Seducing Miss Lockwood

‘Sorry about the weather, miss, but don’t worry. We’ll soon be at Lansdowne House.’

‘I do hope so, Mr Carter. I really do, otherwise I dread to think what I shall look like when I get there. I only hope we arrive before dark.’

Gratefully she took the proffered rug and draped it about her shoulders, hunching her back against the downpour. Disregarding the water trapped in the folds of her sodden collar, she did her best to ignore the discomforts of the weather, concentrating wholly upon the route they were following.

When at last she caught sight of some tall, wrought-iron gates ahead, she breathed a sigh of relief. Passing through them, they followed a curved drive. The house at the end of it looked enormous, very impressive and very grand, which was what one would expect a duke’s house to be. It was three-storeyed, with leaded windows and a white marble portico in front.

Mr Carter halted at the entrance and climbed down, going to assist his passenger. The hem of Juliet’s cloak became caught on a nail on the side of the trap. Pulling at it in exasperation, she uttered a cry of dismay when she heard it rip. Knowing there was nothing to be done, with a resigned sigh she followed Mr Carter to the door.

‘Thank you, Mr Carter,’ she said as he set her trunk down. ‘You’d best be getting back. It will soon be dark and you still have a way to go before you reach your home. I’ll be all right now.’

She watched him go before turning her attention to the door. She had been anticipating this moment for days, and now it was here she was strangely reluctant to enter. With butterflies in her stomach—a mixture of nerves and excitement—she lifted the highly polished brass knocker shaped in a lion’s paw. Letting it fall loudly, she waited.

There was no sound from within, which she thought strange for a house as grand as this. After letting the knocker fall again and still getting no response, she turned the knob and pushed. It opened soundlessly. Sternly quelling a tremor of apprehension and stepping inside the house, she looked around. There wasn’t a servant in sight.

It was a magnificent house, she thought as she moved into the centre of the spacious and elegant hall—a palace, that made her feel even smaller and more insignificant than she already felt, as she dripped water all over the floor. Straight ahead was a sweeping central staircase, the handrails highly polished and glinting in the diffused light of the chandelier. The walls were hung with paintings: men in military uniform, family portraits, scenes of days gone by. Seeing a door slightly ajar, with her heart pounding a nervous tattoo within her chest, she went towards it and opened it further, realising her mistake when it was too late.

All but one pair of eyes moved as one, as if in slow motion, to look at her. It was like a bizarre tableau. The man at the head of a table littered with nutshells and orange peel and glasses and bottles, the air thick with tobacco smoke, was the last to turn his head and look at her, his face a picture of irritated bewilderment. What he saw was the bedraggled figure of a woman in a sodden cloak with its torn hem trailing on the floor. Wet strands of hair clung to her face and a small feather in her bonnet drooped pathetically.

Dominic Lansdowne, the seventh Duke of Hawksfield, knew all the servants in his house, if not by name then by sight, and he didn’t know the woman in the doorway. If she was looking for the domestic quarters, then she had lost her way.

‘Oh—please excuse me. I’m sorry to intrude upon you like this. I really didn’t mean to. I—appear to be lost.’

Her appearance caused a stir of lewd and bawdy comments from five young men at the table, who, because of a good day shooting birds on the Duke’s estate, were already in their cups. Not so the man seated at the head of the table, who gave his guests a look of bored nonchalance and the supreme indifference of the true aristocrat.

His authority was obvious, a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Juliet felt a prickling of unease. It wasn’t just his fine clothes and bearing that marked him out. Even from a distance she could feel the force of his personality and charisma.

Rising from his chair, he sauntered indolently towards her.

He was tall and lean of waist and hip and of powerful build, with broad shoulders, the body of a soldier, an adventurer rather than an aesthete. His hair was thick and shining black, curling vigorously in the nape of his neck. He was clean shaven and amber skinned, and dark clipped eyebrows sat above silver-grey eyes with pupils as black as coal.

He was an attractive man, his face strong, his mouth stubborn and his chin arrogant. But there was a hint of humour in the curl of his lips, which told Juliet he took pleasure from life. He had removed his jacket and his silk waistcoat was unbuttoned, his shirt thrown open at the neck. Towering over her, he said, ‘And you are?’

‘Miss Lockwood.’ She was very pale and her expression seemed strained, but her candid dark eyes met the Duke’s with almost innocent steadfastness. His eyes held hers entrapped, and hidden in them was amusement, watchful, penetrating and mocking, as though he held the world an amusing place to be. ‘I—am sorry to arrive unannounced, but there was no one on the door to let me in.’

Dominic uttered a sound of annoyance and stepped briskly round her. Peering into the hall, he shouted for someone called Pearce.

‘I was not expecting you until tomorrow, Miss Lockwood.’

‘Yes, I know, but I arrived in Brentwood early and didn’t think you would mind if I came here straight away,’ she explained, the truth being that the accommodation in Brentwood was expensive and she had wanted to conserve her limited capital.

‘And you have come directly from London—from Sir John Moore?’

‘Yes, your Grace.’ Juliet felt uncharacteristically daunted. She had been her own mistress for so long she was used to being in command, but there was something rather disconcerting about this man’s self-assurance.

‘And Sir John is well?’

‘Yes, perfectly.’

When a loud guffaw rose from the table, irritated, Dominic looked at his friends. ‘I must apologise, Miss Lockwood,’ he said on a dry note. ‘It’s the shooting season, you see, and it’s been a long day for all concerned.’

‘And a damned enjoyable one, too,’ one of the gentlemen piped up, taking a long swallow of his brandy.

Juliet couldn’t see what being a long day had to do with anything, but didn’t dare say so. Her gaze was drawn to the people seated at the table. Endowed from birth with financial provision made them the superior beings they so obviously thought themselves to be. They possessed also the glorious belief that they were unique in the world. They were all lounging lazily in their chairs with a bored languor, having become quiet and eyeing her rudely, as if sensing something about her which promised to be entertaining. Their neck linen had either been removed or unfastened, and their clothes and hair were in disarray.

She was disconcerted at being subjected for the first time in her life to a situation like this, to being visually harassed by such poor specimens of men as these, and she felt a surge of resentment that they were having fun at her expense. Certainly she was not used to people like this. She had been at the Academy with girls who had rich and influential parents, but that’s where it ended.

One gentleman, Thomas Howard, drew deeply on his cigar, the smoke wreathing about his head, and another had an attractive-looking fair-haired young woman seated close beside him. Lifting his quizzing glass to his eye, he trained it upon Juliet and boldly inspected her.

‘Good Lord! Who is this unkempt creature, Dominic? Lost her way, has she? Doesn’t she know to use the back door?’

‘Shut up, Sedgwick,’ Dominic said. ‘You’re being outrageous, exceedingly rude and embarrassing Miss Lockwood.’

‘But servants never enter a gentleman’s house by the front door,’ the woman commented, her voice sounding like a purr, ‘unless, of course, she’s new to service and doesn’t know any better.’

Juliet’s eyes narrowed and anger stirred inside her. ‘I am Lord Lansdowne’s employee, not his servant,’ she was quick to retort.

The woman looked at Juliet with a malicious twist to her lips and an uninterested shrug of her shapely shoulders. ‘What’s the difference? If he pays your wages, you are the hired help.’

‘Enough, Geraldine,’ Dominic chided, his smile softening the reproach. ‘Please remember your manners.’

Juliet was beginning to doubt that this Geraldine had any. The woman was sumptuously attired in a deep pink silk gown with an overskirt of pink net lace sewn liberally with tiny pink beads that twinkled in the light. The bodice was so low as to prove an almost inadequate restraint to the swelling ripeness of her breasts. Her hair was auburn and adorned with diamond pins. Around her throat she wore a gold necklace inset with blood-red rubies. The stone cast a rosy light upon her white flesh and Juliet felt a total inadequacy stir within her.

Sedgwick smiled, his smooth face easily accommodating the ingratiating expression. ‘Then let your—employee come and join us? It could be fun.’ His voice was low and laced with mockery. His fingers rhythmically stroked the stem of his glass and his knowing eyes bore into her.

The beautiful woman laughed softly, provocatively. ‘Don’t be lewd, my darling. Can’t you see the poor girl is positively terrified? Better she should be directed to the kitchen.’

Dominic saw the horror and shock that flashed across Miss Lockwood’s face. ‘Pay no attention to Sedgwick. He’s not normally rude, but his manners are somewhat lacking at present.’

He was amazed at his own concern, for what did he care about a woman he had never met? Perhaps it was because of her wretched appearance, or because she was to undertake a project that was important to him and he didn’t want her bolting for the door before she had taken up her post. Whatever it was, it annoyed him slightly, since he didn’t really have the patience to be fretting himself over a woman he did not know.

Sedgwick reached out and trailed his skilled fingers down the soft nape of Geraldine’s neck. She sighed and arched with pleasure, like a cat, Juliet thought.

‘Ah, Charles, you know what I like.’

He chuckled low and leaned over to trail his lips where his fingers had been before.

Juliet watched, unable to tear her eyes away. Never had she seen anything so blatant, so decadent, so—so disgraceful. She felt she was about to collapse, not because her sensibilities had been shocked, but from a swift rush of anger such as she had never before experienced in her life.

Now she was being possessed of another strange emotion. She had never hated anything or anyone, but at this moment she became so afraid of the intensity of the feeling that was causing her heart to beat violently, that she dropped her gaze from the rude woman and down at her tightly clasped gloved hands that were gripping each other so that her knuckles stood out through the material.

She had ceased to see what was in front of her, for her gaze had turned inwards and she was seeing herself as she must look to this roomful of fashionable people—dull, soaked, her soiled boots and ripped cloak with its muddy hem giving her the appearance of a vagrant.

Witnessing the birth of a new creature, someone born out of frightening emotions, all she wanted to do was strike the mocking smile from the woman’s lips, to rush towards her and topple her from her chair on to the floor. All eyes were watching her.

Thankfully at that moment the butler appeared. For once Pearce, usually the picture of dignified calm, looked somewhat flustered as he fumbled to do up the buttons on his waistcoat, which he had unfastened when he had gone to sit in a comfortable position with Mrs Reed, the cook of many years, in front of the kitchen stove, hoping for an hour or two’s respite while the young gentlemen seemed intent on getting more inebriated than they already were, which was certainly nothing new when they had spent the day shooting at birds or galloping after the fox during the hunting season.

‘There was no one on duty at the door, Pearce,’ Dominic said sharply but without reproach. ‘Miss Lockwood had to let herself in.’