Chapter 27
“Wherein our heroine desires to play the temptress.”
To both her chagrin and delight, Alex had not seemed to be in any doubt of her willingness to give up her virtue and entrap Lawrence into marriage.
To that end, he had already sent to Bordeaux, before she’d even set foot on land, to instruct the very finest gowns, shoes and jewels be made available for her the very next morning to aid her in her seduction.
She wasn’t sure at this point whether to be grateful, or deeply insulted that he believed she needed such a great deal of help in the matter.
And so, it was after another rather restless night, with her mind turning over some of Annie’s rather alarming words of advice, that Henri surveyed this vast and generous bounty with her the next morning.
“What price honour,” she muttered as Annie gaped, trailing her hand over the rich materials.
Velvet, sarsnet, lustring silks and fine muslins were arrayed before them in pretty pastel tones and crisp, perfect white, although her eye was drawn immediately to the white as it was a colour she would have never countenanced before.
Only the very rich could afford to wear white.
It was so very hard to keep clean and was dreadfully impractical, something she had never had the luxury of being.
Annie too, was seduced by the snowy silk, holding it up against Henri with a sigh.
“Oh, this is so lovely, my lady.”
Henri could hardly disagree, but it was an evening gown, not a day dress and so hardly appropriate for this morning. She scowled at Annie who rolled her eyes.
“I thought you wanted to seduce ‘im, propriety be damned!” Annie mocked.
“There are limits,” Henri muttered, watching as her frustrated maid then picked a very beautiful white muslin which would have been perfect.
Henri considered it and sighed. Somehow, in the circumstances, she could not but feel the purity of the colour was in very bad taste, and so she turned her back on it and plucked a gown of pale blue muslin from the dazzling array before them and an iris blue silk fichu.
It reminded her very much of the colour of Lawrence’s eyes.
And so, decision made, she went about her toilette under Annie’s strict command, who surveyed her mistress with something comparable to the eye of a general surveying battle lines.
By the time Henri had been primped into something that passed muster as far as Annie was concerned, she was feeling way out of her depth. Far too late for breakfast, and far too nervous to attempt to eat in any case, she made her way around the great house and looked about with interest.
The place was undergoing a rapid transformation as servants whipped off dust covers and tried to recapture the glory of the old days before the war had turned their lives upside down.
Every fire in the place had been lit, and Henri was discomforted when she realised this was probably for her benefit.
After all a seduction was so much more comfortable if you weren’t shivering and covered with gooseflesh.
Once again Henri found herself feeling quite out of countenance with Alex.
On the one hand she was grateful, as the sheer material of her gown was not fit to withstand the chill weather that was clearly visible outside the windows, and she was showing so much décolletage she was certain she’d catch pneumonia if the temperature dropped anywhere below tropical.
On the other, it made her extremely self-conscious that he was even thinking about it at all, let alone making plans to help her, and she wondered if he felt he’d hired himself a courtesan.
She met the man himself, as he left the breakfast room and was heartened to see him stop in his tracks, one eyebrow lifting in what she hoped was approval.
“Well, well, Miss Morton, I do believe my brother will be hard put to do anything other than whatever you command,” he said, his voice low and filled with amusement.
He walked forward and took her hand, raising it to his lips, his eyes lingering on the low neckline with obvious approval.
“I commend the dressmaker and will take back the oaths I swore on receiving his bill,” he added, with just the slightest twitch of his lips.
“I should tell you also that Lawrence has agreed, with little grace, to stay until after my birthday at the end of January. So, you have ten days in which to accomplish a satisfactory conclusion to this ... affair.”
Before Henri could make any attempt at a reply which was likely to have been pithy and short, they were both startled by the opening of a door, and the appearance of Lawrence. He paused in the doorway, and his jaw tightened, just a little, as he took in the scene before him.
Alex turned back to her, away from Lawrence and, giving her a smirk she assumed was his idea of encouragement, announced his intention to be gone for the day.
“I have much to attend to so do make yourself at home. I’m sure my brother will be glad to give you a tour of the place,” he added with a careless tone as he strode out of the house.
They heard the slam of the front door and were suddenly very much alone.
Henri cleared her throat. Lawrence had been staring after his brother with an expression she couldn’t decipher but which made her nervous.
“You look very fine,” she said, meaning it as she looked him over.
His piratical image had been replaced, for which she was sorry as he had looked a dashing and romantic figure, but she couldn’t fault the new look either.
Gleaming black Hessian’s were matched with fitted buckskin trousers and a dark blue coat that moulded to his broad shoulders and highlighted an embroidered silk waistcoat and a snowy white shirt and cravat beneath.
He shrugged, his face still troubled. “My brother thinks of everything it seems,” he said, his tone as dark as his face.
She swallowed, unsettled by his obvious bad humour.
“I do miss the earrings though,” she said, reaching out and moving to touch the place where they would have been.
He moved a step back, so suddenly it was as though she’d burned him, and she dropped her hand, feeling foolish and not knowing what to say.
Lawrence, however, seemed aware of having hurt her, and his bad temper diminished a little.
“You look ... lovely, Miss Morton,” he offered, though the smile he gave did not appear to reach his eyes.
“Thank you,” she said, wishing suddenly they were back on his ship. How foolish, to be desperate to escape a situation one moment, and the next to find you would do anything to have it back again.
The silence stretched between them, and she half expected him to make an excuse and leave her standing, so great seemed his discomfort. But then he appeared to remember his manners.
“Would you like to see the house?”
“Oh, yes please.” She accepted with alacrity and took his proffered arm as he led her down the wide hallway.
With real enthusiasm she followed him from room to room, expressing appreciation for all the beauty and charm of the old house and delighting in every story he recited, every history of an object or painting that came before them.
Until they were standing before a portrait of the last Comtesse de Longueville.
“She was very beautiful,” she said, looking up at sparkling blue eyes that were a perfect match to those belonging to the man beside her.
He smiled and nodded gazing on the painting with a fond expression. “You would have liked her very much I think.”
“I’m sure I would.”
They stood in what had been the comtesse’s bedroom, and despite the fact there was a very inviting and comfortable-looking bed taking up a great deal of the space, Henri felt uneasy at making an attempt at seducing Lawrence while his mother looked down on them; even if she had the slightest idea of how exactly she was supposed to go about it in the first place.
She sighed inwardly and walked to the window that overlooked the front of the house.
At least his forbidding demeanour had lessened as they had toured the house. His natural amiability seemed to struggle to remain in dudgeon, and little by little he became his usual animated self as he had regaled her with stories of mischief he’d made as a boy.
“Come, I want to show you something,” he said, grabbing her by the hand and towing her from the room.
She ran behind him, exclaiming as her shoes slid over the parquet floor, until they reached the end of the corridor.
There were portraits all along the walls of the wide stretch that ran the entire length of the house and gave onto the landing in the middle and the bedrooms on both sides of either end.
There was laughter in his eyes as she looked around her.
They were at the very end, with nowhere further to go.
She raised her eyebrows at him, wondering what he was smiling at.
“What do you think of this fine fellow?” he asked at length, drawing her attention to a full height painting of a rather solemn and bad-tempered looking man, who glared down at them, bewigged and bespectacled, with an air of deep disapproval.
“I ...” she hesitated, unwilling to insult a worthy ancestor.
“Terrifying, isn’t he?” he asked her, clearly trying not to laugh.
“Well, he is a little forbidding, yes.” She frowned up at him perplexed. “Who is he?”
“Damned if I know,” Lawrence said, shaking his head. “But he’s been awfully good to the family.”
“Oh? How so?”
He grinned at her and strode a few paces back down the corridor. “You remember how I showed you each tower has its own staircase, and you can only access them from the ground floor?”
“Yes?” she replied, laughing at his mysterious enthusiasm.
“Ah-ha,” he replied, tapping the side of his nose and returning to the painting. “Look.”
With the air of a magician producing a rabbit, he moved to one of four ornate gold bosses that seemed to be part of the gilded frame and pulled. To her astonishment the painting swung forward to reveal a hidden door.
She squealed with glee and practically bounced on the spot. “Oh, how Gothic! It’s like something from The Mysteries of Udolpho,” she exclaimed. “Can we go in?”
Lawrence chuckled. “I knew you’d like it, and of course we must go in! Wait here while I fetch a lamp.”
He came back a moment later and led the way up a narrow curving staircase.
At the top was a tiny round room. It was simply furnished with a chair - a blanket draped over one arm, a table, an oil lamp and a stack of books.
There was a tiny slot of a window which gave a little light and a truncated view of the gardens below.
“They say this is where poor Marguerite hid after the wicked count threw her out into the storm.”
“Oh, Lawrence, please say you’re teasing me?” she whispered as a shiver ran down her spine.
He shrugged, putting the lamp down on the table, and moved to look through the little window. “I don’t know, but that’s what everyone says, and it’s certainly saved a neck or two since in times of trouble,” he said, his voice softer now.
The atmosphere had changed somehow, and his previous dark demeanour seemed to be making an appearance.
No, she thought, I won’t let you do this, and I won’t let you go.
She took a step closer to him, and not having far to go in the confined space found herself right by his side.
He turned, suddenly aware of her proximity, and paused as he discovered her so close to him.
The moment seemed to freeze between them, and he stared down at her but made no move in either direction. His eyes never left hers, though, and she felt her heart thud in her chest. Please, Lawrence, please, she begged inwardly but he didn’t move.
Well, if he wouldn’t, she must. Taking courage in her hands she reached up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
For the barest second he didn’t react, and she thought perhaps she had miscalculated, perhaps she had been totally wrong.
Perhaps ... and then his arms went around her; and he swept her into a fierce embrace.