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CHAPTER 1

The same afternoon, about an hour later

Lady Elizabeth Rosamund Burke stood at the window, peering down into the street from behind a lapis-blue damask curtain.

Nobody faced down her mother. Nobody.

Except this man.

That was to say, he'd tried. If she hadn't overheard the conversation herself, she might have believed him daft, for all he was her dear friend Grace's cousin.

Lord Bennington, the man who had just seen her mother and been told he'd be marrying her ward to pay his debt, was in the street giving a coin to the scrubby boy who'd minded his horse. His expression was intensely savage. Apparently, the conversation had not gone as he'd expected.

Initially he'd refused, of course. And vehemently.

In the end, Lady Rushworth had threatened a suit and finally extracted a reluctant promise that he would marry the girl.

A suit meant scandal. If there was anything Eliza had learned about the Landons, it was that living in the dirty wake of the late patriarch's sullied name had driven each and every one to avoid scandal like a prince avoids soot.

With that, her mother had won. The earl had agreed to her terms. He would allow himself to be coerced into marriage.

On the sofa, Eliza's cousin Christiana — her mother's ward — sat weeping quietly. Her spectacles sat in her lap while she dabbed at her eyes with a prettily embroidered handkerchief. "She can't mean to do this to me. She can't. I couldn't bear it."

Eliza turned, hands twisting together in helplessness. They hadn't been meant to hear. It had been a private conversation behind closed doors. But Eliza wasn't sorry they'd listened.

If they hadn't, they wouldn't have learned of Lady Rushworth's plans ... Best not to think about that. They knew. And they could prepare.

"We'll think of something."

The words felt hollow. Eliza hadn't the first notion of what it was she might do. But it was imperative she do something. Her cousin's life and heart were too important, too dear. She deserved all the chances at love that Eliza could never have for herself.

When he'd been dying, Eliza's father had begged her to take care of Christiana. Eliza had promised.

Seeing how terribly Lady Rushworth treated her made Eliza hurt. For, of course, both of them — Eliza and her mother — knew something about Christiana that Christiana didn't know about herself. She wasn't Eliza's cousin, not really. In truth, they were half sisters. And though it was no fault of Christiana's, Lady Rushworth would never forgive her.

A thousand times Eliza had thought about revealing the sordid facts. A thousand times she'd bitten her tongue.

As she often found herself doing in odd moments, Eliza searched her companion for any hint of resemblance between them. But she and Christiana could not have been more different. Where she was pale and dark, with straight walnut tresses and ivory skin, Christiana was all wild red curls and vibrant green eyes. Where Eliza's figure and height were average and unassuming, Christiana was short, buxom, unabashedly feminine, and — when her heart wasn't being pounded by her guardian's mallet — bright and sparkling.

Normally, she was full of smiles and good cheer. To see her in so miserable a state tore Eliza's heart in two.

It would do no good to assure the girl that the man didn't appear quite so bad as all that. And not because he was tall and cut a fine figure — the sort one was more likely to read about in certain novels than see for oneself in daily life. The way he'd held his ground, the way he had persisted in the face of certain failure, the way he hadn't answered her mother's vitriol by lashing out in turn ...

Two years ago, Christiana had given her heart to a soldier. Tom. They'd loved one another from afar, waiting for her to be of age before they married.

Unfortunately, Lady Rushworth had discovered Christiana's secret correspondence. She'd demanded that Christiana give up the man forever. But Christiana had refused. By marrying her off to Lord Bennington, Lady Rushworth meant to irrevocably part the lovers.

There had to be something Eliza could do to stop this. Her cousin was naught but a few days from her twenty-first birthday. Her prospects couldn't be ruined, not now. Not when she was so close to having everything she wanted.

Lady Rushworth despised the Landons. Despised them with every fiber in her body. Lord Bennington was Jeremy Landon, the nephew who'd inherited his wastrel uncle's title, estate, and debts.

True, marrying Christiana to Lord Bennington meant being connected with the Landons. But, by her mother's logic, it would be far more disgraceful having her niece elope with someone who, as she'd said, stinks like the commoner he is.

After overhearing Lady Rushworth's plans for Christiana, their one hope had been that Lord Bennington would refuse the request. He had. Steadfastly. Until Lady Rushworth had threatened him.

Eliza had to do something. She couldn't see her cousin suffer like this. She could not.

But what?

The answer didn't come until a few hours after she'd gone to bed.

Or an answer, at any rate. It probably wasn't enough. But to sit idly by and let this happen without trying anything — however desperate — was out of the question.

Eliza lit a candle and silently crept through the house, pausing at her cousin's door to press her ear against the wood panel. No sounds of crying. That was something, at least.

In the sitting room, Eliza sat at the escritoire and withdrew a clean sheet of paper, opened the inkwell, and gently dipped the nib of her pen in the black ink.

She paused, considering how to address him. Was this formal correspondence? Unlikely. It was beyond the pale for her to be writing to a man to whom she was not related.

My lord,

You must not, under any circumstances, marry Lady Rushworth's niece. Doing so would be a terrible mistake.

Frowning, she paused. That wouldn't be enough to convince him to leave off. But what else could she say?

She underlined not once. Then again.

Still not enough.

She bent and scratched the pen against the paper some more.

Let me assure you, her heart belongs to another. Call off this scheme at once. A small scandal is nothing compared to two lives being forever ruined. Marrying her ladyship's ward would be the very worst thing you could do for yourself or her. Please, my lord, I beg you — call off this foolishness. Allow her to make the love match she deserves.

There. Now the question was whether or not she should sign her name.

No. Absolutely not.

But then, how could he take assurances from an unnamed person?

It would have to do. To write such a letter at all was an enormous risk. Signing her name would be far too incriminating. Even were she not found out, he would know. A man who'd agree to marry a woman to pay a debt could not be considered trustworthy.

Eliza blotted, folded the sheet, and sealed the note with a wafer.

Back in her bedchamber, she rang the bell.

"Margaret, pray forgive me." Eliza rose when the rumpled face of her sleep-worn maid appeared. "No doubt you've heard what my mother intends for Christiana."

Margaret paused a moment, seemingly unwilling to admit what everyone knew — that the servants gossiped worse than fishwives on a Monday. At last, she muttered something circumspect.

Eliza drew a breath. "What I'm asking of you — well, you have every right to say no to my request, you understand. I will not fault you."

The maid drew herself up, scowling as if suddenly altogether more alert. She was small of stature, but Lord help the man, woman, or beast who underestimated her. Ferocity, thy name was Margaret. "I'm not afraid of anything, my lady."

Luckily for Eliza, that fierceness extended to Margaret's loyalty to her mistress as well.

"It's the dead of night. Are you sure?"

"I'm not a fool, my lady. I know how to navigate dangers."

"Very good. I need this delivered to Lord Bennington." She handed over the note. "I need it delivered to his hands and nobody else's, and I need assurance that he reads it."

A note like this couldn't be left to languish on a pile of unopened post. Or, worse, be read by someone in the earl's employ.

At her dressing table, Eliza dug through the banknotes in her box of pin money until she found several large coins at the bottom. "One is for you. Spend the rest as you must, to see the task completed. Anything left you may keep."

When Margaret had gone, Eliza slept, but fitfully. Various scenarios of how the earl might react to the letter coiled through her mind again and again, bringing with them sharp turns of emotion. One minute she was certain of success. The next, certain of failure.

By first light, she'd had quite enough and tried to amuse herself with a book.

She jumped at the sound of her door opening. Christiana stood there, her face red and swollen with tears. She sniffed. "I thought you might be awake."

Eliza stood and opened her arms for her cousin. "Come here."

Christiana settled in the embrace, tears flowing freely, soaking the shoulder of Eliza's night rail.

At last, she pulled back and wiped her face. "I won't be able to bear it. I won't. I can't be parted from Tom, I can't. Whenever I think of that horrid old earl ..." Her speech dissolved into incomprehensible sounds as crying overtook her once again.

If Eliza had anything to say about it, her cousin wouldn't have to marry "that horrid old earl" — even though to Eliza, who was six and twenty herself, Lord Bennington didn't seem so old.

She dug her teeth into her lip, repeating a silent prayer that her note had reached the man by now — that he'd reconsidered, seen the folly of letting Lady Rushworth control him, and would appear on their doorstep by breakfast to call the whole thing off.

"We'll find a way." Eliza spoke from the depths of her soul. Somehow she would see to it this wedding did not happen. "You have my promise. You won't marry him."

Christiana shook her head. "Tom and I should run away to Scotland. That's what we should have done in the first place. Or to America."

"No. It won't come to that." Being driven from the lives they led and loved because of one person's distaste for their union didn't seem right. "We'll find a way out — a proper way out."

"How did you endure living when ..." Christiana trailed off, giving Eliza a careful look.

There was no question as to what her cousin was referring, though nobody in the house but Lady Rushworth ever dared broach the subject.

Once, a long time ago, Eliza had been engaged. Now it seemed like that life had been lived by someone else and she'd only stood on the side watching. "You mean when I lost Captain Pearson?"

Christiana gave a shy nod.

Oh, but her situation did not compare to her cousin's. Eliza had discovered for herself the foolishness of thinking she could ever be loved by a man.

The burning shame at the remembrance came flooding back, as if the engagement had ended but yesterday.

Used, Captain Pearson had spat before walking out of her life forever. Ruined. No man is going to want a whore like you.

In one regard, Eliza was utterly alone — always had been, always would be. She couldn't tell anyone what she'd done. Not again. She'd tried once, with her former beloved, thinking that she owed her future husband the truth about her lack of virginity.

Thank all that was holy she'd told him while they were still merely engaged. If she had told him after they'd married, who knew what misery he might have made her life. The man had a vindictive streak. For her transgression, he might have punished her all the rest of her days.

But she was saved the trouble of having to answer by Margaret's appearance. The maid's significant look sent a jolt through Eliza.

Eliza returned her attention to Christiana. "You return to bed, my dear, and try to sleep."

"There is no way I shall ever be able to sleep again. Not until I know I won't have to marry him."

"I promise you that won't happen."

"But what can you do to prevent it?" Christiana's eyes filled with tears.

"Everything in my power." She prayed she could come up with something to uphold her pledge. "Everything."

Something in Eliza's voice must have assured the girl. That or weariness was finally having the better of her. She gave a halfhearted nod before leaving.

Margaret was scowling. Eliza didn't know what to make of the look. "Well?"

For one breathless moment, Eliza thought Margaret had failed, and her head swirled as though she might have to sit down. But from a hidden pocket in her skirts, the maid withdrew a folded message.

A reply. The paper tore as Eliza ripped the red wax seal.

Matters of the heart have always seemed to me the most foolish consideration in a match.

That was all. No signature. Not even an initial. Nothing.

Eliza wrinkled her nose. She could have sat for a year inventing possible replies to her note, and she would not have come close to considering this one.

It took a minute, but it finally dawned on her that she had written about Christiana's heart belonging to another. To that was what he'd chosen to reply?

He hadn't said he wasn't going to call off the marriage. But he hadn't said he wouldn't, either. Was she a fool to believe there might be hope?

Before she knew what she was doing, she was back at the escritoire, pen in hand.

You are wrong, my lord. Heartily wrong, and I do not beg your forgiveness in pointing this out to you. Matters of the heart are the most important consideration in marriage.

Poppycock. Eliza might once have believed in matters of the heart. Whether she did or not now, however ... The most that could be said was a part of her wanted to believe, if only for her cousin's sake.

The "horrid old earl" need not know her true mind. What mattered was that he did not marry Christiana.

Eliza's heart started beating as her anger went from a simmer to a boil. Who did this man think he was, to agree to such a preposterous notion as paying a debt by taking a bride? Such things weren't done — they simply weren't.

A fierce wave of protectiveness for Christiana washed over her. She would save her cousin. She would.

The tip of Eliza's pen split from the pressure she exerted upon it. It was not so terrible that it needed mending. It only made the lines thicker and darker, which suited her current mood perfectly.

But I do not pretend that I will sway your opinion. Indeed, that is not my object in writing to you. Matters of the heart might well be the very last consideration you might have for matrimony. They are, however, the very first consideration of the lady in question. You must respect her feelings. You owe it to both her and yourself to do so. Think of which is the greater honor — clearing out some debt or saving two people from an unwanted marriage? Clearly people matter far more than anything else. If you can't see that, and you force an unwilling woman into marriage, you'll never again be able to call yourself a gentleman. Then you can take your absurd notions of what is honorable all the way to damnation.

CHAPTER 2

Call himself a gentleman?

Jeremy was in his library where, for the second time in the last five hours, that strange messenger had called, insisted on seeing nobody but him, and delivered an unsigned note.

He crumpled the paper in his hand and tossed the ball into the empty fireplace. His pulse pounded hard enough to block out every other sound.

How dare this person say such a thing to him? His teeth clenched.

He looked back to the messenger — a small woman of about thirty, with unremarkable features, and a steely look in her narrow, unblinking eyes. "Enough of this absurd game. Tell me who sent this and tell me at once."

"You couldn't pay me enough to say, my lord."

"Is that supposed to be a hint? Is it money you want?" Her jaw set. There was a long silence.

He put his back to her and pulled out a sheet of paper.

One who hides behind the cowardice of unsigned notes has little standing where right and honorable behavior is concerned.

Four hours later, the messenger returned a third time. Jeremy sighed, pushed his empty coffee cup away, and opened his hand to receive the note.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "To Seduce A Lady's Heart"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Ingrid Hahn.
Excerpted by permission of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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