Proof by Seduction (Carhart 1)

He met her eyes and all Jenny’s thoughts—her worries for Ned, the loneliness that clutched her gut—were laid bare in the intensity of his gaze.

His lip quirked sardonically. “We’ll take her with us.”

CHAPTER TWO

GARETH CARHART, MARQUESS OF BLAKELY, had allocated one hour to this endeavor. Fifteen minutes to travel to the fortune-teller’s lair, fifteen minutes to return home. Half an hour, he had supposed, would suffice to shred her lies like the insubstantial foolscap that they were.

“I can’t go.” Madame Esmerelda’s voice was soft and uncertain.

“Why ever not?” Ned turned to her, a look of genuine befuddlement spreading across his face. Gareth’s young cousin sat with his hands on his knees, his whole body canting toward the woman. And therein lay Gareth’s problem.

When Gareth had left England years before, Ned had been a child, whining and hanging on at every opportunity. Now, he was barely twenty-one—but still damnably vulnerable. And Ned believed every word that this woman spoke.

With Ned’s father dead, Gareth was the closest thing Ned had to a patriarch. Ned was his responsibility—and responsible marquesses did not let their young cousins fall into the clutches of fortune-tellers.

“I’m sure Madame Esmerelda had a perfectly legitimate reason not to come.” Gareth raised an eyebrow at the woman and dangled his bait. “I suspect she had another appointment at the same time.”

Let her agree. When she did, he would ask her to name the date of the ball. She wouldn’t be able to, despite her vaunted powers and he would end this foolish charade before it even began.

But she did not take the easy way he offered. Her nostrils flared, and she pressed her lips together. “You’re attempting to trick me, my lord.”

Gareth barely transformed his jerk of surprise into an arrogant chin-lift. “I assure you,” he said in his coldest tone, “I had no such intention.”

She rolled her eyes. “You want this to be a scientific test? Let it be a scientific test. But don’t set little verbal traps for me. And don’t ever lie to me. You intended precisely such a thing.”

Electricity prickled the hairs on his arms, and Gareth sat back, the silence pressing uncomfortably against his skin. Madame Esmerelda leaned toward him, her hands gripping her skirts. It had been a long while since anyone had spoken to him in that manner. He had lied to her. He had intended to trick her into playing her hand too soon. He just hadn’t expected her to notice.

“You’re trying to change the subject,” he accused her. “Why can you not go to the ball?”

“Because I wasn’t invited,” she snapped. And then she looked down. “And besides, I have nothing to wear.”

Ned gave a high crack of laughter.

And no wonder. It was such an absurdly ladylike thing to say. He glanced at her again. In that moment—a trick of the light, perhaps, or the way her lashes obscured her eyes—Gareth felt a jolt. Madame Esmerelda was not a lady, but she was most definitely a woman. A pretty one at that. She’d hidden her femininity beneath those unflattering layers of dark paint and the kerchief. Lies, those; just ones composed of fabric and powder instead of words. He wondered idly how far down her back that mass of hair would reach if it were not bound up. She lifted her chin and met his eyes.

Gareth didn’t believe in fortune-telling. He was a scientist; he’d devoted years to a naturalist’s expedition in Brazil. He’d only returned to England when his grandfather died, and responsibility required he take on the demands of the title. He had come here because responsibility also demanded that he free his cousin from Madame Esmerelda’s grasp. But he would take it as a matter of personal pride to strike a blow against the illogical superstition that this woman represented.

Her particular choice of lies, however, would take far longer than his allocated hour to disprove. He should have been annoyed. And yet he couldn’t intimidate Madame Esmerelda.

In the year since he’d been back in England, he hadn’t faced anything like a real challenge. Now he did. It was going to be extremely satisfying when he exposed her as the fraud that she was.

He relished the prospect of matching wits with her, of pulling the truth from her.

Gareth snapped his fingers. “The invitation,” he said, “I can fix. The clothing I can fix. I’m willing to do much in the name of science.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t.” She looked away again. “Besides, I can’t accept—”

Disparate details collided in Gareth’s mind. The proper curtsy she had dropped. The educated precision of her intonation. Her reluctance to accept a gift of clothing from a man. These facts all added to one overwhelming conclusion: Madame Esmerelda had been educated as a gentlewoman. What on earth could have driven her to tell fortunes?

“Of course you can,” he insisted. “Madame Esmerelda, if this is to be a scientific test, I don’t believe you should lie to me, either.”

Some emotion flickered in her eyes. She shook her head—not a denial, but a swift, short shake, as if she were putting everything to rights. And when she met his gaze again, her face was smooth.

She had thought of something, Gareth realized. She saw a way out of the mess he had created for her.

He should have been disappointed.

Instead, he couldn’t wait to foil her plan.

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for Gareth to regret his eagerness. He hadn’t realized finding Madame Esmerelda appropriate attire would turn into an ordeal. But Ned had thought it necessary to take the woman to the modiste himself. And Gareth knew if Ned had a moment alone with the charlatan, she would find a way to turn his head inside out. Again.

Which is how Gareth found himself in his closed carriage the next afternoon, accompanied by his chattering cousin, a fraud and a growing headache.

“So,” Ned babbled, “we’re going to the ball next Thursday, and then we’ll meet Blakely’s wife. I should like to see him fall in love. I’m rather looking forward to it.”

Madame Esmerelda adjusted the kerchief on her head—red, this time—and slanted a careful look at Gareth. “Identify.”

“Identify?” Ned repeated. “What do you mean, identify?”

“We are going to identify the woman in question. I never said your cousin would meet her that day. In fact, the time for their meeting is not yet here.”

Gareth inhaled in trepidation. “Not yet here? How long will this take?”

The smile touched her eyes, if not her lips. “Oh, I couldn’t say. The time is not measured by years, but by tasks. Three of them.”

“Tasks?” repeated Ned, incredulously.

“Tasks?” Gareth said sharply. “You said nothing of tasks.”

“Oh? What did I say, I wonder?” She looked up at the roof of the carriage, innocently.

Gareth drew out his notebook and fumbled for the page. “At precisely ten o’clock and thirty-nine minutes, you will see the woman you are to marry if only you approach her in…” He faltered, and looked up.

That innocence had faded from her eyes. She’d known what she’d said. Baited him into this, no doubt, to make him look foolish.

“If only I approach her in the manner you prescribe,” he finished dully.

“Ah, yes. The manner I prescribe.” She smiled. “And I prescribe tasks.”

He’d thought himself so clever, trapping her into making an easily disprovable statement. All he had to do, he’d thought, was not marry a girl. He’d succeeded at not marrying women a

ll his life. He’d been too confident, too sure he’d backed her into a corner.

He’d underestimated her. He’d been so intent on winning, on disproving her statement, that he’d not seen the exit she planned for herself.

He could walk away at any moment. But if he did, he’d leave her influence over Ned unabated.

“I never got tasks,” mumbled an aggrieved Ned.

“Of course not,” Madame Esmerelda soothed. “But you must think how monumental an undertaking it will be for your cousin to convince a woman to care for him. If I didn’t set him tasks, he’d use logic instead, and just think how that would work out. You don’t need tasks. Everyone likes you already.”

Gareth clenched his hand in suppressed fury and pushed his knuckles into the leather squabs. “And what,” he snapped, “is the first task? Mucking out stables? Killing lions? Or must I chop down an entire orchard of citrus trees?”

She tapped a finger against her lips. “It is a trifle premature to tell you. But I suppose it can’t hurt. You must carve an elephant out of a piece of ebony.”

“An elephant?” Gareth looked up at the roof. “Why is it always elephants?”

The coach slowed to a halt. The footman opened the door, and dust motes danced in the rays of sunshine in front of Madame Esmerelda. They made her look…well, mystical. Drat her.

“I am,” Madame Esmerelda said, “just a poor conduit for the spirits. As you will be a mere conduit for the elephant. You will give your future wife the elephant when first you meet.”

Her eyes danced, and she exited the conveyance. Gareth bit back a pained yelp.

No doubt he could find a way to present such a gift in a dignified manner. If she thought to make a fool of Lord Blakely, she was vastly mistaken. But maybe she intended to fight him to an impasse. If she made those tasks onerous enough, she doubtless thought he would walk away. And with her conditions unfulfilled, he would have no proof she was a fraud—and that meant his cousin would continue to see her. Unacceptable.

By the triumphant spring in her steps as she approached the shop, she thought so, too.

Gareth’s thoughts boiled as he entered the little shop. He paid little mind to Ned bothering Madame Esmerelda, whining about some irrelevant trifle. Bolts of colorful fabric decorated the front waiting room; they faded to dim gray in his mind. He didn’t even notice he was pacing the floor, scarcely saw when Madame Esmerelda was whisked away to the back room. He wanted to rip the fashion plates off the walls and shred the sample cards laid demurely out on the tables.