Chapter 12 #3
“That’s how she does it sometimes. You men always assume that only women gossip. But nothing is further from the truth.”
Masefield drew Felicity closer in the turn, and Ian scowled blackly.
“Well, Masefield isn’t gossiping, is he?
He’s got his hands all over her. You should warn her away from him.
He’s only toying with her. His father wants him to marry an heiress, and he has the title to do so.
Besides, he’s fresh from the schoolroom, barely more than a boy.
He wouldn’t even know what to say to her if he got her alone. ”
“Are you so sure?” Sara asked in a deceptively innocent voice.
He glared at her. She was laughing at him, the brazen chit, enjoying his fit of temper. The woman probably thought it meant something. What it meant was that he needed to bed Felicity Taylor before he exploded with need.
A need that had grown to mammoth proportions the minute he’d seen her enter tonight, wearing a most enticing scrap of fashion.
With that gauzy material, it would take only a few tugs in the right place to render her naked.
The sleeves clung to her shoulders for dear life, and the seductively draped bodice slipped down whenever she bowed to reveal a generous amount of golden bosom.
It was a miracle the bloody thing stayed up.
Every man in the place probably waited to see when it would fall.
“Why don’t you caution her against wearing those flimsy gowns? She’s making a fool of herself.”
“I’ve seen no one laughing at her. And her gown is no more flimsy than mine.” Sara hid her face with her fan, but he knew she was smiling behind it.
“You’re a married woman—you can get away with it. But she’s unattached, and it isn’t the same. You should speak to her about that gown. It shows entirely too much of her figure. She’ll ruin her reputation.”
“As I recall, the only thing ruining her reputation so far is her association with you.”
Her tart words didn’t sit any easier on him for being true. “Well, I intend to remedy that by making her my very respectable wife. I’m tired of this game, Sara. It’s not working. I need a new strategy.”
Sara’s expression softened. “Ah, but it is working. She hides it, but she’s as jealous as you are. You should have heard her criticism of the incomparable Miss Trent.”
Her words mollified his temper only a little.
“I can’t go on this way, paying court to women I don’t wish to marry.
I long ago rejected half of them as possibilities, and the other half have fathers who’d never countenance my suit, even if I wanted the daughters. Which I don’t. She’s the one I want.”
“You must be patient—”
“I can’t.” He had no time for patience. He must have a wife, and soon.
And it must, it would be Felicity. “Surely there’s another way to secure her.
I need time alone with her. A moment on the balcony in this crush will do me no good, even if I could get her out there.
No, I need more time, enough to convince her she’s wrong about me. ”
“Or enough to seduce her?”
He met Sara’s questioning gaze and considered lying.
But Sara could detect that sort of lie from twenty paces.
“If necessary.” He should have seduced her the last time he’d had her alone instead of taking a more subtle approach.
Subtlety didn’t work on Felicity Taylor any better than threats. Or jealousy.
Sara looked indecisive, then sighed. “Well, I shan’t help you seduce her, but I do know how you could spend time with her and her brothers. She’s taking them to the waxworks exhibition tomorrow.”
A slow smile spread over his lips. He began exploring possibilities, tactics, maneuvers. “You mean the one in the Strand?”
Sara nodded. “But make it look as if you met up with them accidentally or she’ll never trust me again.”
“I can do that.” Ah, yes. And afterward, he’d accompany them home and wrangle an invitation to dinner. From there ... His smile broadened.
“I know how your devious brain works,” Sara remarked, “but I should caution you that seduction might not succeed in changing Felicity’s mind. She has a strong will.”
“It’ll succeed,” he vowed, although he hadn’t been sure of that himself a week ago.
Still, he had no choice. What had begun as an impractical desire to possess her had become an obsession.
He couldn’t lay down without imagining her in his bed, couldn’t eat without tasting her on his lips.
For God’s sake, he even heard her laugh in his sleep sometimes.
But that wasn’t as bad as hearing her sighs of pleasure, which he also did in his sleep, in his dreams.
She wanted him, too. He knew it. And she needed him, whether she acknowledged it or not, to escape that dreary life she’d made for herself.
Very well—he would seduce her and it would succeed. Because if the first seduction failed to convince Felicity she should marry him, he’d seduce her as many times as it took to either change her mind or get her with child. But one way or the other he would have her as his wife.