A Dangerous Seduction

“Very well. You can lead me back down.” He paused for another frowning moment, then asked abruptly, “Have you anywhere to go?”

Lalia shook her head. “No, my lord.”

“Hayne will certainly return for you.”

Lalia dropped her gaze to the stone floor. She knew that would never happen. Looking once more into his face, she drew a deep breath. “I consider that very unlikely.”

Lord Carrick sighed. “Then we will continue this discussion tomorrow—without the danger of being incinerated by lightning.”

With every evidence of reluctance, he released her hair and ushered her toward the door of the tower room.

Having divested himself of his wet clothes, Morgan poured himself a brandy and leaned back against the headboard of the bed, pulling the quilt over his legs. He rubbed at the spot on his chest that always ached in damp weather. A fire would have been nice, but Mrs. Hayne informed him that they did not purchase wood for the bedchambers at Merdinn in the summer.

Hellfire and damnation! What had he got himself into now?

He was realizing that, if the woman truly had nowhere to go, if her husband had abandoned her, he would have a very hard time making himself send her into the streets. After all, was his desire to avenge Beth on Hayne’s woman any better than what Hayne had done to Beth? Morgan was beginning to feel a bit like a cad and a bully in his own right. Not the way he wanted to view himself. Besides—another idea had taken strong hold of his mind.

…to crush in your arms his wives and daughters.

Perhaps it was time for him to do a little crushing.

What better revenge on your enemy than to take his woman from him, to take her to your bed? No man could stand that. A cold smile lit Morgan’s eyes.

He felt himself getting hard. He had been hard off and on ever since he had grasped Eulalia Hayne’s arm on the tower. Her soaked nightclothes clinging to every inch of her body clearly revealed the curves whose presence he had hitherto only deduced. Lovely, plump curves covered in flawless, translucent skin. And all that hair. Black satin spread out beneath him, lying beneath those succulently rounded hips, covering those soft, generous breasts.

Morgan rolled the brandy over his tongue. He couldn’t wait to get his mouth on her. He must have been mad to even consider sending away such a delicious morsel.

Lord Carrick had asked her to join him for dinner in the family dining room—one of the rooms she and her grandmother usually allowed to go uncleaned. Lalia had more than enough work, and her pride, such as it was, did not prevent her eating in the kitchen with the rest of her small household. It did, however, prevent her from serving his lordship in a dirty room. She buffed the table, her hands busy while her mind worried the problem of what she should do.

Lalia pushed her hair out of her face with a wrist that smelled of beeswax. She sensed that Lord Carrick intended to give her a reprieve, that he would tell her that she need not leave immediately. But was that the best decision for her? Certainly it was the easiest.

The question of what she would do here loomed almost as large as that of what she would do if she left. Even with her grandmother as chaperone, living here with his lordship in residence would really be not at all the thing. The memory of the heat of his body and the hardness of his chest washed over her, causing her to tremble. No, indeed. Not the thing at all!

Daj, as always, counseled patience.

“Wait and see, Lalia.”

Wait and see, wait and see, always wait, wait, wait.

Apparently a small miracle had occurred. When Morgan had looked into the family dining room earlier in the day, he had resigned himself to a dinner eaten alongside the dust that had covered everything. But now the cobwebs were no more and the surface of the table reflected the fine, gleaming china and crystal his mother had not been able to take to London with her. The heir-loom silver had even been polished, glinting softly in the candlelight. Another miracle that Hayne had not sold it all. Likely he never visited the pantries. Morgan leaned back in his chair with satisfaction.

Now if his dinner companion would but appear, he would enjoy a meal at his own table. And enjoy his companion. He licked his lips. Even if she appeared in the worn work clothes that seemed to be her only garments, she would outshine most of the beauties in London. He looked at his watch. Any moment now.

As Morgan slipped his watch back into the pocket of his dark evening coat, the lady stepped through the door. Or at least, he thought it was the same lady. Surely the third miracle of the day had come to pass.

Eulalia Hayne glided through the door in a gown of some shimmering fabric that clung to her curves like the hands of a lover. The seafoam green silk, a little lighter than her limpid eyes, caressed her breasts, swooping low across them. A rope of pearls dipped into the valley between. Her masses of shining, inky-black hair, freed from the braid, were piled in loops and swirls high on her head. The arrangement appeared to defy gravity, allowing only soft wisps to escape around her face.

For a moment Morgan could only stare. Surely if he looked hard enough he would be able to see through that gown to the luscious skin beneath it. Surely if she moved, that bodice would slide down, revealing her rosy nipples. Surely… Suddenly he bethought himself of his manners and came hastily to his feet.

“Good evening, Lord Carrick. I trust I haven’t kept you waiting.”

“Uh, um…not at all.” Morgan pulled out her chair and leaned over her shoulder hungrily as she seated herself. That neckline was bound to move, if he just kept his eye on it. “I have just arrived.” The bodice stayed stubbornly in place and he moved regretfully to the sideboard. “May I pour you some wine?” She nodded, and Morgan gave thanks to his father’s ghost for hiding away his best collection of wine in the deepest, darkest cellar.

Sitting down again, he gave a thought to the wondrous dress. Perhaps Mrs. Hayne enjoyed more affluence than he had yet observed. He tried to feel anger at some possible deception on her part, but it failed to materialize. Even he could see that the garment was years from being the height of fashion. But curiosity pricked. “Your gown is lovely. Did you purchase it in London?”

Mrs. Hayne sipped her wine and shook her head. “I have never been to London.”

“Never?” Everyone had been to London.

She smiled. “I have led a rather secluded life.”

Apparently so. Everyone had been to London. “Did you live in Cornwall before your marriage?”

“Yes, my father was Sir Richmond Poleven. He owned an estate not far from here. My half brother, Roger, now lives there.” After a moment with a curious lack of expression she added, “It was he who arranged for my marriage.”

So she was Poleven’s sister. That explained some things. He knew Roger Poleven to be a crony of Hayne’s. He surpassed Hayne in character by a small margin, but Morgan did not think very highly of him. “I would think he could have done better for you than Cordell Hayne.”

Mrs. Hayne looked down into her glass, then back at him with eyes that had turned gray but steady. “It is not easy to find a match for a dowerless, half-Gypsy sister. I believe Roger brought it about by forgiving a debt.”

Startled, Morgan exclaimed, “Gypsy? Your mother was a Gypsy?” It was almost unheard of for a nobleman to marry anyone not of the gentry, let alone a person considered an outcast by even the lowest peasant. Perhaps Sir Richmond had an aversion to leaving a bastard behind. But to know she had been foisted onto a scoundrel through coercion… What a blow to her pride.

If the lady felt any chagrin, he did not see it on her face. “Yes, my father married her a long while after Roger’s mother died. Mine died giving me birth.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. As I never knew her, I have not felt the loss, especially as her mother has taken care of me ever since.”

“So your grandmother is a Gypsy.”

She smiled. “Oh, yes. She has never given up her Romani ways. Roma is the name they call themselves,” she explained. “When a woman marries a gadjo, a man who is not Roma, she becomes marimé, and no longer Gypsy. Since my father would not give me up when my mother died, my grandmother also left her tribe rather than abandon me to a strange household—but she is still Roma to the core.”

The door opened and James came in with a tray bearing two plates of a savory stew with a hearty pancake-like bread useful for scooping. Morgan drew in the aroma appreciatively. “Is this a Romani dish?”

“Yes, I hope you don’t mind. Romani food is all my grandmother or I know how to cook. We were never in the kitchen at my father’s home.” Mrs. Hayne appeared to study her dinner, speaking with a bit of hesitation. “Is your own chef coming soon?”

“In a few days. My man of business is assembling a full staff.”

“I see.” She kept her gaze on her plate. “We shall try to be away by then.”

Morgan pushed away from the table and poured himself another glass of wine, his brows creased thoughtfully. Without asking, he refilled her half-empty glass. “You seem to be certain that Hayne will not return for you.”

She took a tiny sip of the wine. “I think that it is highly unlikely, my lord. If, as you say, he is ruined, he will not want an additional burden. And…he has never sought my company.”

Never sought her company? The man must be blind as well as a blackguard. “Will you go to your brother?”

She appeared to consider for a moment, then shook her head. “My half brother. I doubt that will be possible. I have not seen Roger in years.”

So Poleven did not want an embarrassing Gypsy relative in residence. It fit with Morgan’s assessment of his nature. And with his own plans. He hesitated a moment before asking the next, potentially humiliating, question, and then decided to ask it anyway. “Have you any money?”