Page 31 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

“Perhaps because I don’t care,” he said with conviction.

“Well, then, neither shall I.”

He stopped, studying her with a faint knowing smile. “Of course you care. All women do.”

“Only those who are husband hunting,” she said with a sigh.

“Which we might be.”

“No, we’re—” She bit the tip of her tongue, remembering how she must appear. “I am not ready to be put back on the market.” Not now, and probably not ever again, she felt like adding.

“Remount, Jane,” he said with an unmerciful smile. “One fall from the horse does not spinsterhood make.”

She could have pinched him, reducing the complications of her life to such simple terms. “I wish you would stop equating my situation to equestrienne activity.”

He gave her an apologetic look. “I keep forgetting how sensitive you are on the subject.”

“Sedgecroft!” A woman’s cry of delight interrupted Jane’s response, not that she knew how to respond to his remark without lying through her teeth.

She and Grayson turned simultaneously to see a petite figure in brown silk bearing down on them, a flute of champagne held gracefully in hand. Jane stared. Surely that was not Mrs. Audrey Watson, the popular courtesan and former actress whose intellectual buffet suppers had made her a celebrity in the demimonde and the ton. Rumor had it that the Duke of Wenderfield desired her for his mistress.

“Audrey,” Grayson said warmly, a little too warmly in Jane’s opinion as the pair exchanged a brief embrace.

“Sedgecroft, it’s been centuries since—” Audrey caught herself and gave Jane such a genuinely friendly smile that she could not help softening toward her.

“Belshire’s beautiful daughter, the eldest, isn’t it?” Audrey asked in puzzlement. “What is she doing with the likes of you, Sedgecroft?”

Grayson gave Jane a long burning look that brought a blush to the ends of her hair. If she hadn’t known better, she would have believed he was truly infatuated with her—oh, he excelled at this, the devil. She felt as if she ought to applaud his performance.

He drew Jane forward. “Have you ever had the honor of an introduction, Audrey?”

“No.” Audrey studied the younger woman in concern; there was no pretense about her, no striving to impress. Her earthiness had earned her loyal supporters from politicians to struggling poets; her bluntness often offended. “But, my dear lady, aren’t you brave to be out so soon, after yesterday? And you, Sedgecroft, you did not waste a single second before going on the pounce, did you?”

Going on the pounce? Jane thought in amused indignation. What a way to phrase it, reducing her relationship with Sedgecroft to predator and prey.

“Actually,” she said when it became obvious that the aforementioned scoundrel was not about to set Audrey straight, “Lord Sedgecroft is only—”

“A man bewitched,” he said under his breath, as polite and self-possessed as the next accomplished predator. Oooh. The talented wretch, making her tingle all over with his outrageous performance when she knew perfectly well not to believe him.

Jane gave him a poke in the back. “To be honest, our association is not all that provocative. Nigel and Grayson are—”

“Rivals.” He grasped her hand, squeezing the small bones of her knuckles until she glared at him. “One man’s loss is another’s gain, isn’t it? Let us just say that I have quietly admired Jane from afar. I was not about to let anyone else take advantage.”

Audrey took a deep sip of her champagne, glancing from the classically beautiful young lady to the sinfully handsome scoundrel who, she noted, was holding Jane’s slender hand in a painfully possessive grip. “Whatever you say, Sedgecroft, but”—she brightened—“this means I can invite you to a supper together.”

“That would be very nice, I’m sure,” he replied, while Jane wondered what her parents would think of this development. Surely even her broad-minded mother would disapprove of her daughter drifting into the demimonde. Or perhaps not. This plan had taken the most unpredictable turn. Jane was beginning to think she had jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.

And Sedgecroft definitely stoked the red-hot flames of hellfire in her soul.

“I think I see an old friend of mine at the table,” she said, attempting to disengage her hand from his. “Would you both excuse me for a moment?”

Grayson brought her hand to his mouth to kiss her gloved fingertips, murmuring in a lovelorn voice, “Only for the shortest moment?”

It was an act. She knew it in her intellect, but all her female senses responded to the seductive timbre of his voice. “Yes,” she said, flustered by the realization that he was perfectly aware of the disconcerting effect he had on her. “But I’m only going over to the tables.”

He drew her forward by her fingertips, her knees touching his. A sinful flutter stirred deep in her belly. What did he think he was doing?

“Hurry back,” he said, his eyes holding hers.