Then Comes Seduction

He gazed at her, speechless for once. But he felt good humor clawing its way back into his being. Trust Katherine not simply to be tragic.

“I will wager against you,” she said. “I say it ca

Tempting. But there was a problem.

“I would have nothing to offer in return,” he said. “Not anything that would be of value to you, anyway. I am not a romantic, Katherine, and if I ever pretended to be I would simply make an ass of myself.”

“That,” she said, “is something for you to work out for yourself.”

They stared at each other for a long time. The candles began to flicker. They had almost burned themselves out.

He felt a smile nudge at his eyes and tug at his lips. He could never persuade her to love him, could he? It would be a waste of his time to try, would it?

“But one thing,” she said. “If the wager is to become a real one, then we will raise the stakes.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“No love,” she said, “no sex.”

“Forever?” he asked.

“Until after the end of the wager,” she said. “And then we will see.”

A month of celibacy? And a new bride only once tasted? That was raising the stakes sky-high.

But the smile took possession of him. Impossible, was it?

An impossible wager.

They would see about that!

He got to his feet and moved toward her, his right hand extended.

“Agreed,” he said.

And she set her hand in his and they shook on it.

“The couch in the sitting room had better be as comfortable as it looks,” he said.

“Take a pillow,” she advised.

He did so and then turned and walked out of the bedchamber.

The candles flickered one more time and died just as he was closing the door behind him.

The couch had been very comfortable to sit on. But it was too narrow and too short for a bed. He lay wedged against the back, his feet elevated over one arm, his head propped over the other.

It was not a position conducive to sleep even if the wheels of his mind had not been turning at breakneck speed-mostly with the same unwelcome thought.

He was, by God, going to have to offer something in return for her love, which he would, of course, win. And he very much feared that only one thing would do. Devil take it, but he was going to have to fall in love with her. And he might as well tell himself quite firmly now that it was impossible or he would never feel challenged enough to do it.

It was impossible.

There!

Now it would be done. He would fall in love.

Lord, how the devil could he ever have thought this couch comfortable?

… heart of my heart, soul of my soul…

He grimaced.

Devil take it! Were there bricks in this pillow?

He was going to fall in love with her.

His own private wager with himself.

Impossible?

Of course.

But doable?

Of course!

And then he had an inspired idea. He moved off the couch, lay down on the floor with the pillow beneath his head and his coat over his arms, and addressed himself to sleep.

Comfort at last.

His legs were cold.

16

“AND one more thing,” Katherine said just as if they were in the middle of a conversation, when in reality they had been traveling all afternoon in virtual silence.

He was lounging at his ease across the corner of the carriage seat beside her, one booted foot propped on the seat opposite, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed-looking indolent, but not asleep. Indeed, she suspected that he was watching her, though how he could be doing that with his eyes closed she was not sure-except that he was a man who scorned impossibilities.

He was also a man who had made no move whatsoever all day to woo her love and win his wager. She had got up this morning and steeled herself for a day of blatantly seductive wiles. Instead he had talked pointedly about the weather for a time during the morning, had remarked finally that if he could not coax a smile out of her he might as well get some sleep since he had had precious little last night, had folded his arms, and had closed his eyes.

He looked wondrously attractive, of course, all relaxed, slumberous male, though he was not sleeping. He was taking up more than half the carriage interior. She had to keep her feet and knees tight together and hold her legs rather stiff to avoid brushing his knee when the carriage swayed, as it did almost every moment.

She had ignored him. Though she could draw no real satisfaction from doing so while he pretended to sleep. She wished he would wake up so that he would know himself ignored. Of course, she had stopped herself from laughing over some of his more absurd comments on the weather. She spoke in order to wake him, though that, of course, involved not ignoring him.

He opened his eyes.

“And one more thing,” she said again.

“Another?” he said. “Is this one more thing to add to the one more thing you mentioned a few moments ago? Two more things, in fact?”

She looked reproachfully at him.

“Charlotte is thrilled at our marriage,” she said. “And I do not think it is just because now she has someone to sponsor her come-out next year and no longer has to fear that she will be sent to her aunt. She genuinely loves you and wants you to be happy. She thinks you will be happy with me. She thinks we are in love.”

His eyes half smiled at her. It was really quite disconcerting the way he could do that without moving a muscle in the rest of his face. His eyes, she thought suddenly, could very well be her downfall-if it were possible for her to fall, that was, which it was not.

“That is one thing,” he said. “Is there another?”

“Yes, there is,” she said. “I come from a close-knit family. We all love one another dearly. We rejoice in one another’s joys and grieve with one another’s miseries. It is of great importance to my sisters and brother to see me happily married, to see us in love with each other. Yet at the moment they are full of doubts. They fear that we do not love each other and never will.”

“That is two things,” he said, his voice lazy, as if he really had just woken up from a deep sleep. “Interesting things. Things to give me all the incentive in the world to win my wager and you all the reason you need to capitulate and let me do so.”

“You did not hear me clearly,” she said. “I said that it is important to our families that we love each other-both of us, not me adoring you, and you proceeding with life as usual.”

“You want to make it a double wager, after all, then, Katherine?” he asked her, his smile catching at the corners of his eyes and curving his mouth upward. “You want to make me love you? I may even give you a sporting chance of wi

“What I do want,” she said, wishing he would sit up properly so that he would look less… less… Well, less something, “is that we put on a good show for the weeks of the house party. That we convince Charlotte and Meg and Stephen that ours really was a love match-or is, anyway. For we love them as much as they love us. I know you love Charlotte even though you deny being capable of any such emotion. And I owe more to Meg than I can ever say and love her more than I love anyone else in the world. I love Stephen dearly too. He is a good brother. He might have drifted from us in the past few years and concerned himself only with the pleasures life has to offer a wealthy, privileged young man.”