Sweet Enemy: A Veiled Seduction Novel Page 2

  Footsteps scrabbled across the floor above her. Liliana looked up. A loud voice shouted something, but she couldn’t understand the words, muffled as they were by the layers of carpet and wood and stone that separated her from the upstairs parlor. She hastily stored the precious chemicals and then went straight up.

  When she came around the corner, her heart squeezed into her throat. Papa had returned? She was caught for sure. But…he was on the floor. Carsons was bent over him, calling for a doctor. “Why does Papa need a doctor?” she asked, but no one paid her any mind. She rushed to his side, but when she saw him, she shrieked, recoiling. “Papa?” she asked in a trembling voice, dropping to her knees beside her father. His skin was purple in places, swollen, mottled with bruises, and blood trickled from his nose, his mouth, even an ear.

  “—street thugs, sir?” Carsons was asking.

  Papa’s head jerked in a diagonal motion. “Be.” He gasped for breath, a rattling sound that sent chills down her spine. “Trade,” he mumbled.

  “Papa?” she cried, not knowing what else to say, what to do, how to help.

  His hand snaked out, grabbing her wrist. He squeezed hard and she moaned, a hot tear slipping down her cheek. The one eye he was still able to open bored into her. “Find them. At summer.”

  Summer? Terrified and confused, all she could say was “W-what?

  “At…summer.” His grip slackened, and he slipped into a coma from which he never woke.

  “Be. Trade,” she murmured. It had sounded so nonsensical at the time. But…she looked down at the letter she still held in her hand. We have been compromised. Meet me two days hence. Liliana tested the words on her tongue again. “Be-trayed.” Tears sprang to her eyes. Her father’s death hadn’t been a random tragedy. He’d been lured to it. By this note.

  She stared at the offensive paper, grabbing the English packet of letters. The handwriting was the same. While they weren’t signed, this last had been closed with a seal. A noble seal.

  She rushed to her shelves, searching…searching. There! She found a dusty old copy of Debrett’s. Its spine likely hadn’t been cracked in fifteen years or more, but it should still contain what she needed. She laid the heavy volume on the desktop and flipped it open, scanning the histories of the noble families of England, looking for the seal that matched the one she held in her hand.

  Tonight she’d learn who betrayed her father. Then she’d find a way to make sure they paid.

  Chapter One

  Shropshire, April 1817

  H

  e’d never wanted to be the earl, but the one thing Geoffrey Wentworth had learned since becoming such was that an earl could get away with practically anything. He sincerely hoped that included matricide.

  “Let me understand you plainly, Mother,” he growled, resisting the urge to brush the road dust from his coat onto the pristine drawing room floor. “You called me away from Parliament claiming dire emergency…” He swallowed, his throat aching with the need to shout. By God, he’d nearly run his horse into the ground to get here, aggravating an old war injury in his haste. His lower back burned almost as badly as it had when he’d been run through. He breathed in, striving to keep the irritation from his voice. “Because you would like to host a house party?”

  Genevieve Wentworth, Lady Stratford, sat serenely on a floral chaise near the fireplace, as if he’d politely dropped in for tea instead of racing at breakneck speed to answer her urgent summons. Geoffrey eyed her suspiciously. His mother was typically a calm woman, but he’d been known to send seasoned soldiers scurrying with no more than his glare. She hadn’t so much as flinched in the face of his anger. No, in fact, she looked strangely triumphant. His stomach clenched. Mother was up to something, which rarely boded well for the men in her life.

  “Geoffrey, darling, do sit down,” she began, indicating the antique caramel settee across from her. “It strains my neck to look up at you so.”

  “I should like to do more than strain your meddlesome neck,” he muttered, choosing to remain standing despite the ache that now screamed down his leg. He turned his gaze to the older gentleman standing behind her. “Et tu, Brute?”

  His uncle, at least, had the grace to look chagrined. Geoffrey shook his head. Uncle Joss always had been easily led. Geoffrey knew his mother played Cassius. This conspiracy had been instigated by her.

  Joss squared his shoulders. “Now, m’boy, I must agree with your mother. It’s high time you accepted your responsibilities to this family and provided an heir.”

  Hell. So that was what this was about. Well, he wasn’t going to fall in with their scheme. He’d nip this and, after a hot meal and a night’s rest, be on his way back to London. The Poor Employment Act wasn’t going to finish writing itself, and Liverpool wanted it ready to present next month. What was more, Geoffrey had received a disturbing letter that needed to be dealt with. He itched to return to Town to investigate whether the blackmailer’s claims held any credence. The note implied that his late brother had been paying the scoundrel for his silence to protect the family, but Geoffrey couldn’t believe a Wentworth had done anything treasonous. Still, the threat needed to be neutralized.

  “Host all of the parties you want, Mother. I’ve never tied your purse strings.” He pivoted toward the door, determined to escape yet another lengthy discussion about duty. Pain flared through his back and leg. Christ, he’d very nearly given his life for duty. Yet his mother didn’t understand that. No, in her mind, duty was defined by one word—heirs. “I shall be quite tied up in Parliament for the foreseeable future, so you needn’t worry about inconveniencing me with your entertainments.”

  He’d barely stepped one booted toe into the rose-marbled hallway when her words stopped him cold.

  “It is not I, dearest, who is hosting our guests, but you.”

  Me? He scoffed for a moment before the rest hit him. Is? As in right this moment?

  The fist in his stomach tightened. The ride to Somerton Park had quite jarred his teeth loose. He’d blamed it on spring rains, but it could have been…Hell, it would have taken a legion of carriages to rut the road so deeply. He scanned the hallway.

  Where were the servants? He’d yet to see one, not even Barnes. Sure, Geoffrey had bounded up the front steps straightaway, but there were always a few maids milling about in the entryway or the main rooms, unless…

  Unless they were all busy seeing to the settlement of guests.

  He turned slowly, his only family rotating back into view. Uncle Joss’ easy smile faltered at whatever he saw in Geoffrey’s expression, but Mother’s widened with a familiar gleam that struck fear into every wealthy titled bachelor in Christendom.

  Geoffrey advanced, his boots clicking an irregular rhythm against the drawing room’s walnut floors. He prayed his suspicions were incorrect. “What have you done?”

  “Taken matters into my own hands,” his mother confirmed in a satisfied clip. She stood, her skirts swishing smartly as she retrieved a handwritten list from atop her escritoire. “I have been observing ladies of suitable age, station and character for quite some time now.” She waved the list for emphasis. “Since before you returned, even. In fact, wartime is an excellent time to judge one’s integrity, at home as well as on the battlefields. It is imperative that the future Countess of Stratford be above reproach.” She sniffed, probably expecting him to argue, as his older brother would have done were he still alive. Since Geoffrey wholeheartedly agreed with his mother on that one point, he remained silent.

  “Though I’m sad to say we’ve lost some wonderful candidates to marriage recently, there remains an excellent list from which to choose,” she finished, tapping the vellum she held with one perfectly manicured finger.

  “Absolutely.” Uncle Joss nodded, his head bobbing several times in quick succession. “I’ve even added a few names m’self. And they are all here on display, just for you.” He winked.

  Winked! As if they fully expected that Geoffrey would just fall into line, p
eruse their list of names and pick a wife at their whim. He imagined they intended him to court said wife during their little house party and propose by the end of the week.

  Bloody well not.

  Geoffrey straightened his shoulders and raised his chin, slipping into the stance that had become so natural during his military life. “I hope you have better entertainments planned for your guests than Catch an Earl by His Nose or I fear they will be sorely disappointed.” He again turned to the door, lamenting for only a moment the hot meal and good night’s rest he would have to forgo. “As I shan’t be here.”

  He strode toward the hallway, contemplating the wisdom of pushing his horse another two hours back to the nearest coaching inn. It couldn’t be helped. A man had to stand on principle, after all. He would not have a bride foisted upon him. The earldom, yes. The responsibility of bringing his family back from the brink of financial ruin after more than a decade of his brother’s negligence and reckless spending, certainly. But a bride?

  Never. Whom he married would be his choice alone. And he had very specific requirements that his mother wouldn’t possibly understand.

  “Before you leave,” his mother called out, her voice still too smug for his liking, “you should know that when I sent the invitations—marked with your seal, of course—I made sure to include the Earls of Northumb and Manchester. Oh, and Viscount Holbrooke, I believe, as well as Lord Goddard. They were thrilled to accept.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, Geoffrey halted with one foot out the door. She sent invitations using my name, my seal. By God. Were she anyone else, he’d have her thrown in Newgate. Hell, the idea sounded rather appealing at the moment. How she’d gotten her hands upon the seal when it was kept under lock and key in his study, he didn’t know. He’d have to see it moved. But now he had a more pressing problem. She’d invited powerful political allies he couldn’t afford to offend. Had she known he was actively courting the support of these particular men?

  She must have.

  He closed his eyes—embarrassed, really, at having been so outmaneuvered. His mother had managed to arrange this entire farce without even a whisper reaching him. Had he underestimated the French this badly, he’d never have survived twelve long years of war.

  As he faced her once again, Geoffrey eyed his mother with grudging respect. Her smile held, but her knuckles whitened as she gripped her list. At least she wasn’t completely sure of his capitulation. Geoffrey took some small satisfaction in that.

  Still, she’d left him no immediate choice. He knew when to admit defeat.

  “It seems, Mother, that you have won the day,” he conceded with as much grace as he could muster. He gave his relatives a curt nod and, on his third attempt, quit the room.

  Geoffrey slapped his leather gloves against his aching thigh as he climbed the grand staircase to his rooms, one thought reverberating through his mind in time with his echoing footfalls.

  But I am going to win the war.

  * * *

  Miss Liliana Claremont fixed what she hoped was an appreciative smile on her face as she viewed Somerton Park for the first time. She found the Earl of Stratford’s country home rather attractive, for a lion’s den. But then, so was the Colosseum, she imagined.

  As her aunt and cousin bustled out of the carriage, Liliana studied the imposing redbrick home. A columned templelike portico dominated the front, forceful and proud. Like the rest of the house, it annunciated the wealth and power of the Wentworth family.

  Liliana swallowed. Had she really considered what she was up against?

  “Do hurry, girls!” Her aunt Eliza’s anxious voice interrupted Liliana’s contemplations. “That infernal carriage wheel has made us terribly late. We’ll be fortunate if we have time to make you presentable before dinner.” She eyed Liliana and her own daughter, Penelope, shrewdly. “The competition for Stratford shall be fierce. It’s not often young ladies have a chance to engage him in a social setting, and you can bet those other chits have spent all afternoon turning themselves out just so.” She clucked her tongue, reminding Liliana even more than usual of a fretful hen. “We are so far behind already. First impressions, my dears, can be the difference between becoming a Lady or settling for just plain Mrs.”

  Penelope turned and gave Liliana a conspiratorial smile. Liliana tried not to squirm. Contrary to what she’d led her aunt to believe, she had only one objective in mind here at Somerton Park, and it wasn’t to lure the Earl of Stratford into marriage.

  No. She wanted to uncover the truth about her father’s murder.

  Liliana reached into the pocket of her pelisse, fingering the red wax seal of the letter that had led her here. An unfamiliar chill slithered down her spine, causing her to scan the many windows of the facade. She had the oddest feeling, as if the house itself knew why she had come and was keeping its eye on her. She gave her head a quick shake at the ridiculous thought.

  Liliana hardly noticed the elegant front hall with its Roman pillars and prominent dentil moldings, or the grand staircase, as she rushed to follow her aunt and cousin. Their excited chatter rang off the gleaming marble, but she barely heard. Instead, she struggled for breath as the band around her chest tightened with every step she took into the lair of her enemy.

  Still, a surge of excited determination shot through her. This was where she would finally unlock the mystery of her father’s death. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that those letters she’d found had been in code, but none of them had been in her father’s handwriting. She could only assume his side of the conversation was hidden somewhere else.

  An unexpected jolt of anguish stole her breath. For a moment she missed her father fiercely, pain slicing through her heart as if he’d been taken from her only yesterday. She remembered his gentle smile, his infinite patience as she’d asked him hundreds of questions about his work, about the world…about her mother. How she’d loved to listen to him talk.

  Find them at summer. His last confusing words had often plagued her thoughts. But when she’d learned the seal belonged to the house of Stratford, she’d understood what her father had been trying to tell her. Find them at summer. He hadn’t said summer, as she’d thought, but Somer. Yes, the letters she needed to crack his code were here at Somerton Park, and she had just less than two short weeks in the Wentworth house to find them.

  Maids fluttered about the airy guest room she’d share with Penelope, unpacking dresses and accoutrements to be aired and pressed. Penelope got right to work on her main contribution to the scheme. Sifting through various evening gowns of muted silk, satin and sheer muslin, she began making selections.

  Useless in matters of fashion, Liliana instead unpacked the sketch pad and pencils she planned to use to map out the house. Hers would be an organized search, one she would begin as soon as she could feasibly slip away.

  “It wasn’t easy creating the perfect ensemble for you on such short notice. Thank goodness Madame Trompeur values our business.” Pen let out an exaggerated sigh. “Mother was so excited at the prospect of your being willing to consider marriage, she didn’t bat an eye at the added cost for such quick work. It really is a shame to get her hopes up so.” She contradicted her words of censure with a grin.

  Liliana winced as her eyes traveled over the array of lustrous fabrics and winking jewels. “She really should have known better, given how vehemently I’ve eschewed every suitor she’s presented over the years. I do feel guilty about the expense, however. I intend to pay it back.” Somehow. The inheritance from her father was enough to allow her to live independently, but only if she scrimped.

  Penelope, whose back had been turned while digging through a trunk for matching slippers and gloves, straightened and looked over her shoulder. “Bah, we’re rich enough. The entertainment value Mother will get from trying to tempt you to marry will be ample repayment, I’m sure. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the rapturous look on her face when you begged her to secure you an invitation to Somerton Park. She
views this as her last chance to see you properly settled. You know it galls her that your father’s will didn’t stipulate you finding a husband. I don’t think you comprehend what you’ve let yourself in for.”

  Liliana groaned.

  Pen held a gown away from herself and eyed Liliana as though she were one of the paper dolls they’d played with as young girls, waiting to be dressed and accessorized at Penelope’s whim. “Pastels just don’t do you justice. A deep blue or a lovely aubergine would suit your darker coloring so much better.” Penelope tsked, her blond curls bouncing as she shook her head. “However, as delicate colors are all the rage this season, at least the lavender will bring out the violet in your eyes.”

  Liliana waited until the maids moved out of earshot. “I have no desire to be all the rage. I leave that to you. I just want to appear as if I’m here to catch an earl, like everyone else. I’m counting on the machinations of the other women to keep Lord Stratford adequately distracted, leaving me free to investigate.”