Then Comes Seduction

“You still hate me,” he said softly.

His voice sounded abject-suspiciously so. There was also surely the suggestion of humor in it. She amused him.

“Are you surprised?” She raised her eyes to his again.

“Not at all,” he said. “You informed me on a certain infamous occasion that I had disappointed you. How can one not hate the person who disappoints one in such a way?”

He was definitely laughing at her. But her effort to think of some suitably cutting retort was thwarted when he twirled her about one corner of the ballroom, using fancy footwork that somehow persuaded her own feet to match it. She laughed with delight before she remembered that she was not delighted at all.

“I could teach you not to hate me, you know,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Would that not be doing you a favor?” he asked.

“On the assumption,” she said, “that if I did not hate you, I would be indifferent to you and would not glare at you every time we met? That would be convenient to you, no doubt.”

“Indifferent to me?” He drew her to a halt for one of the brief pauses between waltz tunes but did not release his hold on her. “Miss Huxtable, I doubt even I have the power to make you indifferent to me.”

Her stomach was performing a somersault again. She could not seem to look away from those lazy eyes.

“I suppose not,” she said with a sigh. “Dislike is not indifference, is it?”

He smiled openly and chuckled aloud.

“I could teach you not to hate me or dislike me,” he said, speaking very low since the music had not yet started again. His eyes dipped to her mouth. “I could teach you to love me if I chose, Miss Huxtable.”

She was startled almost speechless.

“Ha!” was all she could manage to say. It was half exclamation, half question.

“Was that agreement?” The music had begun again, a somewhat faster tune this time. He twirled her several times before she could answer. “You admit, then, that I could do it?”

“Never in a million years,” she said when she could command her voice. It shook with indignation. “Never in a billion years.”

“Would it take a billion and one, then?” he asked her. “How very tedious! And how very firm-minded of you. But I believe you underestimate me, Miss Huxtable.”

“And you underestimate me!” she retorted so vehemently that the couple dancing by them both turned their heads to look. “You are about as likely to persuade me to love you, Lord Montford, as I am to persuade you to love me.”

He did not answer. Which was horrible, really, as her words seemed to hang between them and follow them about the dance floor as they waltzed in silence to an exhilarating rhythm, and the growing heat between them made her more and more aware of him physically and more and more uncomfortable.

She quite understood why the waltz was considered fast among a large segment of society. Fast as in not quite proper, that was. It was quite the most improper dance ever invented. It was… it was nothing short of lascivious.

Their hands, clasped together, had turned hot and damp.

The faster tune did not last long. Soon, almost without a pause, the orchestra began playing something far slower and more… romantic.

Still they danced without speaking-until eventually he broke the silence between them.

“It does seem like an impossibility when phrased that way,” he said just as if five minutes or so had not elapsed between her words and his answer. “I have never been in love, Miss Huxtable, and I never expect to be. Lust is far more amusing and satisfying. My falling in love is an absolute impossibility, I am afraid.”

“As it is for me,” she retorted hotly. “An utter, complete impossibility.”

“It is so mutually impossible, in fact,” he said, “that it sounds quite perfect for a wager, does it not?”

“A wager?” She looked at him with a frown.

“Oh, I know,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “A refined lady does not lay bets. And anyone who wagers against me, male or female, inevitably regrets it anyway. I never lose, you see.”

“Except once,” she said tartly.

He raised his right eyebrow. It half disappeared beneath that errant lock of hair.

“Except once,” he agreed. “How obliging of you to remind me, Miss Huxtable. Though we both know, do we not, that I forfeited rather than lost that particular one.”

“What wager exactly are we talking about now?” she asked him after a short pause.

Was it her imagination, or were they dancing somewhat closer together than they had been a little while ago? She tried to edge backward, but his hand was as firm as a wall against her waist.

“A sort of double wager, I suppose it would have to be,” he said. “An interesting prospect. That I can make you fall in love with me for my part, that you can make me fall in love with you on yours.”

“Ha!” she said again. “There is no way on this earth that you would win your part of the wager even if you were given a thousand years. Or a billion.”

“And no way in this universe that you would win yours,” he said pleasantly. “It is a wager made in heaven, Miss Huxtable, I do assure you. The only wagers worth taking on are the ones impossible to win, you see. All others offer no worthy challenge at all.”

“As I did not in Vauxhall?” she said, and could have bitten out her tongue.

His eyes grew very lazy indeed, though a smile lingered in them.

“I told a shocking fib on that occasion,” he said. “That was not the reason I stopped, Miss Huxtable, and ignominiously lost my wager.”

“Oh?” she said. “What was?”

“Perhaps,” he said, and his eyes mocked her again, “I was afraid I might fall in love with you.”

“Ha,” she said for the third time though it was a word-or a syllable-not normally in her vocabulary. Her stomach was into its tumbling act again.

“I could not take the risk, you see,” he said, and gri

“What nonsense you speak,” she said crossly. “You just claimed never to have been in love and to be quite incapable of loving.”

“Perhaps,” he said, moving his head a little closer to hers as they turned about a corner of the room again and for a fleeting moment Katherine saw Margaret smiling up at the Marquess of Allingham, “I have been in danger once in my life, Miss Huxtable, just as I have lost a wager once. Perhaps you found a chink in my armor that evening and can now find a way through it to my heart.”

She stared at him.

“If I have one,” he added. “I must warn you that I do not believe I have. But you may find yourself challenged by such a disclaimer.”

“Nonsense!” she said again.

“You will not know,” he said, “unless you try.”

“But why would I want to?” she asked him. “What does it matter to me whether you have a heart or not? Or whether you are capable of love or not? Why would I wish to win such a ridiculous wager? Why would I want you in love with me?”

“Because,” he said, “by the time you admit that you do want such a thing, Miss Huxtable, you will be in love with me. It will be of the utmost importance to you to know that your love is not unrequited.”

He had the most wickedly sinful eyes. They could smile even when no other part of his face was doing so. They could even laugh. They could mock. And they could penetrate all her defenses until she would swear they could see into her mind and even deeper than that.

“If we both succeed,” he said, “we can then proceed to live happily ever after. Reformed rakes are said to be the most constant of husbands, you know. And the most skilled and excellent lovers.”

“Oooh!” She drew back her head and glared indignantly at him. “You are trying to seduce me even now.”

He winced theatrically.

“I would really rather you did not use that particular word, Miss Huxtable,” he said. “I tried it with you once, and you vanquished me.”