Page 8 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

Chloe shook her dark head in sympathy. “She’ll probably never venture from her room again. If I were in her place, I would console myself by roaming the Continent, and taking handsome lovers to heal my heart.”

Grayson gave his beautiful blue-eyed sister a reproachful look. “Let us hope that the young lady does not take her revenge to such an absurd degree.”

“I mean it, Gray,” she said, her voice passionate. “What happened to her today is too horrible to bear by half. I had a friend at school who threw herself into the Thames over a man who left her at the altar. A woman does not ever recover from that deep a betrayal. It has to leave a very painful wound.”

In his mind’s eye Grayson saw a graceful back, delicate hands hidden in pearl-buttoned gloves, and a face mysteriously half revealed in the shadowy folds of a wedding veil. A composed face of classical features, a refined nose and full tempting mouth. Dark green eyes thankfully not overflowing with dramatic tears, but gazing up at him with an acceptance that almost challenged him to atone for a wrong he had never even committed.

His heavy eyebrows drew into a frown. “The lady did not strike me as the type to do anything quite so desperate as to take her own life.” Especially over a nitwit like Nigel, he added silently.

“But it is the death of her in polite society,” Chloe insisted, with a shrug of her bare shoulders. “You must do something to make this right, being the head of the family. If you don’t, Jane will never be able to show her face in public again.”

Grayson thought of the enticing honey-haired maiden sitting alone in stoic misery for the rest of her life. What a deplorable waste of womanhood. “I intend to do something.” But what he could not say. God forbid that his interference should make the matter worse. He wasn’t particularly known for his eagerness to do good deeds. Yet Grayson had always felt a curious compulsion to defend the downtrodden, presumably out of guilt over his own undeserved good fortune.

He glanced up. “Heath?”

“I’ll be gone in an hour.”

“Thrash the bachelor out of him, but leave no visible marks.”

“Why not?”

Grayson smiled grimly. “I do not want him to look disreputable when he is dragged back to the altar.”

Chapter 3

Forty-five minutes later Grayson rode through the ornamental gates of the Earl of Belshire’s Grosvenor Square home. As his horse was stabled, he noticed that the drapes at the bow windows of the house had been tightly drawn. A morose-looking footman escorted him into one of five formal reception rooms. His own personal visit to Nigel’s town house had yielded no helpful clues as to his disappearance.

He stood for several minutes and watched the servants tiptoeing past the door in painstaking silence. Indeed, a pall of profound gloom enshrouded the mansion as if a family member had died unexpectedly. He wondered how the rather impulsive notion that had brought him here would be received. How the jilted bride would feel about his offer to act as her temporary protector, a social proxy for his stupid cousin. With any luck Nigel would appear before Grayson’s scheme could be launched. He had no idea how he would go about implementing it, of course. But someone would have to shield her and her family from the inevitable scandal.

As the highest-ranking member of his own family, he supposed that dubious honor had fallen to him. After all, he had the power and popularity to help, and it provided a bit of novelty, being the white knight for a change.

The true surprise of the day was that it had not been he who had caused a scandal.

His motives were not entirely unselfish. For one thing, he hoped to avoid having the family name dragged into a lawsuit. For another, he intended to put an end to the self-destructive behavior to which he and his siblings seemed so naturally drawn.

Lord and Lady Belshire seemed somewhat bewildered by his appearance in their drawing room. Lady Belshire had in fact just finished half a bottle of sherry; the earl’s graying black hair stood in disarrayed tufts, his neckcloth askew, but other than that he managed to present his usual distinguished self to this unexpected caller.

“Sedgecroft. Have a drink. Have you found the blackguard?”

“Not yet.” Grayson glanced over his shoulder at the two comely young ladies who sat on the sofa pretending to work on their embroidery. The chilly frowns they sent him between stitches could have turned his entire body to stone. As if he by familial association was responsible for their sister’s abandonment.

“Heath is gone on that quest and will be discreet,” he added. “If Nigel is alive, he shall be brought back to perform his duty.”

Lady Belshire hiccoughed behind her hand. “I confess I rather hope he’s found dead. At least it would be an acceptable excuse for what he did to my daughter today.”

“Rake,” murmured one of the two daughters on the sofa.

“Rogue,” added her sister in a crisp undertone.

Grayson examined them from the corner of his eye. He had the distinct impression they were not referring exclusively to Nigel, although, for God’s sake, one could accuse his cousin of many faults, stupidity being foremost. But Nigel had never been known for his womanizing skills.

Which made it all the more disturbing that the nodcock had left a beauty like Lady Jane at the altar. But then perhaps her elegant dignity had frightened off the fool. Perhaps, for all Grayson knew, Nigel had run off with a man. Stranger things had happened. Take him, for example, trying to repair a wrong he hadn’t done.

He frowned, glancing back to the earl who had collapsed in an armchair, a fat spaniel positioned on his lap. “I would like to speak to your daughter, Belshire. In private, if you please. Someone has to make amends in the Boscastle name.”

Grayson had no intention of asking Belshire’s permission for what else he had in mind until he presented his plan to the jilted bride. If Jane objected, well, at least he could say he had tried. There was no point in taking his scheme to her parents. Neither Athena nor Howard looked capable of decision making at the moment, emotionally crushed by the day’s unprecedented disaster.

The two young women on the sofa rose in a surge of sisterly support. Grayson studied them. One possessed mahogany-gold hair, the other was a fetching brunette. Good looks certainly seemed to run in the females of this family.