Page 13 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

“Then see that she never learns. Settle money upon the women and send them away,” Templeton said coldly. “You owe them nothing beyond silence and distance.”

“I have considered it more than once,” Sebastian said, finishing his drink in a single swallow. “But money and distance are merely a cleaner manner of tossing them to the wolves.”

Grantham tipped his head back, thinking. “If you help them and your mother discovers it, the wound will be cruel. If society discovers it, every gossip in London will delight in proving that the courtship and marriage once envied by half the ton were a sham.”

“I have considered every possibility, including the inevitable scandal,” Sebastian said. “Society is never so content as when it feeds upon someone else’s pain and ruination.”

Radbourne tilted his head. “What have you decided?”

“Nothing that survives more than an hour.” Sebastian set his glass down and looked into the fire as if it promised answers. “When I look at them, I feel anger, not affection. Yet I cannot cast them out. Do I give them money and send them away? Establish dowries and trust that respectable men will overlook their birth? Hide them in the country and purchase the servants’ silence? Every solution feels either inadequate or dangerous.”

Templeton regarded him over the rim of his glass. “Attend to one fact: you are not required to do anything for them. Your only duty is to Lady Raine and Lady Caroline. To protect your family, you may let the wolves have them.”

Cold, ruthless sentiments, yet Sebastian had thought the same more than once. He reached for the decanter, refilled his glass, and lifted it to his mouth. He let the brandy warm his tongue and granted himself the charity of ten heartbeats.

Radbourne sighed. “What will you do?”

I have moved them for the moment to one of my townhouses in Russell Square and given the household a plausible story. The servants will hold their tongues. A modiste will fit them out with proper wardrobes. After that, I have no damn clue what to do with them. The solicitor my father employed to manage the arrangement pretends there is no provision. My father could be careless in some things; with money, he was exact. If he loved them as his letters implied, he would not have left them to the wind. Something is missing, or mislaid, or misused.”

Templeton leaned back. “Dowries could be settled discreetly and quietly. Five thousand pounds apiece would make a rector’s son see the sun with new eyes and might tempt a conscientious second son from a respectable family. Find a woman of impeccable standing to present them, and their birth need not be the first fact society learns.”

Sebastian turned the notion over and found it wanting. Such an entanglement was not feasible, and he felt no call to involve himself so deeply in their lives.

Grantham poured himself a drink, a faint frown settling upon his features as his hazel eyes darkened in thought. “Their illegitimacy will narrow their prospects sharply. No gentleman of consequence will risk the connection unless their relation to the Earl of Raine is known and publicly acknowledged.”

“And that will never come to pass,” Sebastian said, his tone edged with chilling indifference. “The connection must never become public. “Which means I must sever whatever connection exists between us without delay.”

The door opened after a discreet knock, and Madam Rebecca drifted in, red silk peignoir like smoke about her, diamonds caught in her hair as if she had shaken them down from the ceiling. Her smile was perfect.

“My lords,” she said, sinking into a sensual curtsy. “How delightful to find you all assembled.”

“Never say you have been pining for us,” Grantham replied, rising to kiss her hand. “Does this mean you will at last fall into my bed and favor me with your charms? I have long wished to tempt and corrupt you.”

“Ah,” Madam Rebecca murmured, her striking gray-blue eyes gleaming with wicked amusement. “How shocking that you imagine there remains anything for me to learn, Grantham. Even if there were, a young pup such as you could not teach it.”

“How you wound me,” he drawled, amusement glinting in his hazel gaze. “I am told you have never yet been brought to the pinnacle, that every challenger has failed abysmally. I could have you crying out within ten minutes. What am I saying? Five.”

Faint color touched Rebecca’s cheeks, and for a moment Sebastian was bemused. Was she blushing?

“I have no wish to indulge your flirtation, Grantham,” she drawled. “Find someone more susceptible to your particular species of wicked charm. It will never succeed with me. I have never found a sybarite half so fascinating as he finds himself.”

Yet from where Sebastian sat, he could see the quick, betraying flutter of her pulse at the delicate curve of her throat.

Sebastian found that very interesting indeed.

Grantham, for his part, regarded her with the keen focus of a hawk, while Rebecca maintained a composure her pulse had already betrayed.

“How I admire a challenge,” he murmured. “I confess myself an ardent devotee of luxury and carnal indulgence. I had thought you might relish reforming me of my wicked ways.”

She withdrew her hand from Grantham’s grasp and turned away without answering his provocation.

“Raine, I was hoping you’d come bearing good news about our little gallery. It is fair to say you are one of my most beautiful patrons, and more than a few of my girls have spoken fondly of your… endowment. I think many ladies would be delighted to behold such exquisite art.”

“Listen to you, attempting to rouse my jealousy,” Grantham drawled. “It very nearly succeeded, which I find warrants some introspection.”

Rebecca ignored him, though the flush in her cheeks deepened. “There will be veils, masks, and shadows. No faces revealed unless a gentleman wishes to be so bold. The patrons will only see what I allow. It will do wonders for your legend.”

“His legend can withstand a dull season,” Radbourne said, laughing.