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?
