His lips curved into a smile that sent cold chills down her spine. ‘Indeed I have. Let us just say that if I were a stockbreeder I could not hope for a more willing stallion nor fear having one who has proved so unproductive so far. According to gossip Matthew has spent his wild oats over three counties without so much as one bastard to his name.’
‘I do not think I like you very much in this mood, Alex Tempest.’ Tess dragged the carriage rug close around her legs.
‘Nor do I,’ he said, the dangerous smile vanishing. ‘I do not think I have ever come across a lady who is prepared to speak as frankly as you, Tess.’
‘Perhaps I just see the future more clearly. I will not marry and I am unlikely ever to find myself in a situation where I can discuss such subjects so openly with a man. I will be gone soon after all. Hannah will return after Christmas and I will have to take myself off to the employment agencies.
‘Are you not cutting off your nose to spite your face? After all, you are not a virgin, are you, my lord?’ There was a woman in the carriage who looked like her, sounded like her. The Tess Ellery who was listening to what this other Tess was saying, who seemed to be able to see her through Alex’s eyes, shrivelled inwardly with shock.
A sudden, surprised gasp of laughter escaped him. ‘No.’
‘I thought not, not after the mention of mistresses. Nor a monk, either, I imagine?’
‘No, not a monk, either.’
‘So you are not proposing a life of sacrificial celibacy. You will punish your father and wallow in sin at the same time.’
‘Wallow in sin? Tess, what have you been reading?’
‘No doubt I am very naive, but I do not think you are happy.’
‘And marriage would make me happy? I very much doubt it. I haven’t the models for doing it right, besides anything else. If I’ve inherited anything from my father, it is probably an ability to make an appalling husband and father. Don’t look at me with those great innocent eyes, full of righteous indignation, Tess.’ He studied her face for a moment, then smiled, a smile free from the bitterness and mockery. ‘Are you by any chance attempting to seduce me into happiness by using sweet reason?’
She thought about it for a moment. ‘Yes, I believe I am.’
‘I have to tell you it is not very erotic.’
‘It is not intended to be erotic!’ Infuriating man, to be able to make me blush even more deeply than I already am. ‘I am not talking about that kind of seduction.’
‘Your arguments have their merits, but for other men, I think. And I have to tell you that successful seduction requires passion and recklessness and surprise.’ His lips were twitching now. It was not laughter directed at her, she guessed. Hoped.
‘I would need to catch you unawares?’ Tess suggested. There was a flicker of something inside her, a warm, fidgety glow. ‘Be
more passionate with my arguments?’
‘Indeed you would. And I am not easily caught with my guard down.’
*
Tess pondered on seduction over the next week in the intervals between ordering supplies, puzzling over whether one goose, one turkey and a ham would be enough for the Christmas meals and negotiating the use of the boiler in between wash days in order to dangle the cannonballs of plum pudding in the cavernous pot.
Alex had been amusing himself by teasing her and, perhaps, flirting a little, she guessed, although she had no experience of such a thing. According to the nuns seduction applied to sin, to devils luring souls into doing wicked things. In Minerva Press novels seduction was all to do with love and lust. Between the pages wicked women dressed in trailing silks lured the hero into their toils and then…the chamber door closed with a resounding thud, even in the most daring tale. Tess very much doubted she’d know a toil if she fell over it; she possessed no trailing silks and Alex would probably laugh himself sick at the sight of her slinking about in her very sensible flannel wrapper.
I am thinking about seducing him into bed, not into happiness, she thought. But that would be sin, not because she truly believed that making love was wrong, but because his conscience would hurt him if he took her virginity.
But if he was convinced it would do no harm… It was a delicious daydream, one that brought back the heat and the tingling feelings and the ache to be held, very close, very tight.
How would one go about seducing Alex Tempest? It was safe enough to weave fantasies, surely? Laughter seemed to lower his guard. Laughter and being close enough to touch might work. Catching the man at home and alone, though, that would the first step, and Alex was very, very good at being elusive.
‘What I want for Christmas is an earl,’ she informed Noel, who was in her room helping her to wrap Christmas presents by tangling the ribbons and hiding in boxes. ‘Just the once. I know I’d have to give him back. I only want to borrow him. I suppose I would be quite hopeless at making love, but all the gossip says that men enjoy being with virgins. Which seems strange. But then men are strange, I’m beginning to find.
‘I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you this. You are much too young for such wicked conversation.’ Tess scooped up the kitten, who was trying to eat silver paper, and tickled him until he was a limp, purring handful of fur. ‘But I wish I could make Alex happy. He isn’t, you know, not deep down. He’s angry and hurting. I wish I could give him his family for Christmas, then he might settle down and find a wife and have children of his own.’
Noel made an ambiguous noise somewhere between a mew and a yowl. Tess lifted him up so his pink nose was inches from hers and his eyes crossed as he looked at her. ‘You think we need a fairy godmother? They are in short supply in London, I fear.’
‘What is in short supply?’ Alex’s voice said from behind her.
Chapter Twelve