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  Lady Clarissa’s Seduction

  Scarlett Scott

  Lady Clarissa Darlington is shocked to discover her wastrel father has gambled away the family’s meager fortune. When notorious gaming hell baron Pierce Foster arrives on her doorstep to collect payment, she’s even more shocked at the passion he awakens within her. Abandoned by her father, Clarissa falls headlong into Pierce’s arms and succumbs to his daring seduction. Her nights with him become a blur of intense desire as he brings her innocent body to life.

  But as deception threatens to tear them apart, Clarissa must uncover some long-kept secrets and decide whether or not she can entrust her heart in the hands of her lover forever.

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Lady Clarissa’s Seduction

  ISBN 9781419931932

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Lady Clarissa’s Seduction Copyright © 2010 Scarlett Scott

  Edited by Grace Bradley

  Cover art by Syneca

  Electronic book publication November 2010

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Lady Clarissa’s Seduction

  Scarlett Scott

  Chapter One

  The day her father came home at six o’clock in the morning and summoned the household staff was the day that changed Lady Clarissa Darlington’s life inextricably. She’d known their straits were dire for some time as she took note of the dwindling number of paintings in the drawing room, the mysteriously disappearing candlesticks and silver. Even her mother’s jewels had been taken from Clarissa’s own bedchamber. Credit was refused them at the butcher’s the week before, the wine merchant had been calling daily for funds owed him and an assortment of ruffians had all begun appearing at Number Thirteen Grosvenor Square, requesting audiences with her father.

  It was Daisy, her lady’s maid, who shook her awake early that morning to the terrible news of their continued fall from grace. “Lady Clarissa, you’d best rise quick and come downstairs. It’s the master!”

  Clarissa had been waltzing in the arms of a handsome earl until Daisy’s unceremonious disruption. She blinked, blinded by the candlelight shining into her eyes. “Daisy, you know we haven’t the funds to waste tapers in the morning!”

  “It’s sorry I am, my lady, but candles are the least of your worries now. Your father’s gone and dismissed the lot of us!” Daisy’s broad face reflected her worry.

  “Dismissed you?” She sat up, her bedclothes falling unheeded around her even in the chill of the morning.

  “Aye my lady, dismissed us! The maid-of-all-work has already packed up her things and left, and the footman isn’t far off. It’s dreadful, it is. He tells us we’re to leave straightaway. He hasn’t got the blunt to feed so many mouths and it’s best if we be on our way.”

  Dear God. Had it come to this? She held a hand to her heart and tried to calm its startled beats. “Every last one of you?”

  “It’s that horrible, my lady, when I’ve been with you since you were a wee little girl and I love you same as were you my own daughter. I’ve got no home to go to save for my mother’s in the East End, but I doubt I’ll even get a bed there, I do.” Daisy’s words gave way to thunderous weeping.

  Clarissa’s head began thumping. Something had to be done. She patted her maid’s back and wondered just what it was. “Help me to dress, Daisy, and I’ll speak with him.”

  * * * * *

  Her father, as it turned out, had locked himself in his study and refused to materialize. As Daisy looked on, crying with enough force to propel an indelicate stream of snot onto her bodice, Clarissa attempted to induce him to emerge.

  “Papa, I do wish you would rethink your position on the staff,” she tried. “It shall be impossible for us to run a decent household without them.”

  “Haven’t got the blunt for it,” he called back, his words slurred. “Tell that spot-faced maid of yoursh to bugger off!”

  Oh dear. Daisy gasped at his insult. It was abundantly clear he had not only been gaming all evening but had been indulging his love of whiskey as well. Before Mama’s death, the Viscount had been such a wonderful, dependable man. But grief had sent him spiraling to a dark place, turning him into a virtual stranger. Gone was the happy family she’d once known. He attended clubs all day and night, gambled on a daily basis and consorted with the worst sort of ruffians and cutthroats. He was, in short, ruining them and she had never felt more alone.

  “Papa, can you not see that Daisy, at least, should stay on?”

  “Can’t countenansh it,” he replied with a belch.

  She tried the door again. “Won’t you let me in?”

  “Nothing for it. Can’t come out now. That rotter’sh coming here thish afternoon to take all from me. You’ll have to hold him off, Clarisha. Shee if you can’t.”

  Daisy blew her nose loudly into a handkerchief. “We’re doomed, we are, all of us!”

  Clarissa held her fingers to her temples and took a calming breath. “What rotter, Papa?”

  “That bloody Pierce Foshter.”

  “Pierce Foster!” Daisy gasped. “Oh, he’s a black one. We’re well and truly done in now. I’ll go and pack my things. It’s sorry I am to say it, but you’re on your own, my lady.”

  * * * * *

  Clarissa was able to glean from her father—through the locked study door, no less—that Pierce Foster was the owner of several gaming hells, one of which, dubiously called The Painted Lady, her father had been frequenting. At The Painted Lady, there were, of course, the requisite painted ladies, whist tables and whiskey. Lots and lots of whiskey. Last evening, Pierce Foster himself had sat in on a card game and insulted her father to his face, questioning whether or not he was well enough in funds to even play. Naturally, or so Papa would have it, he had been forced to defend his honor by engaging in a game he went on to lose. While he would not let on precisely how much he’d squandered, the mere fact he was removing every servant from their house remained both troubling and telling.

  Pierce Foster was notorious in less-than-savory circles. Certainly she’d never have met him at Almack’s or even passed him on Rotten Row, but Clarissa had read of him in the scandal sheets. He was not of the fashionable set. Few members of the peerage knew him or received him unless they were in his debt.

  His immense wealth was as well known as his peccadilloes. Rumor had him gambling and buying his way through society, attempting to steal into the upper echelons. He was not a gentleman and it was said he had no less than five lady birds, one of whom was a married countess. The frantically packing Daisy suggested Clar
issa run and hide to save herself from the danger of the gaming baron’s lecherous company.

  Clarissa, however, vowed to do no such thing. Her courage would not fail her. After she exchanged tearful goodbyes with her lady’s maid, she headed to her bedchamber with great purpose, choosing her most formidable gown. Unlike many dresses from her come-out three years gone, this was a deep, dark emerald to complement her green eyes and mahogany tresses. Its décolletage was a bit lower than proper for the daytime, but she was in no position to fret over proprieties. On her neck she wore a pearl necklace, one of few precious items she’d been able to hide from her father.

  By the time a knock sounded on the front door later, she’d been pacing for the better part of an hour, rehearsing what she would say to him, how she could handle the beast and bend him to her will. When she saw Pierce Foster on the stoop, she nearly gasped. Nothing had prepared her for the power of his presence. One word instantly rose to mind.

  Dangerous.

  He was tall and strong of build with broad shoulders and lean hips. Pierce Foster possessed the body of an active Corinthian, muscled and toned, nary a hint of fat. His blond hair was too long by society’s standards, swept back from his high forehead. He had bronzed skin, even, beneath his shirt. Shockingly, he wore no cravat, only a simple white shirt and black waistcoat beneath his greatcoat, the shirt unbuttoned to reveal an improper wedge of his chest. And his face was more beautiful than any she’d ever seen on a man, starkly handsome. Lord, he was all slashing cheekbones, proud chin, sullen mouth.

  He gave a stiff bow and offered her his card. “Mr. Foster for Lord Darlington.”

  How could her greatest foe, a man so low he could have been swept from the gutters, be the most magnetic man she’d ever met? It hardly seemed fair. Best to gather her wits for the forthcoming battle and stop acting the ninny.

  “My father is indisposed,” she informed him in her frostiest accent.

  Mr. Foster smiled and he appeared, almost, the consummate gentleman. Indeed had she not known what and who he was, she may have been deceived by his confident bearing and deadly good looks. As it happened, however, she knew the man for a blackguard and an utter swindler.

  “Ah. Lady Clarissa, I presume?”

  His familiarity startled her. How had he known her name? “You presume correctly, Mr. Foster. You may have an audience with me if you like, in my father’s absence.”

  He raised a brow. “I don’t think I have any business with you, my lady.”

  She held herself with confidence feigned more than felt—she hoped he could not see through her bravado. Her stomach bottomed out like a carriage on the run from highwaymen. Her entire body turned quivery and peculiar. “I find you do have business with me, Mr. Foster. Please, may I show you to the drawing room?”

  His sensuous lips flattened and she couldn’t shake the feeling he didn’t like her for some reason. “Good of you to receive me, my lady.”

  She inclined her head with regal grace and stepped back to allow him entrance. “Indeed, though I hesitate to agree with anything you say, I should think it is good of me to do so. Particularly considering the circumstances bringing you here.”

  He towered over her as he stepped inside, quite stealing her breath. Goodness he was handsome. Still, she could not relent. He was her lower in the social order. True, her father may well be a spendthrift, a complete failure. It may be absolutely given out in the papers he was pockets to let, and yet, the man before her remained beneath her by drastic levels. The very act of her meeting him sans chaperone would ruin her reputation if anyone knew. Thanks to their reduced means, there were no servants to speak of it. Not even their esteemed butler Dryden had been able to stay on without payment any longer than he’d already done. He and Daisy had hailed a post-chaise together.

  She took Foster’s coat from him in silence, noting he wore no hat when every true gentleman would. Another strike against him. Unspeaking, she gave him her back and led him to the drawing room. Meeting a man like Pierce Foster in close quarters in the elegant—though perhaps squandered and stripped—confines of one’s own drawing room left something to be desired. He was, she suspected, a formidable opponent.

  “Please seat yourself.” Clarissa perched on a settee. “I would offer you tea, but I fear it’s too dear at the moment. We haven’t any. Nor do we have a lady to prepare the water.” A bitter smile curved her lips as she met his dark blue gaze.

  He sat in a winged chair opposite her. “I’m sorry for your reduced state, my lady, but I feel compelled to inform you it is not my fault you are forced to it. That honor is reserved for your errant father.”

  She was surprised, she realized, he spoke so well. Even his accent hinted at a fine man. He steepled his large hands and watched her with unnerving calm.

  “I will thank you to keep from insulting Papa. You are hardly one to look down upon him, living as you must.”

  He sighed, sounding impatient. “My lady, if you don’t mind, could we have it out? What is the purpose of this meeting?”

  “To address the matter of my father’s debt.” She tightened her lips and fought for inner strength. “I am prepared to part with a number of personal items, this necklace for instance, and some diamond brooches left to me by my mother. I hope they will satisfy what is owed you.”

  He let out a bark of laughter. “Forgive me, Lady Clarissa, but your baubles cannot hold a candle to thirty thousand pounds.”

  Thirty thousand pounds? She gasped. Surely her father had not lost such an impossible amount to this man? Surely she misheard, or Mr. Foster was lying?

  “I take it he hasn’t told you the amount. You’re wondering if I am to be believed, I can see.”

  Her mind spun. She flew to her feet, wringing her hands in her distress. “There are other things of value here, Mr. Foster. Some paintings, some silver. Surely there will be enough…”

  He rose as well. “Your fripperies here do not add up to thirty thousand. Nor does this house, which has been mortgaged to the hilt by your scoundrel papa.”

  She turned away from him to pace the length of the room. Were they to be homeless as well as destitute and ruined? At least there was the country seat down in Surrey, though it was a drafty, tumbling down castle not really fit for living. “How are we to pay you, then, Mr. Foster? Do you mean to call in the notes?”

  As she asked the last, she spun about to face him only to find he had followed her and now stood inappropriately close. She could discern a faint shadow of golden whiskers peppering his jaw. The man positively emanated something primitive that called to her body, awakening it from a twenty-year-long slumber. Her stomach swirled, her breasts tingled, and the most wonderful ache began deep within her. Never in her life had she been so aware of herself as a woman, attuned to her pulse, her hitched breath, the longing for something scandalous.

  “Convince me not to, princess,” he muttered, putting his hands on her waist and suddenly yanking her against him. Every inch of their bodies melded together in harmony. He was hard to her soft, the contact at once shocking and pleasing though her mind warned her she must not bend to his seduction. It would be sheer folly. Ruin.

  Before her conscience could offer up further protest, his mouth claimed hers. Their lips fused in a searing joining. His kiss was certainly not the gentlemanly peck she’d experienced with former suitors. His kiss claimed. It demanded. It shook her to her core. She clutched his shoulders, pressing closer to him, opening her mouth beneath the onslaught. His tongue swept into her mouth, shocking and exciting her. Heat settled low in her belly, moisture pooling between her thighs.

  His hands slid around her to cup her bottom, kneading her sensitive flesh and positioning her so his cock sank into the folds of her gown. It was appallingly improper, and somehow she savored every sensation he evoked within her. She had always been a dutiful daughter, supportive of Papa even as she watched him become a man who was foreign to her. Now something within her cried out that surely she deserved this fleeti
ng moment of adventure.

  Pierce Foster had made her into another woman, a wanton who thrilled in his every caress. His inferiority mattered naught, nor did the money her father owed him. She wanted this man as she had wanted nothing else in her life. Her skin ached with it, her body craved it.

  He tore his lips from hers and rained hungry kisses down the side of her neck, feasting on her bare skin. “So sweet,” he whispered. He shocked her by licking a trail of fire along her collarbone. “So delicious.” One of his hands left her bottom to palm her breast, swirling the fabric of her dress and chemise over a taut nipple. “Mmm.” He yanked her bodice down, leaving her breasts exposed. When his head lowered and he sucked an aching bud into his mouth, she cried out.

  He glanced up at her, a wicked smile curving his lips. “Like the finest summer’s berry waiting for me to pluck. Do you like this, princess?”

  Heaven help her, but she did. Her harsh breathing made it impossible to speak.

  His teeth tugged again with painful pleasure. “Do you like this, Lady Clarissa? Tell me you like what I do to you.”

  “I like what you do to me,” she said finally on a low moan. “Please, Mr. Foster…”

  “Call me Pierce,” he ordered, traveling to her other breast and laving the tender peak.

  “Pierce, please.”

  “What do you want, princess?” He worked her breast with his free hand. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I don’t know,” she confessed. She wasn’t entirely ignorant of what passed between a man and a woman. After all, she heard the servants gossiping and had once accidentally gotten her hands on a book in her father’s library containing naughty engravings. But she wasn’t certain of the particulars. She wanted him to touch her everywhere. Was that possible? Was it something one asked of a man?

  “I’ll tell you what I want, then.” He dropped a lingering kiss on her lips. “I want to toss up your skirts and satisfy this ache between us.”