L'Ecole des Héritières, Tome 5 : Don't Bargain with the Devil

** Extrait offert par Sabrina Jeffries **

Chapter One

Richmond, Surrey

Late April 1824

Dear Charlotte,

How thoughtless of your drawing instructor to quit just before the Easter term begins! At least you have Miss Seton to help you until you can replace the irresponsible woman. Though I do hope she has grown out of what you called "her inability to think before speaking."

Your friend and cousin,

Michael

Lucinda Seton needed an impressive suitor, and she needed one now.

A prince would be her first choice, but she'd settle for a duke or even a marquess, preferably one who was filthy rich.

Not that she cared about riches, oh no. Expensive phaetons tearing neck-or-nothing through town made her retch, and hothouse roses made her sneeze. Jewels were rather nice, but a lot of trouble to watch out for when strolling with one's maid in the parks.

No, she wanted an impressive suitor for one reason only: to make Peter Burnes eat his words.

Tears stinging her eyes, she paced the bedroom at Mrs. Harris's School for Young Ladies that would be hers for the next few weeks. Fie on that wretch! She jerked a shawl from her half-unpacked trunk. How could she still be crying over him? And how could that heartless blackguard choose some milk-and-water miss over her?

The memory of their humiliating exchange at last Saturday's ball made her cringe as she tucked her shawl into the chest of drawers. Bad enough that she'd foolishly asked him how they stood. But his answer...

Given my new position in society, Lucy, I require a more suitable wife. Someone of a settled and responsible disposition, not a hot-blooded hoyden who says the first thing that pops into her head.

Hunting through her trunk, she found her pencils and the sketch pad containing the drawing she'd done of him a year ago, back when he'd thought she might be a suitable wife. She stared at the tousled curls and beatific smile that always made her heart turn over, then drew a pair of vile-looking horns on his head. She wasn't an irresponsible hoyden. She wasn't!

All right, perhaps she was a trifle outspoken. But what was wrong with that? He'd enjoyed it well enough when they were children running about the regiment.

You're the kind of woman a man dallies with, not the kind he marries.

Dallies with! She gnawed on her pencil, remembering the first time Peter, a seventeen-year-old general's son three years older than she, had laughingly stolen a kiss from her. Had he been dallying even then? Had she assumed it meant something when it had meant nothing to him?

And after she'd waited months for him, too! She'd been so sure Peter would marry her. Before his departure on the Grand Tour, he'd even called her his "one true love." He'd kissed her again, so sweetly it had seemed a declaration, especially when he'd told her to wait for him.

But once he'd returned, that was all forgotten. Instead, he'd called on her dressed in costly splendor, sporting a fine gold watch and talking down to her.

You're too impassioned, too curious about things no lady should deign to notice. You can't help it -- it's in your blood.

Her foreign blood. Peter knew that Lucy had been adopted by Colonel Seton, the man she called Papa. Her real father had been an English soldier, her mother a Spanish woman of uncertain background. Not that Lucy could remember, since they'd died in the war when Lucy was only four.

But Peter didn't care about that, did he? Oh no, he only cared about the precious blood that her mother had passed on, which he seemed to think seethed with Spanish wildness and passion and fire.

Well, she'd show him wildness and passion and fire! With quick slashes of her pencil, she added a pointy tail that curved out from behind the modest frock coat he'd worn back when he was plain old Mr. Burnes, before he'd unexpectedly inherited the earldom of Hunforth.

That's when he'd become "too good" for her, too conscious of his precious lineage and important connections. That's when he'd become exactly like every other man in English society.

Although most people assumed Papa was a widower and Lucy his daughter, they soon learned otherwise from the gossips. Lady Kerr, her stepmother, had gently warned her that her odd parentage might prove an issue for high sticklers, especially since she wasn't a great heiress like her friends. And though men had shown her some interest during her first season, she'd had no offers. Not that she'd encouraged them -- she'd been waiting for Peter. But she would have thought one would have made an offer anyway.

Unless...Oh, Lord, what if Peter were right about her? What if everybody thought she was some hussy not good enough to become a respectable man's wife? Was that why men were always eyeing her bosom and trying to kiss her on balconies? They never seemed to do that to the other girls.

They certainly never did that to Lady Juliana. Rich, elegant, boring Lady Juliana, whom Peter had apparently chosen as sufficiently suitable to be his bride.

Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. How dared he spurn her? The other men didn't surprise her; half were sheep who did what their mamas said. But Peter was supposed to be...

Hers.

She'd make him rue the day he'd rejected her. She had started to sketch a knife protruding from his treacherous heart when a knock came at the door. Hastily, she thrust the sketch pad beneath a pillow and bade the person enter.

Her stepmother glided into the room with her usual grace, another trait Lucy lacked. "Your father has finished his discussion with Mrs. Harris." Lady Kerr, who'd been married to Papa for little more than a year, surveyed the harum-scarum pile of clothing on the bed. "So we're leaving. And he'd like to say good-bye."

"I'll be along shortly."

Lady Kerr glanced at the open trunk. "Shall I help you unpack first?"

"I don't need your help!" Lucy snapped, then regretted it when Lady Kerr flinched. Lucy softened her tone. "It's kind of you to offer, but I can handle it alone. There's no reason for you to alter your plans."

Lady Kerr's halfhearted smile pricked Lucy's conscience. The woman had tried hard to be her friend. Papa had even hinted at how much it would mean to Lady Kerr to have Lucy call her Mother, but Lucy couldn't bring herself to do it. She chafed at Lady Kerr's constant reminders to lower her voice and mind her tongue and not laugh at men's rough jokes. If all a mother did was chide, perhaps she was better off without one.

At least Lady Kerr improved Papa's life. Though she didn't always approve of his blustering, she did love him. And she was right for him, too, strong and calm to balance his impetuous nature, and never daunted by the addlebrained things he did when distracted. Lady Kerr would make certain he didn't forget his hat.

Of course, managing Papa had been Lucy's job until she'd left for school. She missed that -- and the dinners when he'd spun tales of India or the evenings when she'd practiced her sums for his approval. Life had been simple then.

A sigh escaped her.

As usual, Lady Kerr mistook it. "You don't have to stay. Your father and I would love to have you go with us to meet Venetia in Edinburgh. Surely another instructor can teach drawing until Mrs. Harris can replace the teacher who quit."

Lucy returned to unpacking. "Actually, I look forward to the teaching. Edinburgh is such a bore, and I should stay busy until the Season is in full swing."

And she needed to show Peter Burnes that she wasn't irresponsible. After she impressed him with her levelheaded behavior as a teacher, he would grovel at her feet, admitting he'd been wrong and begging her forgiveness.

She might forgive him. She might not. But she could do neither if she were stuck up north while he pranced about town with Lady Juliana.

Taking her stepmother's arm, Lucy guided her toward the door. "You should go. You know how Papa is about waiting." Besides, she wanted them both off so she could wallow in her misery.

They walked down in silence to find Papa pacing before the stairs. When he heard them and looked up, his irritation altered instantly to pleasure.

Most of it was for Lady Kerr. And the countess's blush further illustrated their bond.

A painful yearning pierced Lucy. Would a man ever look at her like that and make her blush? Even Peter hadn't managed that. She wasn't the blushing sort.

"There's my lassies!" Papa boomed. His manner of speaking was one thing Lady Kerr hadn't civilized out of him. "Come now, Maggie, no dawdling. We must make haste while the weather is fine, eh, Lucy?"

"No rain is our gain," Lucy parroted his oft-used remark, left over from her childhood in Spain and Portugal during the war, when long marches in bad weather meant pure misery.

"You're all settled, then?" he asked Lucy as Lady Kerr took his arm.

Papa and Lady Kerr were going off together. Without her. It was all she could do to manage a smile. "I'm fine."

With a frown, he looked her over. "You don't look fine to me. It's that idiot Peter Burnes, isn't it?"

She blinked. "How did you -- "

"I'm no fool, lass. I know ye had yer heart set on him, and I saw yer face when he and that snooty Lady Juliana danced together three times at Saturday's ball. I always thought him a bit of a fribble, but I never took him for a fool until now. Ye're better off without him, d'you hear?" He chucked her under the chin. "Don't be wasting another thought on that jackanapes."

The fact that her unobservant Papa had noticed what had gone on between her and Peter was so unexpectedly sweet she burst into tears.

He stood frozen in shock until Lady Kerr nudged him. Then he hastily drew Lucy into his arms. "There, now, lass, didn't mean to make you cry. It's not so bad as all that, is it? Sh, sh,...