Mary Balogh: Then Comes Seduction

“Did I invite you in the first place, Hal?” Jasper asked. “Or any of you? I can’t for the life of me remember. London must be duller than usual this year. There don’t seem to be any really interesting or original challenges left, do there?”

He had used them all up, dash it all. And he was only twenty-five. Someone earlier in the spring had been overheard to say that if Lord Montford was sowing his wild oats, he must be intent upon sowing every inch of every field he owned-and those of his more prosperous neighbors too, for two counties in every direction. He could not possibly be down to his last inch yet, could he? Life would not be worth living.

“How about a virtuous woman?” Charlie suggested, risking the perils of an undulating floor in order to cross the room to the sideboard to replenish his glass.

“What about her?” Jasper asked. He set down his empty glass on the table beside him. Enough was enough-except that he had probably reached that limit even before leaving White’s. “She sounds devilishly dull, whoever she is.”

“Seduce her,” Charlie said.

“Oh, I say.” Hal had been sinking back into his semicoma, but he roused himself again at this interesting turn in an otherwise long-familiar line of conversation. “ Which virtuous woman?”

“The most virtuous one we can think of,” Charlie said with relish, having reached the safety of his chair again. “A young and lovely virgin. Someone new on the market and with a totally unblemished reputation. Lily white and all that.”

“Oh, I say.” But Hal, having drawn all eyes his way, could not seem to think of what he wanted to say. He was wide awake, though.

Motherham chuckled. “Now that would be something entirely new for you, Monty,” he said. “A new star in your illustrious career of devilries and debaucheries.” He raised his glass as if to toast his friend.

“He wouldn’t do it, though,” Sir Isaac said decisively, sitting upright in his chair and setting down his glass. “There are limits to what even Monty would do on a dare, and this is one of them. He would not seduce an innocent for all sorts of reasons I could name-which I will not do on account of the odd fact that my tongue and my lips and my teeth are all at odds with one another. Besides, he probably couldn’t do it even if he did decide to try.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Seducing an innocent was the sort of thing no decent gentleman would even dream of attempting-or even one of society’s most notorious hellions for that matter. There were limits to what one would take on for a wager, though admittedly they were few. Of course, those limits fluctuated, depending upon whether one were sober or inebriated. Jasper was very far from being sober-just about as far as it was possible to be without losing consciousness altogether, in fact. And someone had just suggested that there was something he could not accomplish even if he tried.

“Name her,” he said.

“Oh, I say!”

“Ho, Monty.”

“Splendid of you, old chap.”

His friends had been given all the encouragement they needed. They proceeded to trot out the name of almost every young lady who was currently in town for the Season making her debut. It was a lengthy list. Yet everyone on it was gradually eliminated for one reason or another, though none by Jasper himself. Miss Bota was Isaac’s second cousin once removed, while Lady Anna Marie Roache was about to be betrothed to Hal Blackstone’s brother’s friend’s brother-in-law-or something like that. Miss Hendy had spots and therefore did not qualify as lovely… And so on.

And then Katherine Huxtable was named.

“ Con Huxtable’s cousin?” Sir Isaac said. “Better not. He would veto her name in a moment if he were still in town and here with us tonight. Wouldn’t like it by half, he wouldn’t.”

“He would not care a straw about it,” Motherham said. “There is no love lost between Con and his cousins-for obvious reasons. If Con had only had the good fortune to be born legitimate, he would now be the Earl of Merton instead of the young cub who actually has the title. Miss Katherine Huxtable is Merton’s sister,” he added lest any of his friends not know it.

“She is too old anyway,” Hal said firmly. “She must be twenty if she is a day.”

“But ladies do not come any more innocent, Hal,” Motherham pointed out. “Her brother has only just succeeded to the Merton title, and it was all thoroughly unexpected. By all accounts the family was living in a tiny cottage in a remote village no one has even heard of, as poor as church mice. And now suddenly the lady finds herself sister of an earl and making her come-out before the ton during a London Season. I would say she must be as innocent as a newborn lamb. More innocent.”

“She undoubtedly has country morals too, then,” Charlie said with a theatrical shudder. “Puritanical values and unassailable virtue and all that. Even Monty with all his good looks and legendary charm and seductive arts would not stand a chance with her. It would be cruel of us to pick her for him.”

It was again the wrong thing to say.

No challenge was ever more exciting than one that was impossible to win. There was no such thing, of course, but proving it to himself as well as to those who wagered against him was the breath of life to Jasper.

“She is the golden-haired one, is she?” he said. “The tall and willowy one with the inviting smile and the fathomless blue eyes.” He pursed his lips as he pictured her. She was a beauty.

There was an appreciative roar from his friends.

“Oh-ho, Monty,” Sir Isaac said. “Been scouting her out, have you? You have a secret yearning for a leg-shackle, do you, her being an innocent and Merton’s sister and all that?”

“I thought ,” Jasper said, raising one eyebrow, “the object was to seduce the woman, not marry her.”

“I vote that we name Miss Katherine Huxtable as the lady to be seduced, then,” Hal said. “It cannot be done, of course. Only matrimony will tempt females like her. And even that might not tempt her if you were the one offering, Monty, no offense meant, old chap. But you do have a reputation that scares off innocents. For once I will feel quite confident of making something back on my bet. It will be a veritable investment.”

“By seduction,” Sir Isaac said, “we mean full intercourse, do we?”

They all looked at him as if he had sprouted a second head.

“Stealing a kiss or pinching her bottom would hardly be a challenge worthy of Monty,” Hal said, “even if the said kiss and pinch had to be willingly granted. Of course we mean full intercourse. But not ravishment, mind. That goes without saying.”

“Then why say it, Hal?” Jasper raised both eyebrows and realized that they were all very, very drunk and were going to regret this tomorrow-or whenever after tomorrow their minds were restored to sobriety. He also realized that none of them, even when sober, would back off from the wager that was about to be made and would soon be written formally into a betting book at one of their clubs and opened to bets from any other gentleman who cared to risk his money. It was not in any of their natures to back off from a dare once it had been made and accepted.

Least of all in his.

They seemed to possess, he thought in a rare moment of moral insight, a somewhat skewed notion of honor.

But to the devil with conscience and with honor too for that matter. He was too drunk to be burdened with any notion that might further addle his brain.

“The wager is, then,” Motherham said in summary, “that Monty cannot seduce Miss Katherine Huxtable into full sexual intercourse within the next… what? Month? Fortnight?”