Proof by Seduction (Carhart 1)

Jenny stretched up and placed her hand against his cheek. A moment of heat; a hint of stubbled roughness.

And then he recoiled as if a beetle crawled across his skin.

Yes. She was going to make him pay for this moment in the very currency he rejected. Heat. Smiles. And, oh—perhaps just a touch of humiliation. He must have seen the promise in her eyes because he backed away.

“Think whatever you like,” he said, retreating toward the crowded, well-lit hall. “Just stay away from my sister.”

JENNY’S HEAD ACHED from exhaustion. Only the sharp chill of the evening and the throb in her feet kept her from falling asleep while standing. Her little party waited for Lord Blakely’s carriage on the stone path leading away from the ball. She’d come from a room crowded with oppressively bright fabrics, rich dyes, jewels and food that must have taken the poor servants days to prepare. But just outside those white stone walls, Mayfair shared the same night as all of England.

No amount of money could drive away the pervasive London fog that shrouded the street in dimness. In the darkness of night, lords and commoners looked much the same.

There were differences. Ned drooped next to Jenny. He yawned; his teeth reflected dim gaslight from the windows behind him. But Lord Blakely stood as straight and crisp as he had at the start of the evening. Jenny was willing to wager his feet didn’t ache in the slightest. Unsurprising; if they were cut from the same stone as his features, they likely lacked nerves with which to feel pain.

“I looked for her,” Ned mumbled through a yawn. “But I couldn’t find her again. Now how do we track her down?”

Lord Blakely looked straight ahead into the gloom. “Simple. We ask for Lady Kathleen Dunning. She’s the Duke of Ware’s daughter, and it appears she’s made her come-out this year.”

“Good.” Ned yawned again. “Your way is clear. Now where’s the carriage?”

Lord Blakely clasped his gloved fingers together. “Coming ’round the corner. Right…now.”

At Ned’s startled glance, Lord Blakely sighed. “I heard it coming. I know the gait of my own cattle. And if you’d pay any attention to your surroundings, you’d know it, too. Just as you’d know your dear Madame Esmerelda nearly matched me with my own sister. Had you not called attention to the matter with your coughing and hacking, you’d have undeniable proof of her lack of skill at this moment.”

That, at least, Jenny told herself, was unfair. She’d been warned off the lady in question the instant Lord Blakely pretended interest.

“Even then,” Ned mused, “I was wondering—can you unmake sisters the same way you make them?”

A long exhalation from Lord Blakely. “Make sisters?”

“I read about it in a book of Norse mythology. Well, I read about brothers, really, and the making of a blood oath. You cut your palms until they bleed, and press them together so the blood mingles—”

“More claptrap. Must you believe everything you read? One cannot manufacture brotherhood. It arises out of biology and breeding. As you would surely know if you thought at all.”

Ned tried not to react, but Jenny could read his hurt in the turn of his shoulders away from the approaching conveyance. And when it rumbled to a stop, Ned’s fingers clenched hers in bitter shame as he handed her in. Lord Blakely arranged himself precisely on the opposite seat, unaware of the devastation he’d wrought.

Oh, yes. Jenny was going to make him pay.

She leaned forward. “Lord Blakely,” she said, “for all your rational bent, I notice you’re hard at work performing your own particular sort of alchemical magic.”

The marquess’s hand dropped slowly to his knee. “I beg your pardon? Did you accuse me of alchemy?”

“Yes, Master Paracelsus, I believe I did.”

“Explain yourself.” His words huffed out, colder than the clammy fog enveloping their carriage.

“The typical alchemist attempts to transmute lead into gold. But, being stubborn and perverse, you of course have insisted on reversing the process.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

When Jenny had said the words, she hadn’t known what she intended. But there he was, attempting to distance himself from any hint of irrationality. A plan burst into her mind, brilliant as the midday sun.

“Oh, you’ll figure it out,” she said. She grinned so hard her cheeks hurt. “I’m speaking of the second task.”

For several seconds, the only sound was the clatter of their passage over cobblestones.

“You want me to convert gold into lead?” A hint of bafflement; a touch of disappointment. “I suppose, I should be delighted you have been defeated so easily. After all, if something downright impossible is a precondition for your prediction, you admit your fortune-telling will never come to pass.”

Jenny leaned forward and patted his cheek. “Oh,” she said, “you silly naturalist. Are you always so literal-minded? I’ve watched you turn gold to lead ever since I met you.”

As she’d hoped, he growled deep in his throat in response. The vibration rumbled through the hand she had rested on his cheek. It served him right; he subjected everyone around him to his constant arrogance. It was her turn to give him a taste of his own condescension, and see how well he liked it.

“I do hope you’re planning to give more explanation than that. Those of us who are dangerously literal require something less ambiguous than an occult mumble.”

“I’ve watched your interactions with your cousin all this time. Anyone can see Ned has a heart of pure gold.”

Ned made an embarrassed motion with his hands—adolescent language Jenny deciphered as “I would rather be stabbed to death with a toasting-fork than receive an honest compliment.”

“Given your constant criticism and bullying, I can only conclude that through some arcane alchemical process, you are intent on transforming your cousin into some baser metal.”

“A diverting analogy, Madame Esmerelda.” There was no amusement in Lord Blakely’s harsh voice. “I assume you are getting to the part where you explain the task?”

“Change lead back into gold,” Jenny said. “Simple, is it not?”

He tapped his lips, working through the implications. “You want me to find something good to say about Ned here?” His dubious tone implied the task she’d set was as imp

ossible as alchemy.

That, above all, was why she’d assigned it. She’d learned early on that telling her clients what they wanted to hear produced more income. But when she said those nice things, she’d begun to believe them herself. The act of searching for good engaged her sympathies. If the same happened with this arrogant man, it would be a fine start on his payments.

Thinking of his debt sparked a second gleeful, wicked impulse inside Jenny. Humiliation, too. “Oh, the process should be more open than that, don’t you think? The spirits demand that you sing his praises in public.”

“Announce it? Well.” He appeared to consider this. “I suppose I could manage a public compliment or two.”

“My comments about transmutation were metaphorical. But when I told you to sing his praises, I meant that. Literally.”

The stony silence was broken only by the muted clop of the horses’ hooves. Even that sound seemed dampened, as if the animals knew better than to interrupt their master’s fury.

Lord Blakely drew himself up, a frightening tower on the opposite seat of the carriage. “You want me to sing? In public?”

“An ode of your own composition, if you please.” She smiled at him.

No answer. He sat in baffled outrage. A streetlamp they passed sent a rectangle of light over his hands, where they quivered on his knees. The horses clacked on, a serene counterpoint to the tension building in the close quarters.

“You’re trying to humiliate me.”

Absolutely. Among other things.

“It won’t work,” he told her. “Better men than you have tried and failed.”

Jenny shook her head. This was an even better idea than the elephant. The horses drew up as they reached Jenny’s home. As the footman opened the carriage door, Jenny delivered her deathblow.

“Oh, and, Lord Blakely?”

No acknowledgment. Not even a twitch of an eyelash in her direction.

Jenny grinned and wagged a finger. “You are required to mean every word.”

CHAPTER SIX

GARETH STARED GLUMLY at the two sheets of paper laid in front of him. His desk was laden with hundreds of other papers, all demanding his attention. Both Lord Blakely’s work for the estate and his personal scientific correspondence weighed heavily on his shoulders. But his mind was blank. Depressingly blank, like the sheets in front of him.