Seductive Deception

Chapter 3

Allegra said goodbye to the man she'd met that afternoon, a client of Madam Cerise's named Mr. Horatius Melville, an up-and-coming silver merchant, and set off from the Littleton Dower House to meet with her sister Louisa.

Her mind replayed last night's memory over and over, alighting on the fact that she'd nearly been caught trespassing by the new earl of Whittington. She prayed he'd somehow forgotten the whole ordeal, knowing it impossible, but hoping for it nonetheless. Lord help her if he hadn't.

Even if, she reasoned, there was no way he could identify her, she'd taken precautions against it, eliminating every possibility:

What if he noticed her hair?

She'd worn a cape and tucked her hair in a tight bun.

What if he noticed her trousers?

He'd think she was a man.

She was immediately thankful she'd borrowed a pair of trousers from Barrett.

The only possible way he could have identified her was if he had seen her red boots. And that would have been a near impossibility. Wasn't he too far away? Wasn't the light too dim to notice?

She rubbed her temples as she walked, cursing the thought. Why had she been so sure of herself?

It wasn't the first time she'd been caught in a compromising situation. She flushed at the memory, warmth seeping into her chest as she recalled the night she'd been found in the loft, wrapped up with the man she intended to marry someday.

"Here," he said, reaching for her hand, "I'll pull you up."

She took a shaky breath, her hands trembling as he stared down at her, holding his hand out.

She turned around, looked in both directions to be sure they were alone, took a deep breath and closed her eyes from a moment.

"Are you certain?"

He nodded as she held her skirts and reached for him, their hands both slick from the heat as he guided her up the ladder.

Straw, dirt, and leather mingled with sweat and musk in the stable's loft, the yellow blaze of a lantern perched on the ledge of a window, the only light, fanned out and cast shadows beneath them.

Her heart hammered in her chest, her head swimming in a haze of lust and apprehension. In her innocence, she didn't know why her whole body felt electric, pulsing with nervous excitement from the inside out. He wants me here. With him. Alone.

"What do you think?" he asked as she sat beside him, knees tucked into her chest as they watched the horses sleep below, their bellies moving up and down, as they let out an occasional nicker or whinny.

It was a capital hiding spot.

"Do you come here a good deal?"

"Only when I'm in trouble."

She laughed, but the laughter dried up as she felt his eyes on her, gleaming with something that made her stomach turn and her body tingle with awareness.

She'd always planned to marry the boy who she'd ran off to the stables with. But that was years ago, a decade or more. And her life, and likely his, had changed so dramatically that it was as if she were an entirely different person. Perhaps she was.

She kicked at a pebble with her boot, noting with irony that there was fork in the road ahead, this one tangible and physical, one way leading to home.

Allegra took her veil off and untied her mask, folding both and tucking them into her pocket, savoring the way the wind felt on her bare face.

A vision of inequity between the east end and the country couldn't be drawn much clearer than this; the sights of a setting sun on the horizon and the pleasant sounds of birds chirping and singing instead of the racket of machinery hissing and hawing, and the dense smoke and fog cascading over everything like a filmy blanket. The sweet scents of grass, baked earth and fresh water she'd bottle up and remember as they strolled past the pubs with their stale ale. But she didn't begrudge anything about returning, in fact, she always longed to come home because that's where her adopted family was.