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She could make it easy on them both and await Amery in the gardens just outside. But the thought occurred too late. Before she could quietly slip outside, Channing spied her and she was caught in the web of his blue gaze.
He inclined his head in her direction in sardonic acknowledgement and query, his eyes registering quickly veiled surprise over her presence. What was she doing here? She returned his nod with the cool, regal smile she’d cultivated for the men of Paris, the smile that invited men to look, but reminded them they touched at their own peril.
Well, at least she could take consolation in the fact that Channing’s presence meant Amery was close behind. It stood to reason that, as friends, Amery and Channing would have shared a coach and come together. It was not beyond the scope of possibility that Channing had been hired by another lady at the party. But a glance beyond Channing into the hall revealed nothing. Perhaps Amery was still out at the coach, making arrangements for his trunks.
A few minutes more passed and Amery had still not appeared, although Channing continued to linger by the door, talking with the hostess. Something was wrong. Lady Lionel’s fair brows had knitted together in consternation, just before Channing took his leave and began to cross the room towards her.
Within moments he stood before her, bowing over her hand much as he’d bowed over Lady Lionel’s. ‘The Comtesse de Charentes, enchanté, although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.’ The blue eyes holding hers were full of mischief, secretly laughing. Channing was always laughing with his eyes, with his mouth. It had, unfortunately, been a rather endearing quality in the past.
‘I have a bit of a dilemma and I thought perhaps you could help? I am looking for a guest, only Lady Lionel is not familiar with her, which I find extremely odd. After all, it’s her party and her guest list.’
‘And you thought you’d ask me,’ she finished with cold politeness.
‘Well, yes, since you seem to know these sorts of things.’
She understood the mischief in his eyes now. It was true. She did know everyone. She’d made it a point to know as many people as possible since her return from the Continent over a year ago. She’d been gone too long and acquaintances had lapsed. She’d done her best to restore those lines of friendship, although not everyone had welcomed her overtures. But it was more than that. ‘These sorts of things’ implied Channing had his suspicions about the identity of Elizabeth Morgan. His mind was fast like that.
‘I will be glad to assist if I can.’ Alina smiled politely, but inwardly her concern was growing. Where was Amery? Her gambit was off to a shaky start. ‘I do need to let you know, however, that I am waiting for someone. He should arrive momentarily.’ It was a weak ploy at best. If Channing had come with Amery, he’d already know that.
Wherever Amery was, Alina wished he’d hurry up. Even so, it was too late to avoid explanations. She’d given Amery a false name when she’d applied for the League’s assistance this second time, wanting to avoid Channing. ‘Who are you looking for?’ she asked Channing. The faster she could help him, the sooner he’d leave her alone.
‘I’m looking for a Mrs Elizabeth Morgan. Perhaps you know her? Amery DeHart was to meet her.’
She’d been right to worry, not that she’d let Channing see it. Her stomach churned as she realised the implications of Channing’s presence. If Channing was looking for Elizabeth Morgan, it meant Amery wasn’t coming. She had two choices: either brazen it out and confess or deny knowledge of the name and send Channing home, which would leave her on her own with Seymour, unless the perverse man decided to stay and make the house party miserable for her anyway, something he just might do given their track record.
She opted for the former, her chin going up a notch in defiance. ‘Amery DeHart was supposed to be meeting me. I am Elizabeth Morgan.’
Channing’s face hardened. She could see that he’d already grasped the basic tenets of the situation. The quick acuity of his mind made him a dangerous opponent, a reminder that everything she’d counted on would have to be rethought. Amery would have done her bidding with no questions asked. But Channing would ask. He’d want to know why she was using one man to meet another. He would demand explication and perhaps much else—after all, he was a man of extraordinary passions. You are not in the market for the ‘much else,’ she told herself sternly. Things had a habit of going badly when she and Channing were together.
His mouth formed one word. ‘Liar.’
She took the verbal blow with aplomb. ‘Fabulous. I see you’ve come to ruin another house party.
Ah, so she hadn’t forgiven him for the débâcle at Christmas—not last Christmas, but the Christmas before that. ‘Angry and beautiful, just as I remember you,’ Channing said calmly, knowing it irritated her to no end that he wouldn’t rise to the bait of her temper.
Her pale blue eyes flashed with an icy fire. Beautiful was something of understatement when it came to describing Alina Marliss, Comtesse de Charentes, an Englishwoman turned French countess, and now a returned Englishwoman. She was like a living diamond with her platinum hair and flawless skin. She sparkled from every facet. Not all of those facets were physical. Her personality sparkled as well. She could be positively charming when she chose. She was not choosing to be so now when she was on the defensive. Channing decided to push his offence.
‘You lied. You gave Amery a false name. Why don’t we stroll in the garden and you can tell me all about it? I find it quite interesting you needed to give an alias when you already have so many other names to choose from. Now we can apparently add Elizabeth Morgan along with Miss Alina Marliss and the Comtesse de Charentes.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she hissed, falling in step beside him, but she did not, he noted, take his arm. The minx was determined to declare her independence at every turn.
‘I thought a widow got to keep the title as a matter of honour. Was I misinformed?’ Channing answered in low tones. He’d known beforehand how much she despised the title. She’d tried to shun it, but society had forced her to keep it at every turn.
‘You were not misinformed. However, if it were up to me, I would prefer not to wear his brand.’ Her tone left no doubt about the unpleasant depths of that marriage. Of course she would detest it, would see it as a man’s attempt to label her from beyond the grave. Alina Marliss belonged to no one. It was what made her such an intriguing and delicious challenge. But despite her efforts to simply be Lady Marliss, society would not let her forget she’d once had access to a higher title, even if it was French.
Out of doors, the gardens were full of sunshine and the quiet conversations of others who strolled there. Channing guided them to a less-populated walkway and changed his tack. ‘Perhaps you could enlighten me about your arrangement with Mr DeHart?’ Part of him hoped that arrangement might be more superficial. He didn’t want to know if Amery was sleeping with her. It shouldn’t matter. This was just a job and objectivity was as important in this line of work as discretion.
‘Why isn’t he coming?’ she answered with a question of her own.
‘He has a family wedding to attend. His sister is getting married. Now, about that arrangement?’ Whatever her answer, they were both adults. They could muddle through a week together at a house party. They’d be surrounded by others. There would hardly be any time at all to be alone. Not all escort jobs included sleeping with the client. Amery certainly wasn’t sleeping with the Misses Bakers when he took them to the opera.
She gave him a coy smile as if she’d read his mind. ‘Do I detect a hint of jealousy beneath your attempt at bland enquiry?’
‘You detect a hint of self-protection,’ Channing replied. ‘I want to know what I’m up against. When we were last together, I ended up with a vase thrown at my head.’
She snorted at this and dismissed it with a wave of her hand. ‘You deserved it. You made me look like a fool.’
‘I’m sorry about Christmas. I can only apologise so much,’ Channing said stiffly. She was not without grounds to complain. The unfortunate incident had happened eighteen months ago. It was to have been her first foray into decent English society and she’d hired him at considerable expense to ease her return into that society, which he had. From an objective standpoint, he’d discharged his duty admirably. However, there had been what one might call ‘interpersonal complications’. But how had this turned into an interrogation of him when he’d meant it to be an interrogation of her? ‘I’m here now and I would like to fulfil whatever contractual obligations you had with DeHart.’
‘Really?’ She drew out the word into a provocative drawl as she gave the idea consideration, tapping one long, perfectly manicured finger against her chin. Channing felt another primal stab of possessiveness as the thought recurred. Was she sleeping with Amery? How did he feel about taking Amery’s place in her bed or, for that matter, how did he feel about Amery having taken his place? The League never shared clients in that regard.
She gave a throaty laugh. ‘DeHart and I have a purely social arrangement. He introduces me to people I want to meet and I’ve discovered that regularly having the same gentleman by my side has defused the amount of unwanted attention someone in my situation might attract.’
By ‘situation’ she meant widowed and wealthy and that made her available to all manner of advances. It did not help that her husband had been a French count and everyone knew life on the Continent was far looser, morally, than it was in England. There were even some who felt a good English lady was better off coming home than remaining among such a debauched set. That was a story Channing had spun.
Channing had spent a good deal of his time that Christmas setting the script into play for her and in the intervening months the story had hatched into plausibility, even if their relationship had hatched into disaster.
‘What is it that you need from me? An introduction or a shield?’ Thanks to his efforts, Miss Alina Marliss had been accepted back into society. But they both knew that acceptance was tentative. One false move on her part and society would not hesitate to expel her.
‘Both.’ Alina flicked open the fan she carried about her wrist, a pretty white-lace affair with painted pink flowers, the kind of accessory a decent Englishwoman would carry and a testament to how carefully she crafted this facet of her persona. ‘I need to meet Mr Roland Seymour.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know him.’ He didn’t sound like someone Amery would know either. Mere misters were not their speciality.
‘But you will know him. That’s the point of house parties, isn’t it? To mingle and hopefully expand one’s social network in useful ways?’ Alina waved the fan back and forth in a slow languid gesture. The action called subtle attention to the expanse of bosom on display in a deceptively demure afternoon dress of soft pink muslin.
Channing gave a wry grin and tried to keep his eyes above her neck, but it was deuce difficult and he knew she knew it. ‘You want me to befriend him and then insinuate you into his crowd,’ Channing divined.
‘Essentially. Play a little billiards.’ She smiled at him over the top of her fan. ‘Shoot a few things, preferably not each other, whatever it is gentlemen do.’ She was trying awfully hard to distract him; smiles, fans and bosoms. It made him suspicious, especially coming from a woman who’d been icily distant a few minutes ago.
‘Why?’ Even knowing she was playing with him, he couldn’t help but flirt back. Channing leaned closer, breathing in the light rose fragrance of her soap. She’d even gone so far as to smell like an Englishwoman.
‘I wish to pursue some business with Mr Seymour.’
Channing raised an eyebrow at this. ‘Are you going to tell me what sort of business?’
‘No.’ She laughed and took a step backwards. ‘Now, you have work to do and I have ladies to ingratiate myself with. If you’ll excuse me?’
It was a clear dismissal and he let her go. Amery had not been wrong when he said the Continent was stamped all over her. She’d cut her teeth in the salons of Paris where Channing had first met her, the extraordinary Comtesse de Charentes. She’d been a married woman then, but that had not stopped the thrill of flirting with her. That same thrill had been present today even among all of his misgivings. She could get to him in ways the Marianne Bixleys of the world couldn’t. He wished all the lush perfection of her didn’t affect him so thoroughly, but it did and that didn’t begin to address the layer of intellect and wit.
She was every man’s fantasy. Perhaps that was her greatest trick. She could make herself all things to all men. He had yet to meet a man who had not fallen under her spell. It made Channing angry and intrigued all at once. Angry because he prided himself on being less susceptible than other men when it came to sexual politics, but in her case he seemed to be no different than the rest; intrigued because he did wonder who she was when no one was looking.
Was there anyone to whom she showed her true self? Once upon a time, he’d spent too many hours contemplating who that true self might be and how he might convince her to show that self to him. It was one of the innumerable fantasies he had about her.
He wasn’t alone. Channing watched the eyes of the other men in the garden track her progress to the French doors leading inside. Their thoughts were fairly transparent. Lord Barrett, married with three children, was thinking how he could arrange an affair back in London. Lord Durham was thinking of how he could get into her room at the house party, tonight even. Lord Parkhurst’s son, blond and indolent, was calculating whether or not his allowance could afford her if he set her up as his mistress, as if Alina would allow such a thing. Channing hoped he wasn’t as obvious as the rest of them. No wonder she felt she needed Amery’s presence as protection.
He eyed his own target across the garden, deep in discussion with Elliott Mansfield, whom he did know. He and Elliott were both members at White’s. It was time to presume upon that acquaintance. Channing couldn’t help but wonder: if he was there to protect Alina from unwanted advances, who was going to protect Roland Seymour from her? Business with Alina Marliss was guaranteed to be dangerous. He was living proof of it. The beginning of all his own woes could be traced back to her. Channing was starting to think it was the comtesse who had ruined him for other women.
Chapter Three
There was no competing with the Comtesse de Charentes when the company gathered in the drawing room for dinner that night. Alina made a grand entrance, alone, at five minutes after seven, exuding confident sensuality in a watered sage-green satin that commanded the attention of every male in the room and the jealousy of every female.
The choice was carefully calculated on her part. There was no doubt in Channing’s mind she’d done it on purpose. It was a bold strategy, one that said she was ashamed of nothing. She would meet head on the stories that had already started circulating in fits and starts after tea. They were the same stories that always accompanied her: her husband had died suddenly without reason. It made her both a tragic figure and a suspicious one. He’d heard the tale and had immediately gone to work steering it in a useful manner. He’d done so, he clarified for himself, not out of any lingering empathy for the comtesse, but because Amery would have done so if he’d been here. It was his job.
The rise of the old story was not unexpected. This was a crowd to whom the comtesse was only partially known. Some of the more highbrow guests like Durham and Barrett had encountered her in London, but the others present did not run in such high circles or stayed closer to home at their country estates. They were entirely reliant on gossip in forming their first impressions of this relative newcomer. Still, she had come to this house party where she knew what she’d be up against when surely there were easier invitations to accept, making this a most interesting and almost illogical choice. Now she stood among a room of strangers, garnering all their attention, both good and bad.
That, he could understand. Channing saw her stratagem at once. She had cast her net wide to catch all the fish in the hopes of catching the attention of the one that mattered most. In this instance, that fish was Roland Seymour. The gambit had worked, Channing noted. Seymour’s eyes followed her about the room just as every other man’s had.
For his part, Channing wasn’t much taken with Seymour and he was hard pressed to imagine what Alina saw in him. For that matter, he didn’t know what Alina saw in this house party. Lady Lionel’s circle wasn’t exactly the haute elevations Alina had so painstakingly cultivated.
The supper bell rang and Channing silently commended Alina’s choice of timing. Like all else about her, it was immaculate. She’d come down in enough time to command attention, but close enough to the bell so that she wouldn’t have to make small talk, or worse, risk a cold shoulder from jealous matrons.
Lady Lionel was fussing over getting everyone paired for the dinner parade, another sign that this was not the high set he or Alina were used to frequenting. In his circles, people knew their place in line implicitly and needn’t be herded. Channing rather resented the parade that separated natural couples and pitted social ranks against one another. When he was growing up, his mother had assured him it was to facilitate the meeting of new people. But Channing felt the only thing it facilitated was the prevention of people associating with others of an inappropriate station.
However, he did fight back a twitch of a smile as he watched Lady Lionel struggle with where to place Alina. As a countess, she was the highest-ranking woman in the room next to Lady Lionel, but she was a French countess who teetered on scandal, which was quite different than being an English countess of good standing. Lady Lionel erred on the side of caution and partnered Alina with her husband. Alina tossed Channing a smug victory glance over her shoulder.
He’d take that as a gauntlet being thrown down. So they were to play, were they? He wondered if she’d meant to play with Amery or if this was a signal that they were to resume their usual warfare. There was power in sex and they both knew it well. It didn’t matter that he was paired with a baronet’s daughter or that he was sitting a little further down on the opposite side of the table. He was adept at flirting at a distance. He smiled politely at something the baronet’s daughter said and offered her his arm. Supper was about to get interesting.
* * *
The meal turned into a covertly wicked affair. He cupped the bowl of his wine glass; she stroked the stem of hers, idly, of course, and without even looking at whom the message was intended. That was the trick of the game, not to get caught. He bit into the duck as if it were the most tender of flesh. She bit into a berry and used a quick flick of her tongue to wipe a droplet of juice from her lips.
That had been risky, almost too overt. The other trick of the game was to keep the gesture questionably vague so that anyone who happened to pick up on it could only wonder if the gesture was actually meant for them. Roland Seymour had caught the lick and from the sly smile on his face was even now contemplating whether that lick was meant for him.
By the time the cherry ices arrived, Channing was contemplating other things beyond spoon sucking that could be done with the refreshing after-dinner treat. He wondered if Seymour was as well. He rather regretted the ladies’ departure for the drawing room. Buttonholing the port around the table wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. But it would be a chance to further Alina’s agenda, whatever it was, with Roland Seymour. Channing settled into making himself agreeable. He knew two or three of the men present and Sir Lionel made it easy.
‘So, Seymour, Durham here tells me you’re an investor.’ Lionel filled his glass and slid the decanter to the right. ‘What do you invest in?’
Seymour gave an unnatural smile, one that Channing thought the man must practise in front of the mirror to achieve the proper amount of wryness. If so, he could use more practice. It didn’t quite ring true. ‘In land, it’s the one thing that will outlast us all. I believe it’s the only true investment out there. It won’t short-change you and it will always hold its value.’
A few of the older gentlemen at the table exchanged uncomfortable looks. They were weighing the acceptability of such a profession or even if it was a profession at all. That was the sticking point. A profession wasn’t acceptable at all. A real gentleman didn’t work. Did investing qualify as work? A few of the younger men present seemed intrigued, however.
‘Do you develop the land? What do you do after you invest in it?’ Parkhurst’s son asked. Channing’s gaze drifted back to Seymour. It was a trick question. Was Seymour well-bred enough to know it? Land development would definitely classify as work, whereas simple land ownership and real estate could be excused. Channing himself held several deeds for properties all over London. Buying was all right. It was a show of wealth.
Seymour took a swallow of his drink. ‘I hold on to it until it’s time to let it go,’ he replied vaguely. Channing was starting to dislike Seymour more and more. The conversation shifted to other things and Channing used the opportunity to take Seymour’s measure.
Dark-haired and of medium height, Channing supposed women would not find him unattractive. He’d probably appear more attractive one on one with no other males around for comparison. But there was an insincere quality to him that gave him the perception of being oily, a certain slickness that branded him as bourgeois. He wasn’t Alina’s type at all for business or for pleasure. She’d been adamant it was business in this case, but Channing had to wonder—why Seymour? If she wanted to dabble in real estate, he could recommend a better quality agent with more suitable credentials.
Not that it’s your business who she does business with, Channing cautioned himself. He had to remember she’d hired Amery, not him. He was not here as her friend—those days were long past. He’d offered her friendship, more than friendship once, and she’d shunned it. He was here only as a substitute and as the result of coincidence. He would do himself a favour by remaining detached. It was his job to act as a shield against unwanted advances if they arose and to help smooth any slanderous gossip. It was not his job to tell her how to do business or with whom. Still, he could make a polite suggestion before things went any further and leave it at that.
* * *
A well-placed hint here and there would redirect Alina’s ‘business’ as soon as the gentlemen rejoined the ladies for tea in the drawing room, but a quick scan of the drawing room indicated Alina was not present. Had something happened in the interval? With a reputation as precarious as hers, that was always a hovering possibility. Asking Lady Lionel was out of the question. It was too obvious and it made Alina a point of interest on his behalf, something he’d rather avoid. A flash of white in the darkness beyond the French doors caught his eye and Channing made his way discreetly towards it. She’d gone out. That decided it. He could do with a bit of fresh air himself.
He’d found her. Alina straightened at the railing, keeping her back towards the door, refusing to acknowledge him by turning around. ‘I knew you’d come.’ He’d had a few hours to contemplate the situation. Now the questions would start. Perhaps she could stall them with a polite freeze.
‘It’s uncanny how you do that. I tried to be extraordinarily quiet this time.’ Channing refused to be put off by her cold shoulder. He was all friendly affability as he moved to stand by her at the balustrade. Not that she believed the act for a moment. ‘What gave me away this time? Don’t tell me it was my cologne, it’s hardly heavy enough to be noticed.’