The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton Read online

  The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton

  Miranda Neville

  Dedication

  To my father, Edmund

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Never get into a cart with a strange man.

  Yorkshire, England, July 1820

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Celia’s mouth fell open. “Why?” she managed to articulate. Stupid question perhaps, but nothing had indicated lascivious intentions during the two or three hours since her kidnapper had picked her up in the lane, tied her up, and driven her off to this obscure moorland cottage. He’d handled her with insulting indifference.

  “I most certainly will not,” she said, gathering courage.

  She backed away from him, rubbing her wrists, still sore from the bonds he’d removed. Her head hit the sloping roof. “Ow!”

  “Do it or I’ll have to do it for you.” The man sounded more bored than threatening. He reached under his laborer’s smock and metal glinted in the dim light. “And I’ll shoot you first.” The words lacked any trace of the rustic burr which, along with the smock, had fooled her into believing him a local farmer when he offered her a lift in his cart. “Get on with it. I don’t have all day.”

  Definitely not from Yorkshire. His accents carried a hint of something far more exotic that matched his olive complexion and suggested an origin or sojourn in foreign parts. Coming from foreign parts herself, Celia would normally have been interested in conversing with him. But she hesitated to bandy words with an armed man, especially one whose pistol aimed straight at her heart. In the tiny attic, she couldn’t believe he’d miss. Raising trembling hands to the buttons of her pelisse, she summoned her most ferocious scowl, with the hope of making herself repulsive.

  At first it seemed her grimace had the opposite of the desired effect. His eyes held a hungry gleam as they fixed on her bosom.

  “Give me that.” He held out his free hand. With relief and reluctance she offered him the cloth reticule that hung from her left wrist. “That’s right. Now the coat.” The serviceable gray garment slid from her shoulders. “Lay it on the floor there. Do you need help with the buttons of your gown?”

  Celia shook her head. A governess dismissed for moral turpitude does not merit the attentions of a maid. She’d dressed herself that morning, in undergarments and a dress that could be fastened without assistance.

  She kept a wary eye on the kidnapper, though she couldn’t imagine the act of rape would be conducted in such a nonchalant atmosphere. Robbery seemed more likely his motive, not that her clothes were worth much. Keeping the barrel of the gun trained on her, he loosened the laces of the reticule and shook its contents onto the rough floor: the miscellaneous clutter of a traveling lady and the princely sum of fourteen pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence. Princely to her, anyway. It represented her entire worldly worth.

  Princely enough for her abductor too. He gave a little grunt of satisfaction as he squatted to gather up the notes and coins, stuffed them into a pocket of his breeches, and the other things back in the reticule.

  By now she’d unbuttoned her dress but couldn’t bring herself to remove it. “Off with it,” he said. “And the rest. Shoes, stockings, and whatever’s underneath.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to leave you for a while and I don’t want you escaping. You should be safe up here, but if you managed to get out I reckon you’ll think twice about wandering off over the moors naked.”

  Reassured that violation was not to be her immediate fate—for once she could be glad she wasn’t the kind of woman who drove men to madness—she did as bidden until she reached the last layer. Saving on cloth, she made her shifts short. Showing her knees to this man was bad enough. Celia couldn’t bring herself to expose her breasts and other private parts.

  “Please,” she said, hating to have to beg. “Let me keep this on.”

  He looked her up and down with, she feared, a grain more interest than he’d previously displayed.

  “Please.” She crossed one arm over her chest, the other lower, in a vain effort to protect her modesty. “Please don’t make me take this off. I’d never go outside dressed in so little.”

  Whether from pity, or conviction that the cheap linen had little value, he agreed. He made her gather up the rest of her clothing and lay it over his free arm.

  “I’ll be back later,” he said from the ladder as he climbed down into the cottage below. He paused before he disappeared from sight, looked her up and down. She hugged herself closer and pressed her thighs together. “You know, you’re not so bad after all. Maybe we’ll have time for a little fun before.” She could guess what kind of fun he meant, but before what?

  The swinging hatch closed and she heard the wooden bolt driven home. Celia Seaton was alone. She no longer had employment, a future, a reputation, or a penny to call her own. All that remained was a too-short shift and a healthy indignation.

  She heard him banging around below as she took stock of her surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. Sunlight leached in through a spot in the roof where a tile had broken. Lucky it wasn’t raining, or perhaps not. She was thirsty and her stomach rumbled. And very hot, even in her scanty garment. She knelt and lowered her ear to the floor, the better to discover if her captor had left.

  Instead she detected the approach of hoof beats outside, followed shortly by a knock at the door below, an unintelligible exchange of male voices. Then a thud and more sounds she couldn’t interpret. No more voices. A few minutes later horses—more than one—leaving.

  She turned her attention to the floor of crude beams with a plastered ceiling below. She could probably break through the plaster, but the beams were spaced too closely for her to slide through them. During her investigation her fingers encountered a familiar object that had fallen from her reticule and escaped the thief’s notice.

  It was made of silver and worth something, probably a pound or two. More important, the baby’s rattle had been her mother’s before it was hers and was dear to Celia’s heart. Grasping its handle she brought it to her ear and shook it. It didn’t sound quite right, making a dull clunk instead of a lively clatter. She found a new dent in the always battered old toy. The lack of noise together with dark tarnish accounted for the thief’s failure to notice it.

  Since it was the only thing she possessed that belonged to either of her parents, the serendipitous discovery gave her heart and strengthened her determination not to wait around to be raped, and whatever unknown horror came afterward.

  The
re must be a way out of the attic.

  Tarquin Compton hated summer.

  Most of all he hated summer in the country.

  London might be hot, dusty, and malodorous but at least the familiar streets surrounding Piccadilly were paved. The back roads of northern Yorkshire, the location of his seldom-visited estate, tended to be mired in mud. Instead of handsome terraces and well-dressed women there was nothing better to look at than rustic cottages, stone walls, and endless flocks of noisy, smelly sheep.

  But everyone left London for the summer. Not literally of course. Most of the million or more souls who called the great city home remained there. Only the rarified precincts of Mayfair and St. James’s were silent and neglected in the hot months. Alas, despite the influence he’d achieved over the inhabitants of those quarters, Tarquin hadn’t yet been able to dissuade the English aristocracy from their underlying preference for country life.

  Only one of his intimates felt as he did: Lord Hugo Hartley. Fond as Tarquin was of his octogenarian great-uncle, he was a little wary of him at the moment. A month earlier Hugo had ambushed him.

  It started innocently enough, over brandy at the Burgundy Club and a comfortable chat about Tarquin’s latest rare bibliographic acquisition. He laughed off Hugo’s contention that Tarquin’s passion for poetry proved him a romantic.

  “There’s nothing,” he protested, “remotely romantic about my relations with women.”

  Instead of the usual gently deprecatory remark about Tarquin’s latest mistress, Hugo suggested that, at the age of twenty-seven, it was time he married. Tarquin couldn’t have been more astonished if the elderly dandy had suggested he wear a coat made of homespun. Though it wasn’t something they ever discussed, his uncle, to put it politely, had no interest in females.

  “Do you imagine it is by choice that I never married?” Hugo asked.

  “I assumed . . .”

  “I could have. Most of those who share my tastes do. But I discovered early on that I was incapable of performing with a woman. It didn’t seem fair to wed a lady and have her discover she was doomed to a barren bed.”

  Tarquin couldn’t think what to say. He regarded Hugo almost as a father and this was not the kind of thing one wanted to hear from a parent. Or anyone else.

  “Eighty-two years is a long time to live alone with no lover, no companionship, and no children.” The old man’s voice sounded bleak, so different from his customary mellow tones.

  “You always seemed happy.” Never had it occurred to Tarquin that Hugo, who possessed such joie de vivre and generosity of spirit, might be lonely.

  “I’ve led a good life. I enjoy society and my collections. But the greatest joy came quite late in my life: your companionship. You are like the son I could never have.”

  It took all Tarquin’s control not to shift in his chair at this uncomfortable exchange. “All I wanted was to make you proud by attempting to equal you in the art of elegance.”

  “And in that, my boy, you have amply succeeded. But now I think it’s time for you to set your sights elsewhere. I don’t want to see you grow into a middle-aged exquisite with a taste for dirty books.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I’d like to see you happy with a family of your own before I die.”

  Tarquin never forgot the debt of gratitude he owed his uncle. Unable to resist Hugo’s plea, Tarquin agreed to consider a match. A particular match with a lady who, on the face of it, was perfect for him.

  And then immediately left town.

  Standing invitations and the best spare bedchambers awaited him at a dozen country houses. While Belvoir, Blenheim, Osterley, and other aristocratic mansions could hardly be described as rustic, their surroundings were nevertheless rural.

  Tarquin hated rural, but since rural was his only option, he heeded the pricking of his dormant conscience and returned to his ancestral acres. His land agent thought Tarquin might be able to head off an expensive lawsuit threatened by a quick-tempered neighbor. And since the litigious fellow was away from home visiting his daughter, Tarquin had to undertake another thirty-mile journey to settle the business.

  He rode off with a sense of relief. Revesby Hall, which he’d visited but a handful of times since his parents’ deaths, had a gloomy air, mocking the memories of his childhood there. He trotted up the steep drive and at the crest of the hill, just before descending out of sight, he glanced over his shoulder. The house, a solid, unpretentious mansion, looked just the same; the neglected grounds, once his mother’s joy, did not. His parents had loved to stroll together in the gardens, arm in arm, surrounded by their children and dogs.

  Tarquin turned his eyes to the road ahead and kicked his horse to a canter. His spirits rose as he rode away, shaking off disquieting recollections of happier times and the guilt of the absentee landlord.

  Since England was enjoying an unusually fine summer, the continuing sunshine had dried up the mud. His lightweight pantaloons, made from a special knit cloth secretly developed by his tailor, were far better suited to the unwonted heat than old-fashioned leather. Nevertheless, after twenty miles Tarquin was glad to stop at an inn to refresh his mount and himself. Following a meal of cold beef, bread and cheese, and a pint of home brew, he sauntered out into the high street of the small market town. The swinging sign of a bookshop attracted him.

  Tarquin collected exceptional editions of English poetry and unusual erotic works, most but not all of them French. He didn’t expect any astounding rarities from a country bookseller, neither did he find them. One small volume caught his eye, a slim octavo with the title of The Genuine and Remarkable Amours of the Celebrated Author Peter Aretin. It was doubtless a bawdy novel of dubious literary merit that would help him wile away an hour or two before he slept tonight. He stowed it in the inner pocket of his coat and continued on his journey.

  Two hours later he was hot, tired, and hopelessly lost. At some point he’d taken a wrong turn. Cursing the ambiguity of his directions, he tried to retrace his steps but the effort only led him deeper into deserted moorland. Finally he sighted a small stone cottage, probably a shepherd’s abode. Hoping the lack of smoke from the chimney was attributable to the warmth of the day, he steered his horse along the rough track, dismounted, and knocked at the door.

  That was the last thing he remembered.

  Chapter 2

  While telling the strict truth is always commendable, slight prevarication may be excused when confronted with a half-naked man.

  The wooden hatch refused to budge but a rough door in the gable at one end of the attic looked more promising, if only the aperture wasn’t nailed shut or bolted from without. After a hard shove with all her weight the door fell open, and she almost fell out. It was some six or seven feet to the ground below but Celia could swing herself down. As she calculated the best method of descent she made a vow.

  Since the day she’d awaited her father in Madras and instead received the news of his death, she’d done her best to please people and live according to the rules of English society. And at every point, through no fault of her own, she’d failed. By coincidence her twenty-first birthday was just two days past. Not that it meant much, since there was no one to whom she belonged or owed obedience. But she embraced the symbolism of her majority. From now on Celia Seaton was going to exist on her terms without bending to the whims and rules of others.

  And the first person she’d foil would be her kidnapper, who thought she’d never dare escape clad so scantily. Had he left her naked, he might have been correct. But in her new mood of defiance she wasn’t going to worry about showing her legs. She got down on her hands and knees, took a deep breath, and prayed.

  She made it down with nothing more than a scratch or two and a small rip near the hem of her garment. It was as well no one could see, because in the process of escape she had bared just about all of her rear. With luck she’d find something inside the cottage to cover her.

  The door to the humble structure was blocked, by a body.
The body of a man lying unconscious, wearing nothing but breeches and a pair of riding boots. It had been some years since Celia had seen the bare torso of a grown man, and never a white man. He was pale, as befit a man who was always dressed up to his neck, but the smattering of dark hair, covering the chest and descending in a vee over his flat stomach, didn’t disguise the fact that the skin covered well-formed muscles. This interesting masculine form distracted her only a few seconds from the astonishing fact that she knew him.

  And although he was one of several men who had bedeviled her life, she did not actually wish him dead.

  Kneeling on the ground she set her fingers to his temple and found a pulse. “Mr. Compton,” she said. “Mr. Compton, wake up. Are you well?”

  Nothing. She rested her head on his chest. Judging by the strength of his heartbeat, Mr. Tarquin Compton would live to cause further distress to awkward arrivals on the London marriage mart. She supposed she’d better try to revive him. And much as she detested the creature, she was curious to discover why the ton’s most fashionable gentleman lay half-naked next to a deserted Yorkshire cottage.

  She couldn’t think of a less probable milieu for a man adored and feared by London’s ladies for his exquisite taste and poisonous tongue. She’d been the victim of the latter.

  Like every other girl, she’d yearned for a word of approval from a man who could make or break a reputation. She’d admired the supreme elegance of his figure, his clever hawkish face that made softer and fairer men seem clumsy and commonplace. And as a nervous aspirant to the beau monde, from her stance on the fringes of the ballrooms she’d envied the way he seemed not to give a damn for the opinions of others.