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To Seduce a Lady's Heart
by Ingrid Hahn
 
Copyright © 2017 by Ingrid Hahn. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Prologue

London, mid-May, near the end of the Season, 1812

The late afternoon was much the same as the others that had preceded it. All thirty, to be precise.

Today would be different. Today he would not be turned away.

He had but one final debt to pay. Then he would be free.

Jeremy Landon, Earl of Bennington, pulled his timepiece from a small pocket, opened the lid, nodded in approval, and slipped it away again. He took the steps to Lady Rushworth’s white Mayfair terrace house two at a time. The angled sun had turned the facade the color of parchment.

The temperature and weather conditions varied from day to day, as did the color of his waistcoat. Otherwise, the routine was the same.

In the inside pocket of his jacket was the list Jeremy had penned ten years ago, almost to the day. In the last decade, it had been folded, unfolded, and refolded so many times that it was falling apart. It enumerated all the private debts his uncle—his predecessor—had incurred.

Upon his uncle’s death, he’d sifted through all the man’s papers, painstakingly cataloging every last debt. He had vowed not to overlook a single one. No matter if it was a debt of ten pounds or ten thousand pounds, every penny would be repaid.

The affairs had been in such a state of disorder, the project had taken the better part of a month. And of the many horrors of the situation, the worst was that the previous earl hadn’t borrowed solely from faceless creditors. He’d also borrowed from friends. Heavily.

Even after all this time, if Jeremy thought about it too long, the whole business made him recoil in disgust.

All the names and debts on his list had been crossed off.

Except one—the strangest of them all. Jeremy had discovered it scrawled in a hastily written note that had been torn into pieces and lost under a pile of neglected papers. When he’d arranged the scraps and deciphered the scrawl, he’d surmised that the late Lord Rushworth had loaned his friend a jewel. Jeremy had spent the last seven years trying to trace it, all the while methodically settling the other debts. He’d hired runners to pry into the affair, but they’d come back with nothing to report. The unnamed stone, whatever it might have been, had vanished.

He’d finally admitted to himself that the jewel would never be recovered. It had taken three years, but Jeremy had finally raised enough to pay what he hoped would approximate the estimated worth of the piece. Plus interest.

Ten years after inheriting a title and an earldom left in disastrous ruin—neither of which he’d wanted—ten years after putting his own life aside and living to restore what his late uncle had lost, he would at last be free. If he could pay what was owed.

Except, thus far Lady Rushworth had obstructed his attempts.

First, he had sent the money. It’d been returned without any note of explanation. Next, he’d tried working through solicitors. Twice more his money had been returned, letter unopened, banknotes untouched.

He’d delivered it to her house…and found it pinned to his door the next morning, a knife through the center of the packet.

Among other things, Lady Rushworth apparently had a flair for the dramatic.

That was when he’d decided he’d find a way to see her. It was unlikely that she would attempt to run a knife through him. Though the possibility could not be ruled out.

The woman meant to outlast him, but her dogged stubbornness served only to bring out his—the same that had seen him through the trials and tribulations of the last decade.

The woman in question was not unknown in Society. But either she’d stopped venturing out of her home, which he very much doubted, or she made absolutely certain she and he would not be invited to the same gatherings. She didn’t go to the park, the theater, or to Bond Street. And Jeremy’s blood, earl or not, would never permit him the indulgence of an Almack’s voucher.

Enough was enough.

At the door, Jeremy knocked. The now-familiar squinting face of Caruthers allowed him entrance. The ancient butler smelled of caraway seeds and shuffled as he walked.

If the old servant was tired of the routine, he didn’t reveal it. On the contrary. He bowed, the picture of stoic propriety. “Your card, my lord?”

“I’m not here to leave a card today, my good man.” Jeremy stepped into the entranceway, which was decorated in the latest fashion of airy classicism and bespoke the finest taste.

Caruthers’s expression remained placid.

Jeremy, were he a betting man—which he most certainly was not—would have put money on the nonplussed servant having expected such a response. “Today I’m going to see her.”

“Her ladyship is not at home.”

The devil she wasn’t. “I’m terribly sorry. It’s not my intention to put you in an awkward position, but I’ve said it’s imperative that I see her, and I’m not in the habit of exaggerating.”

Jeremy caught movement from above. On the stairs towering above them was a shadowy figure. She had angular features that might once have been comely but had succumbed to what Jeremy supposed was a lifetime of bitterness.

The woman could have been none other than Lavinia Burke, Countess of Rushworth. Even at a distance, a ruthless gleam shone from her eyes.

It mattered not. This was no social call.

“But you are in the habit of barging in where you’re not wanted?”

Lady Rushworth had already made it plain she cared nothing for him or his family. Knowing something of the woman’s reputation, he’d expected some resistance. Not complete refusal, however. There was no scenario in Jeremy’s mind in which a paid debt—closed and forgotten forever—was not an excellent thing.

In retrospect, that could have been shortsighted. Lady Rushworth’s hatred of the Landons was notorious.

The woman could think whatever she wanted. The matter had to be settled once and for all. And so, after nearly a decade away, he’d been forced to return to London and manage the feat himself.

He bowed. “Lady Rushworth, I presume. At long last.”

“I would acknowledge you, my lord, but I cannot bring myself to speak your name.” Before he could formulate a response, she continued. “I half expected you to accost me in the street as I went to my carriage.”

“I considered the possibility, my lady, but ruled such a maneuver unsporting.”

Descending, bejeweled hand on the polished rail, she gave Caruthers a glance. Reading her signal perfectly, the man vanished.

“But pushing your way into my home is acceptable in your code of conduct? I must say, you have much to learn about being a gentleman, my lord. But then, what am I to expect from the likes of a Landon? Disgraceful bunch, the lot of you.”

“It’s a rule I’m willing to bend to see my task completed.”

“Stubbornness, as it were, is not generally a trait of your family. Nor is loyalty—”

“I hate to deprive you the pleasure of your insults, my lady. I give you free rein to despise me, if you will. But I’m here to make reparations. Furthermore, I must ask you not to judge me for who my late uncle was and what he did.”

Jeremy had no love for the man, either. However, finding common ground with Lady Rushworth was not the purpose of his visit, nor did he wish to discuss the late earl with anyone. Least of all her.

“If I’m not to judge you for that…” She reached the landing. Close up, she was far more imposing—tall and powerful, with an air of ruthlessness that couldn’t have been solely reserved for the likes of him. Pity any weak individual who displeased her. “…then I’m left to judge you for what your actions toward me have been. I’m not certain that’s entirely favorable.”

“Pray hear me out, my lady.”

“Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

Heedless of her wishes, he pushed on. “I want to make reparations on my uncle’s behalf.”

At this, she snorted. “Whatever you think you’re about, I assure you, I have no need of anything from the likes of you.”

“I have discharged all my late uncle’s debts—all except one. I ask you allow me to pay it. Then you will be rid of me forever.”

“To perdition with your repayment, your honor, and your entire family. I curse the day you and your forebears were born.”

Although he was unused to such talk, the insults weren’t half as maddening as being prevented from doing what was right. Frustration curled hard and tight within him, his muscles clenching.

The two families had once been dear to one another. But Jeremy’s uncle’s profligate ways had driven them apart. Or so the story went. Jeremy had always wondered if there was something deeper at the heart of the matter.

He’d never been able to discover what it was precisely that had driven her ladyship to hold his family in the same esteem as something foul scraped from the gutter. He’d tried asking his aunt once. Though he’d thought he’d been delicate about his phrasing, he’d earned an uncharacteristically sharp rebuke and a reprimand about minding his own affairs.

Now, in the face of Lady Rushworth’s provoking words, he had to quell the impulse to inquire. “I understand you don’t want anything to do with me, my lady. But I must beg for your compassion—your understanding of my…predicament.” That was, his vow to be as different from his uncle as possible. Whatever his uncle did, Jeremy would do the exact opposite. “I need this.”

A slow smile touched her lips, triumph shining from her expression. She looked, for all the world, as if thwarting him were the culmination of her life’s work. “I believe it is you who don’t understand, my lord. Whatever you might think you need, I most assuredly do not want. Now leave my house at once and never return.”

“Please.” He wasn’t used to begging. He wasn’t too proud to do so, however. Clearing the debt was what mattered. “I know I can’t replace what you lost—”

“You’ll please refrain from speaking about that which you have no understanding, my lord.”

“Just let me pay you. I’ll do anything.”

That gave her pause. “Anything?”

Cold regret chilled him to the bone. But it was too late—he’d spoken. He wasn’t backtracking, not now that he’d broken through the barrier. “Anything.”

Her eyes gleamed with malice. “Why don’t you come upstairs, my lord? I have an idea that might solve both our problems.”