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  Strictly Seduction

  Shayla Black

  writing as Shelley Bradley

  Copyright 2002 Shelley Bradley LLC

  Edited by Chloe Vale

  Published by Shelley Bradley LLC

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the work of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  London – March, 1834

  “My late husband’s bills have been settled? Did I hear you correctly, Mr. Hockelspeck?” Madeline Sedgewick asked, resisting the urge to wring her hands.

  “You did.”

  To assure herself he hadn’t told some terrible joke, Maddie opened her reticule with deceptive calm and withdrew a few bills—the bulk of her remaining funds. “I need not pay you this installment, then?”

  “It’s quite unnecessary. As of yesterday, you owe nothing.”

  Jubilation raced through her. Blindly, she reached for her young daughter beside her, squeezing her small hand, though Aimee was too young to understand.

  “Are you happy, Mama?” Aimee asked beside her.

  Bending to her daughter, Maddie smoothed the blond curls around her daughter’s pink-cheeked face, unable to find the words to adequately express her profound joy to a four-year-old. “Very much, sweeting.”

  Since her late husband’s death, she had prayed for some miracle to save her from Colin’s obligations. Now, relief surged so powerfully within her, she fought back tears. True, the amount owed Mr. Hockelspeck was not the sum of all her debt, but it was a start.

  Her nightmare might soon end. Perhaps she could make a few repairs to Ashdown Manor, buy Aimee new shoes—a million needs came to mind… Then the tailor’s words replayed in her head. Her euphoria crumbled.

  “My debt was settled, you say?”

  He sent her a crisp nod. “Precisely.”

  “Can you elaborate how?”

  “I...I mustn’t—” Hockelspeck hesitated. “A man purchased your debt. That is all I am at liberty to say, Lady Wolcott.”

  Sudden fear crashed through her. Maddie tried to rein it in. Someone had purchased her notes and would expect repayment. She still owed far more money than she possessed.

  After three years of saving each farthing, of quietly letting servants go one by one, of selling her late mother’s prized furnishings, of seeing her sweet daughter silently suffer the winter chills of fireless hearths, so she might slowly pay off each of her late husband’s demanding creditors, now some stranger had purchased this note without a word to her. What would she do if her new creditor demanded immediate repayment in full?

  “Who acquired my debt? I must ask.”

  And why would anyone do such a thing?

  “I cannot say, my lady. Now, you must excuse me. I have paying customers...” The odious tailor’s lips thinned to an impatient line.

  Anxiety gripped Maddie anew. The few remaining family members had refused to aid her when asked, her father having alienated them long before he died. Her late husband’s relations had all departed, save his sister Roberta, who had never welcomed her. She’d gone to great lengths to hide her dire financial situation from her acquaintances, hiding in Hampstead Heath behind widow’s weeds instead.

  Maddie grabbed Mr. Hockelspeck’s arm. “Wa-wait.”

  He turned back and raised a thin brow.

  Maddie pasted on her best smile to hide the desperation and fear tearing at her hard-won composure. She didn’t like mysteries. Good rarely came from them.

  “Forgive me,” she murmured. “I cannot credit who would buy such a debt and not present his terms to me. Can you not give me his name?”

  “No. He asked very particularly to remain anonymous. However, I feel certain he intends to present himself and his terms to you very soon.”

  #

  Two weeks later, spring hovered a breath away. Maddie couldn’t stop thinking about anything other than the mysterious stranger who now owned her future.

  After leaving Mr. Hockelspeck and visiting the rest of her creditors, each had indicated that a mystery gentleman had purchased her debt and insisted on remaining anonymous. She still had no notion who, what, or when to pay—much less why. Each day that slipped by frayed her nerves a bit more.

  In the interim, Maddie had purchased Aimee a new pair of much-needed shoes, and Aunt Edith had persuaded her to splurge on a chicken for stew to celebrate her freedom from Mr. Hockelspeck’s incessant demands. Maddie hadn’t had the heart to worry her elderly aunt about the money she still owed and the enigmatic stranger to whom she owed it.

  Though creditors had ceased hounding her, she still felt the shameful sting of her impoverished state, worried her anonymous creditor could appear, demanding what she could not give.

  At a sudden knock on her door, she gazed at the mantle clock. Nine o’clock in the evening. A very late hour for visitors, especially in quiet Hampstead. Frowning, Maddie set aside Aimee’s tattered frock that she’d been mending and strode to the parlor door.

  As her butler Matheson’s heels clicked across the floor, her stomach twisted as she waited.

  After a low-voiced exchange, Matheson approached.

  “Who is it?” she whispered, then bit her lip fretfully.

  His brow knit in puzzlement. “He says he’s a gentleman who wishes to remain anonymous.”

  Her heart stuttered. Maddie drew in a deep, trembling breath, knowing the moment she had dreaded had unflinchingly arrived.

  “Is he anyone I know?” she whispered to her butler.

  “I’m afraid he is,” drawled a deep voice beyond the parlor’s portal.

  It was a voice Maddie never, ever thought to hear again.

  A sudden, dizzying spike of shock swept over her. Mouth gaping, she reached for the wall to steady herself. She peeked past Matheson, hoping her ears had deceived her.

  They had not. Brock Taylor had returned to Ashdown Manor.

  As bold as could be, here stood the cad who had broken her heart five years ago when he’d left her to seek his fortune. From gossip and reputation, she knew he had more than found it. Now refined and wealthy—and more handsome than ever—he stood in her foyer wearing a faintly wry smile and a stylish green coat that perfectly matched his mocking eyes. The thick waves of his mahogany hair still wouldn’t quite behave. Maddie remembered running her fingers through them with a bittersweet pang.

  “Brock.” His name tumbled from her lips on a whisper.

  “How kind of you to remember me, Lady Wolcott.”

  He spoke her married title with contempt, matched by the disdain in his eyes. She swallowed. Why was he here? What did he want? Had he, of all people, truly bought her debt? She fought for her next breath, trying to beat back the panic encroaching.

  Brock turned to her butler. “Your name?”

  “Mine? It is Matheson, sir.”

  “Splendid. Matheson, fetch your mistress a s
pot of tea. She looks unwell,” Brock said, displaying the urbane charm he had refined to an art.

  Her butler sent her a measuring stare. “Indeed, sir.”

  Matheson quit the room before she could object, leaving her alone with the man she’d sworn to hate for the rest of her life.

  “You are not welcome here.” Maddie lifted her chin sternly.

  “Have you no kind words for an old...friend?”

  Mouth dropping open, she glared at him. Five years after betraying her, Brock Taylor stood in her parlor as if he belonged here. Of all the things she’d envisioned saying to him over the years if she ever saw the cad again, not a single one came to mind.

  “Friend?” She raised a disdainful brow at him.

  “May I sit?” He did so without waiting for her reply, dwarfing the ancient rosewood armchair. “Perhaps you should sit as well. You really do look pale.”

  Though Brock’s voice had acquired a definite upper crust clip, one of the few qualities that had not changed about the scoundrel was his smile. The wicked tilt of that wide mouth still bespoke sin, as potent and beguiling as ever. Once upon a time, she had been innocent enough to fall prey to the charm of his grin.

  She was no longer that green girl.

  Maddie feigned calm as she faced Brock. “Matheson said you are the anonymous gentleman. Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  His clipped reply hit her like a blow to the chest. Legs weak beneath her, she tread slowly to the sofa and sank to its threadbare cushions. “Why? Eight thousand pounds is a great deal of money.”

  He shrugged. “Or not, depending.”

  Maddie fixed narrowed eyes upon him. “Depending upon what?”

  “The repayment one receives.”

  “I knew I could count on you to make demands.” You opportunistic blackguard.

  The words were out before Maddie could stop them.

  She clenched her hands into angry fists. Damn him for buying her debt. Damn him twice for taking her heart and her innocence five years ago, then leaving her in his quest for wealth. Damn him to eternity for coming here with the notion of collecting more.

  A faint apology tinged his smile. “I’m not running a charitable organization.”

  “I did not ask you to buy my late husband’s debt.”

  “But now that I have, you owe me.”

  Fury seethed inside her, like a beast fighting its chain. “And you want your precious money from me?”

  “I want repayment.”

  How dare he make demands of her in light of the terrible wrong he’d dealt her. He was no gentleman. But then, he never had been.

  Matheson appeared suddenly with the tea. As Maddie poured, the scent of the brew tinged with milk drifted up to her, calming her to a manageable level. Taking a warm sip, she dismissed the servant, then clutched the cup in her cold hands.

  “If I had eight thousand pounds,” she bit out, “I would have paid my creditors already. So you see, immediate repayment is impossible.”

  Brock crossed his arms over his wide chest, but the arrogant, presumptuous cad said nothing at all about the biggest shame of her life. Or one of them, anyway.

  “In fact,” she continued, “I believe you owe me a thousand pounds to repay the money you accepted from my father.”

  “He told you about our...agreement?”

  “Of course. He told me the very night you left that he had offered you money to abandon me. And that you quickly accepted it with a smile.”

  “Abandon?” He gave her a mocking laugh. “You didn’t suffer long, Lady Wolcott.” Again, he spoke her married title with disdain. “It’s of no consequence, anyway. I returned that money to your father three months later.”

  “Papa said he never saw a farthing of it.”

  “And naturally you believed everything he told you.” Brock’s voice held a faint note of derision, then he shrugged. “If you want your thousand pounds, I shall credit it toward your balance. I’ll even grant you eight-percent interest. You still owe me...” He cast his gaze to the ceiling, calculating. “Six thousand, seven hundred eighty-three pounds and twenty pence.”

  “I scarcely have two farthings to rub together, but I’m certain you knew that before buying up my debt.” Five years of choking resentment exploded with the force of a volcano. “What the devil do you want from me?”

  “A choice, Maddie. A simple choice.”

  She scoffed. Nothing about Brock Taylor had ever been simple.

  “What?”

  He shrugged casually, but Maddie caught the tension latent in his neck, his broad shoulders. “If you cannot repay me in full...”

  “I’ve said that I cannot,” she said through clenched teeth.

  Brock rose from the armchair, the muscles of his hard thighs flexing beneath chocolate-hued breeches. Maddie chastised herself for noticing as he paced closer, brushing the muslin of her gray skirt as he walked past. He turned back to her. Their gazes locked. Brock’s stare penetrated her bravado, seeking to see into her soul.

  “Then you must marry me.”

  Maddie nearly choked. He must be jesting, surely. But his strong, solemn face said quite the opposite. Her tea cup fell from her hand and to the carpet with a soft clatter.

  Fresh fury made her whole body tremble. How could he even suggest they wed? Once upon a time, he had abandoned her. She had no wish to wed anyone, but if she had to choose between Brock and a snake, she would hope the snake would be content to share her quiet country life.

  Because of this man, Maddie had suffered doubts about her moral character, her desirability, her judgment. She’d worried that her choices would someday haunt Aimee. Above all, Maddie had learned heartache.

  Now she knew pure fear. The law gave a man complete power over his wife and her body. A husband could beat and belittle her without repercussion. Colin had plied his own form of torture mercilessly during their two year union. She shuddered at the thought of placing herself in that hell again, especially with an opportunistic liar who had proven his callousness so thoroughly.

  Standing and meeting his gaze, she asked, “And if I refuse?”

  “You will be a debtor, and your options will be those of most debtors. Very unpleasant, if you ask me.”

  Debtor’s prison?

  Maddie gasped, going cold all over again. “You would send me to the Fleet?”

  He shrugged, his face mildly apologetic. “It is a common fate, is it not?”

  She grappled for a retort, unable to believe the ruthless cad’s ultimatum. Fleet Prison would mean squalor, hunger, and indefinite internment. Marriage to Brock would mean loss of independence and a legally binding pain she knew too well.

  “Y-you cannot mean to throw me in prison.”

  Brock, looking every inch a wealthy man from the rich burgundy cravat of silk about his neck to the supple leather boots with their shiny toecaps, simply smiled. “I never say anything I do not mean.”

  Liar! Five years ago, he’d uttered many untruths, including his “love” for her. He had also promised to marry her. Instead, he had abandoned her an hour after taking her virginity. She had never heard from him again...until tonight.

  Purposely, Maddie raised her chin, glared at him as if he were an insect. “Marry you? It’s inconceivable.”

  “Since I conceived the idea, I must disagree.”

  His smooth voice chafed over her like the coarsest wool. God, how she would love to set him down.

  “You are enjoying my distress, aren’t you?”

  Brock only shot her an enigmatic half-smile in response. “Is it the idea of marrying your former stable hand you object to?”

  “I object to the entire idea of marriage, but particularly to you. Why would you desire such a ridiculous end?”

  “I doubt you’ll find your other option more appealing.”

  He paced over the threadbare carpet, closer. She inhaled his spicy, musky scent with her next breath. It brought forth a surge of long-buried memories of shared kisses i
n the hay and racing hearts. The reminiscence mixed with anger in a potent rush. She could not deny that she had loved him desperately once...and she hated him all the more for it now.

  “Of course, I could be wrong,” he continued.

  His tone mocked his words. Brock would never believe himself wrong. The man was more confident than most, for he had always been smarter. And more dangerous.

  A mental picture of all she imagined Fleet Prison would be rose in her mind, almost too horrible to contemplate. Darkness. Dankness. Nothing to eat. No way out.

  Blackness floated at the edge of her vision.

  Stifling her fear, Maddie shot him a frosty glare. “Perhaps you are wrong.”

  Brock moved closer still. His nearness called forth an image of their stolen intimacies in the stable years ago. Breathless kisses mixed with urgent sighs, nurtured by the love and dreams in her heart, all of which he had trampled to pursue his burning ambitions for fortune.

  “The choice is completely yours.”

  Without family or the means to pay her debts, her incarceration would be long, stretching into years, possibly a decade—if she lived that long. But marriage to Brock would last until she went to her grave.

  Clearly, he had honed his ruthless edge to razor sharpness in the last five years. Resisting the urge to rail at him, she thrust her chin forward with icy calm. “You planned this.”

  “How? It is your misfortune your late husband liked drinking and gaming beyond his means. I had no hand in that.”

  “Except to buy up his debt. It’s very much like you to take advantage of my misfortune.”

  His expression never changed. “A smart man takes advantage of every opportunity.”

  And Maddie knew well he saw opportunity everywhere, even under the skirts of an untried girl. The blackguard had nearly ruined her life when he had taken her innocence, along with her father's money, and left. She would not become his opportunity again.

  “Stop these games. What do you truly want? I doubt you paid my creditors a staggering eight thousand pounds for my hand because you harbor any feeling for me.”