her plans went sour, there’d be a scandal and she couldn’t promise he wouldn’t be exposed along with it. She’d never contemplated involving Amery when she’d hired him. She had no intentions of involving Channing now no matter how much he pushed, which was why she’d be sleeping alone tonight.

* * *

He’d be sleeping alone tonight because he hadn’t pushed, not in the right direction at least. Channing yanked off his cravat with an angry pull. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been thrown out of a woman’s bedroom. He had only himself to blame. He’d done it all wrong, broken every basic rule of relationship management. He’d called her attempt at seduction a manipulative ploy and by extension he’d implied rather blatantly she was prostituting herself in order to distract him from the true issue.

It had been a low blow no matter what. A gentleman never called a lady a whore. It was an especially low blow because he knew what her experiences would cause her to make of the situation. He’d accused her of being no better than the comte, a man whom she had thoroughly despised.

Channing undressed himself without assistance. He was in too poor of a mood to inflict himself on the unsuspecting valet. He should apologise. Once he did that, he could seduce her, which is what he should have done in the first place. Everyone knew you caught more flies with sugar than vinegar and he’d been nothing but vinegar. He’d rebuffed her efforts in the forest and he’d picked a fight with her tonight. Neither of those were classic recommendations for winning a woman’s favour or her trust. He needed both if he was going to uncover her business with Seymour and, if need be, protect her from her own impetuosity. She was paying the agency for protection and he was damn well sure she was going to get it even if it was protection from herself.

Why do you even care? his mind challenged. She’s been nothing but trouble to you since the day you met her and likewise she thinks the same of you. Yet you can’t seem to stay away from her. But Channing knew why. She was beautiful and strong and yet more vulnerable than she understood. There was a joie de vivre in her laugh, a magic in her wide smile, an exhilaration in the lightest of her touches. He’d never met a woman like her who could captivate a room so effortlessly by simply walking into it, who could captivate him, a man who had known so many women in his time and who could have any woman.

And yet you remember everything about her. You remember the first time she looked at you from across a Parisian salon, how she smells, how she freezes a man with a glance and how she stokes him with one as well. Channing blew out the lamp and climbed into bed, knowing full well the night was a lost cause. He was going to dream of Paris until the sun came up.

* * *

The comtesse might be genuine. Roland Seymour yawned sleepily from his discreet post in the hall. Perhaps she was truly alone. There’d been no questionable entrances or exits from her room since he’d taken up his position shortly after one in the morning. To have come sooner would have aroused suspicion. The house had not yet settled. He didn’t think he’d missed anything though; the comtesse’s maid had only left a few minutes ago, suggesting to him that there was no man inside her room. He’d give it another hour and then take himself to bed. No one would be showing up at three only to have to be out by five before the house servants started their rounds.

He intended to enjoy his brief association with the comtesse. She was everything a Continental woman should be, elegant and refined, sensual and passionate. He’d seen the tenacity with which she’d played a simple card game, perhaps an indicator of what awaited a man who garnered her favours. And yet, she was a woman and that meant she had limitations, limitations which she had freely admitted to him during their stroll. The business of running estates weighed on her. He fully expected she’d come forward with a more specific request for help tomorrow. Hopefully, she was in her room right now contemplating the wisdom of taking his offer. If not, he’d gently push that direction. He was fully confident he would know her situation by tea time.

Of course, he knew a little of her situation even now. She was a widow of two years according to the rumours circulating the house party. But rumour also suggested the marriage had been bad and the husband’s death somewhat suspect. What could one expect when one married a Frenchman? Still, there were those at the house party who were less generous in their thoughts: Why marry a Frenchman in the first place?

He’d listened to the gossip because it proved that she was alone. Even at the party there were no staunch allies for her, no one she could turn to with real problems. He would make himself that man. If he could bed her all the better. Women gave up all kinds of secrets in bed.

Chapter Six

Channing was right. He was going to dream about her all night. But he was wrong if he thought it was a waste of an evening. His dreams took him back to the first time he had ever seen her, a time of perfection, a time when he was young and still full of his father’s ideals of love and women.

* * *

He’d been to Parisian salons before but this one was different. There was an energy that emanated from the room. It didn’t come from the excellent décor, although the large drawing room was well appointed in blues and creams. It didn’t come from the exquisite collection of art hung on the walls representing significant schools of painting, although the collection certainly spoke well of the patron who had acquired it. Nor was it the comfort with which the room was designed. There were plenty of chairs grouped together for easy, intimate conversations, and more seating around the centre point of the room where the main event of the salon, a reading from a playwright’s latest work, he’d forgotten whose, would take place later.

Then he saw it, or rather her, the source of the energy, sitting slightly to the right of the room’s centre and surrounded by guests. She laughed and fluttered a fan at something a guest had said. In doing so, she turned his direction and he was stunned. She had white-gold hair, a platinum really, such a unique and unmistakable colour. That would have been enough to make her remarkable, but there was more: the sharp blue of her eyes, the pertness of her nose, the curve of her cheek and, perhaps most of all, the wide generous mouth invitingly painted in the palest of pinks to match the gown she wore, a frothy chiffon confection that contrived to be sophisticated, avoiding the immaturity that often accompanied such frills. She wore pearls at her neck to complete the picture of freshness and innocence.

‘It is the coup de foudre for you.’ His friend, Henri, who had brought him, nudged him as the woman made a gesture with her fan to approach. ‘I will introduce you, but you have to remember to speak,’ he joked. ‘Many men are tongue tied in the presence of la comtesse.’

Up close, he could see that she was young, perhaps not older than his own age of three and twenty, and when she spoke he could hear the accent beneath the words. She was not French, but English, even though her French was flawless. When she smiled at them, declaring she was glad Henri could come and doubly glad he had brought a friend, someone new to enliven their little circle, Channing was struck again by the quality of her freshness, the vibrancy in every expression. He was struck, too, by the realisation that she was married to Monsieur le comte and he knew something akin to devastation. She belonged to another. She could never be his. It was a ridiculous sentiment upon a first meeting.

Then she singled him out and all else ceased to matter. ‘Has Henri shown you the garden? No? Ah, Henri, it is remiss of you when you know the gardens are the best feature of the house.’ She tapped Henri on the arm with her fan. ‘Come, Mr Deveril, I will give you a tour. We have a little time before the reading begins.’

He supposed the gardens were lovely. He supposed he made the right obligatory comments about plants and the pond. He just wanted to stare at her, just wanted to listen to her. She could talk about anything and he’d listen. ‘The garden seems almost English,’ he offered as her tour wound down. He didn’t want to go in, he wanted to stay out here with her.

She smiled softly, her eyes meeting his fleetingly and then flying away. ‘I hope so. I wanted to create a little piece of England for myself so I’d have some place to remind me of home.’

‘Do you miss England?’ It had not occurred to him that the comtesse was not happy here in Paris.

‘I don’t know that I miss England, but I do miss my home and my family. My sister and I were close, she is dear to me. Still, this is a good marriage for a girl like me. I could not have expected to do better and Monsieur le comte lets me do as I please most days.’

Channing shook his head ‘A girl like you? What is that?’

‘My family is gentry. We are neither low born nor high. We’re not part of the peerage and we’re not wealthy enough to attract their attentions. In England, I could not have hoped for a great match. But here in France, the system of nobility is different. I could expect a great deal here. My parents want me to be financially secure and not need to worry for anything. They are older, you see, and there is my younger sister to consider.’

Channing did not like the way she said it, as if she were trying to justify the choice to herself.

‘It appears they have succeeded.’ Channing smiled. ‘Have you been married long?’

‘Nearly a year.’

He’d missed her by a year. It was illogical to think of it in those terms but the thought came anyway. ‘Is the marriage all you hoped it would be?’ Channing asked quietly. It was an intensely personal question to ask on short acquaintance.

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