"Only this time, I would ensure that his wife was there to see the whole thing. I would then not only get her fortune, but a sizable chunk of his too. He would have to make a generous settlement upon her, and would never be able to hold up his head again in decent society."
Her green eyes glittered. "A nice plan. But just why would you want to help me, or me help you?"
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
"A good reason, but I can think of a few better ones."
He took her meaning at once. "Yes, I can see how there might be er, compensations. I'm told that older women have all sorts of experience and tastes which a young men would do well to learn about. So long as you understand that I have a few tastes and needs of my own." He pulled open the small valise he had brought with him.
Her eyes widened, and she practically purred. "I can't tell you how glad I am you've stopped by."
He grabbed her wrist before she could touch him. "So long as you understand I have to pay another visit after this. And I'm in charge. We do it where and when I say."
"Where and when I say," she said with a throaty laugh, baring her breasts, tossing her blonde hair back over one shoulder seductively.
She was confident of her own sex appeal and the power it gave her over men. Well, most men, she amended, thinking of how Blake had slipped through her net.
But Adam was a mere callow youth. She would have him eating out of her hand. And anything else she told him to, she thought with a smile of triumph.
It soon turned to a grimace of agony as he yanked her gown off completely and flattened her face down on the sitting room table with one violent shove, and spread her legs.
Leonore's mild-mannered sister had told her the news of the upcoming nuptials. Leonore had barely choked back the foul words which had formed her reply to the innocent question of wasn't it the most marvelous news.
She was in the parlor, wringing her hands together in indecision over what she could do to stop the match. Wringing her hands as though she would squeeze the very life out of that vile little trull who had dared come between her and Blake.
She hadn't spent the past six years being generous with him for nothing. True, there had been plenty of other men. Some of them had even proposed to her.
But it was Blake she had set her sights on, Blake she was determined to have no matter what the cost.
The arrival of Adam Neville filled her with astonishment. Why on earth would he-
"What brings you here, sir?"
His business was all too plain. "I take it you have heard the news about Blake and Arabella?" he asked without preamble.
"Indeed. Most remarkable, and disgraceful, if you ask me. His own ward. Really."
"Not good for either of us, as I'm sure you'll agree."
She looked at him coolly. "What would make you think-"
"I know what you and Blake have been to each other in the past. What I want to know is how recently."
She did not even bother to try to deny it. "Not recently at all. I've tried. We've been seen talking. I followed him down here to Bath when he declared his intention of settling Arabella in the country now that he had been made heir to the Jerome fortune. But it's been months."
"On the other hand, it's common knowledge that you've been his regular mistress for several years."
"But not by any means has he been my only man. Or set me up in my establishment."
"Still, the fact is that you have a prior claim."
She shook her head. "Even if I wanted to file a breach of promise suit, there would be little we could do to prevent the match in only a couple of days."
"You misunderstand me. I don't wish to prevent it. I wish to deal the marriage a series of blows which will split them apart and leave Arabella even more wealthy than she was before. Once he has to settle a goodly sum of money upon her as a divorce settlement, I shall have even more than if I had managed to marry her now."
"What do you want me to do? Get caught in the act with him or something? I've already tried. He's too clever-"
"Then we must be more so, mustn't we?"
"Why, what did you have in mind?" she asked with interest.
At the end of his outline, she shook her head. "It will never work. There is no chance I could ever convince him-"
"You don't need to convince him, just her. With various other things I have behind the scenes, she'll never trust one word that comes out of his mouth. The catching him in the act I have planned will be the final straw."
"I thought you said you didn't need me to-"
"Well, only as a last resort, my dear," he said, bestowing upon her his most pleasant smile. "After all, an attractive woman like you. Why should you be named in something so sordid as a divorce case? We can pay someone to take on that distasteful role. No sense in subjecting yourself to the indignities of several witnesses seeing your lush bare charms, now is there? Then he cannot possibly be angry with you for engineering his downfall."