A Summer Seduction by Candace Camp Page A

fireplace, warming the evening coolness, and Damaris’s maid was at the dresser, laying out her silver-backed brushes.
    “Oh, ma’am!” she cried, turning and seeing Damaris. “I’mever so glad to see you. I was worried when you didn’t come home!” She took Damaris’s hand and pulled her toward the vanity table. “Here, let’s take off those clothes and get you a bath. Then you’ll feel more the thing.”
    Damaris sank down onto the stool in front of the mirror, and Edith went to work taking the pins from Damaris’s hair. With a sigh of relief, Damaris closed her eyes and gave herself up to her maid’s competent ministrations.
     
    “Ah! Excellent!” Myles took another sip of his brandy and leaned his head back against the chair.
    Alec sank into the chair across from his friend and stretched out his long legs in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. He swirled the liquid idly in his glass. “I thought we were never going to get away from the countess. Lord, what a night.”
    Myles grinned. “Yes. I have to tell you, your grandmother frightens me silly.”
    Alec chuckled. “You are not the only one. She’s terrorized Castle Cleyre ever since I can remember. However, she likes you, so you needn’t worry.”
    “Good. I should hate to be in her bad graces.”
    “Well, I know that state well, and I can tell you that it is not pleasant. I suspect she will freeze me for the next fortnight to demonstrate her displeasure.”
    “Does the countess dislike Mrs. Howard?” Myles asked, surprised. “She seems a most agreeable and refined woman to me.”
    “She does not know Mrs. Howard,” Alec told him. “And that is even worse, in Grandmother’s eyes. Worse, ratherthan allowing the countess an opportunity to grill the lady on her ancestors and life history, I whisked Mrs. Howard off. I am sure she suspects there’s something deeply smoky about the woman. No lady, to the countess’s way of thinking, would get herself carried off by ruffians.”
    “It is a demmed peculiar thing,” Myles commented. “Who do you suppose those men are? Why were they after Mrs. Howard?”
    “Beyond the obvious?” Rawdon shook his head. “I have no idea. She said she’d never seen either one of them and had no idea why they attacked her. Clearly, she would stir any man’s lustful nature, but still…”
    “Not the sort of thing one would think would happen in Mayfair, particularly in daylight. Didn’t she say she’d just stepped out of her carriage?”
    “Yes, and she had only to walk a few feet to her door. I think it is clear that they were lying in wait for her. It was no happenstance.”
    “What do you plan to do?” Myles asked.
    “I’ll set my Bow Street Runner on it. See what he can find out.”
    “You are the only gentleman I know who has his own Bow Street Runner,” Myles pointed out.
    “There are those who would dispute terming me a gentleman.” Rawdon smiled faintly. “The problem is that, other than seeing she doesn’t go out without an escort, I am not sure what to do.”
    “It might be best if Mrs. Howard returned to Chesley,” Myles suggested.
    “Mm.” Rawdon went back to studying his drink.
    Myles was silent for a moment, watching his friend, then said casually, “Mrs. Howard is certainly a beautiful woman.”
    “Yes.”
    “I was surprised to learn she was in London. Did you, ah, know she was coming here?”
    “Ran into her at the theater the other night.”
    “I see. And when you introduced her to Lady Genevieve, she decided to invite Mrs. Howard to her ball?”
    “Yes.”
    “Hmm. Odd, Lady Genevieve taking to someone quickly like that.”
    Rawdon glanced up and met Myles’s twinkling eyes. “Yes, isn’t it?”
    He stood up and strolled over to the liquor cabinet to retrieve the decanter, then returned to replenish both their drinks.
    “Rawdon…” Myles began when his friend sat down again. “I’m beginning to think that you are developing a tendre for our Mrs.