Treacherous Temptations(23)

Her hands froze. She looked up in protest. “My dear, you do expect a miracle! She still has no polite conversation, no accomplishments worth mentioning, and the dancing master threw up his hands in despair.”

He looked down at her, his porcine gaze narrowed to a slit. “And your stepson has returned to England at a suspiciously propitious time.”

Barbara’s gaze widened in surprise. “Hadley is in England? I had no idea.”

“Did you send for him?” he demanded.

“Whatever can you mean?” Abandoning her efforts to rouse him, she rose to her feet in an affronted swish of silk.

“Don’t play innocent, for I have already seen him. Indeed, I have every reason to believe you harbor him under this roof, in the very house that I generously let to you.”

“So you’ve set your damned spies on me?” Barbara hissed. She snatched up her fan and waved it furiously about her face.

“I simply do what I must to protect my interests.” He tucked himself back into his breeches with a scowl. “Did you intend to insinuate him into my ward’s good graces, Barbara? Did you hope that Hadley would secure her fortune? I advise you to forget whatever plot you two have connived together, for it is only within my power to grant consent for Mary Elizabeth’s marriage.”

“You cut me to the quick, Sir Richard. For these seven years, have I not done all you have asked of me and more?”

“I think your actions have always suited your own agenda, madam.”

“I simply do what I must to protect my interests,” she echoed back at him.

“And in so doing, you have betrayed my trust. Therefore, we are no longer on your timetable, but on mine. The girl will be presented and all will be carried out as I alone see fit. I have secured a box at the opera the evening after next. It is the premier of Handel’s Riccardo Primo, composed in honor of our new king. Everyone who’s anyone will be there. You will bring the girl.”

“To the Royal opera! Don’t you think she should begin with something a bit less…conspicuous?”

“When I wish to marry her off? Little sense that makes. Let the world look upon her all at once I say. Dress her in silks. Paint and powder her. You, above all, know how to employ these feminine artifices. Do what you must, but you will make her ready.”

“Of course, darling” Barbara agreed, hiding her pique while her mind worked furiously to adjust to these new and disconcerting circumstances. “What precisely do you intend after that?”

“Why to negotiate her marriage of course.”

…

Hadley knew he had left Mary in a turmoil of confusion and sexual frustration. It was an act of cruelty for which he felt a twinge of remorse, for he had awakened her desire only to withdraw. Still, a Royal Garden in the light of day was hardly the place to fornicate. Moreover, leaving her wanting would only further his designs.

Vengeance by seduction. Hadley smiled. It certainly suited his talents. Sir Richard intended to use her to achieve his own ends, and by thwarting him, Hadley could recover his lost patrimony and achieve retribution.

Poor Mary would be aching in her bed tonight…as would he. That surprised him the most, actually. Sweet, innocent Mary had inspired his lust with a ferocity. While Hadley knew he would bed her, in abstract, the prospect of deflowering a wilting wallflower had seemed somewhat of a chore. But as their afternoon together had unfurled, so had Mary’s passion, and now the idea of initiating her to carnal delights, of nurturing her to full bloom, intrigued him excessively.

With these thoughts churning in his head, Hadley passed by the drawing room only to be arrested by the sound of Sir Richard’s voice.

“Once she is seen decently turned-out, I will make known the amount of her fortune. Thenceforth, it should be easy to secure a suitable match—something I intend to see to posthaste.”

He stopped in his tracks. Bloody hell! He’d thought he would have weeks to win Mary over. Today he had made a successful inroad, but he would be hard-pressed to achieve her complete confidence in such short shrift. This curtailed timetable was highly alarming. Nevertheless, he supposed it was far from hopeless. He had spent five years adapting to unexpected situations. How difficult could this one be?

He turned away, but within three paces, the devil came to the fore. With no other purpose than the unadulterated pleasure of vexing Sir Richard, he flung open the door and strolled into the drawing room as if he still owned it. “Ah, Sir Richard! How fortuitous that we meet!” he pronounced with mock surprise.

Sir Richard’s livid gaze flew to Barbara. “You have been harboring your stepson! I knew you for a lying slut!”

“Take care how you address me!” Barbara hissed and looked to Hadley expectantly.

Although he knew it ungentlemanly, Hadley could not quite move himself to come to her defense.

“Or what, madam?” Sir Richard taunted. “Will you throw me out of the house? Must I remind you that the deed is mine?”

“Only for the nonce,” Hadley murmured under his breath.

Sir Richard speared Hadley with an evil look. “What the devil are you doing here anyway?”

“Surely I am not prohibited from calling upon my dear step-mama,” Hadley drawled and then sprawled himself in an overstuffed chair and withdrew his snuffbox.

“Not when you should be packing your bags for Italy,” Sir Richard snapped.