Page 1

THE SEDUCTION, BOOK I

CHAPTER ONE

April 14, 1814

PORTERHOUSE SQUARE, #38

LORD AND LADY SHEFFIELD’S BALL IN HONOR OF THEIR DAUGHTER’S DEBUT

It was astonishing how easy it was to predict the future.

In a mere five weeks, Miss Beatrice Valentine had discovered that she had no need to gaze at the stars or into a crystal ball. She could make accurate predictions merely by peering at the ballroom from the shelter of a large fern.

Query: Will the lady dangling tangerine ribbons from her topknot drop her fan in front of the young man with the violet waistcoat?

Prediction: A probability of nearly 100%. The lady in question had already dropped her fan three times in front of various men, as if she were sowing a field and hoping a husband would pop up—a version of that Greek myth about sowing dragon teeth and harvesting a crop of Spartan warriors.

The lady’s fan slipped from her gloved fingers at the same moment that Lady Sheffield’s butler bellowed the names of new arrivals. The smile instantly fell off Bea’s face and her heart started pounding in her ears so loudly that she couldn’t hear whatever else he said.

She had thought that it was too late for new arrivals. That she was free for tonight. She never would have positioned herself so perilously close to the ballroom door, if she’d known guests might arrive so late, let alone these guests.

Bea swallowed hard. She would not disgrace herself by vomiting or crying.

Words to live by.

Her fern was no longer sufficient; she needed solid walls. A door with a latch or even better, a lock.

Their hostess, Lady Sheffield, rushed toward the ballroom entrance, her hand wrapped around her daughter Marguerite’s forearm as she towed her across the floor.

When the lady slid to a halt, out of breath and full of apologies for dismissing the receiving line—though frankly, her guests were hours late—Lady Regina Charlotte Haywood, sister of the current Duke of Lennox, stepped forward and dropped a slight, if gracious, curtsy. Her fiancé, Lord Peregrine, bowed with the air of a man who didn’t quite remember whose house he was in, and didn’t give a damn.

In Bea’s cynical opinion, Marguerite likely brushed her knees on the floor during her curtsy before Lord Peregrine. Rather than drop a fan, she gave him a long look at her cleavage.

Lord Peregrine’s chiseled eyebrows twitched when presented with a pair of large breasts bolstered by short stays, but his expression didn’t change. A housekeeper would look more excited glancing over melons for sale.

He was known as a rake, so perhaps he was bored by ladies’ chests.

Still, Bea couldn’t help taking a shuddering breath of pure longing. His cravat was crumpled, and his chin was shadowed—a terrible faux pas for a gentleman. He couldn’t have made it clearer that he had no interest in the opinions of society madams.

Young ladies weren’t supposed to feel waves of heat at the mere sight of a man’s shoulders, especially those of bad men. Men with insolent eyes and a walk that wasn’t a swagger but …

Bea couldn’t quite explain it. When they’d first met, his eyes had skimmed over her as if she was invisible. A sensible woman would despise him merely for that. Still, she couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Lord Peregrine was so bored because no one ever made him laugh.

Not that she was any good at making men laugh. But in her head, she was very witty.

Just then Regina’s trilling laughter echoed around the ballroom. Bea’s legs tensed with an impulse to flee, but she forced herself to take a deep breath instead. That would be foolish. Flight might attract attention.

Query: Now that Lady Regina has entered the ballroom, what are the odds that Bea’s weight and unattractiveness will become a topic of conversation?

Prediction: Around 80%. Which meant there was hope, Bea told herself, fighting a wave of nausea. 20% was 1 in 5.

Her fern was leafy and tall, and she was tucked away at the edge of the room. What’s more, Regina might be waylaid by a suitor hopeful of cutting out Lord Peregrine. As the daughter of a duke, and exquisite in the bargain, most of the available gentlemen in London had been at her feet until the evening when Peregrine kissed her hand, danced with her once, and told a friend he meant to have her.

At least, that was the gossip that Bea had overheard while lurking in the women’s retiring room one night, confirmed by the fact their betrothal notice appeared in the papers the very next week.

Bea had felt sick with jealousy, but she understood. Regina was long-legged and thin, her body quivering with energy. She had a lovely face, if a rather predatory mouth. Yet to Bea’s mind, the real appeal was that Regina wasn’t docile and sweet, like most ladies tried to be. She was ferociously active, and “niceness” wasn’t a quality Regina admired.

Neither did Lord Peregrine, obviously. They were well-matched, like eagles that would woo each other by dropping small dead animals in each other’s path. Lord Peregrine clearly had no fear of competition. Bea had noticed his propensity to hand over his fiancée to any man who approached.