The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,2

but I must say, women do have a strong dislike of being jilted.”

Murmurs of agreement wound through the gentlemen present. He and Finn didn’t run in the same crowds, Con being far younger, but even he knew that the captain liked to flaunt his wealth in the form of expensive whores. Despite Con’s status as fourth son of a marquis, he couldn’t afford any of the costly women Finn used and discarded without a thought, and he had always been appalled by both Finn’s excess and his callousness.

“By my math,” Con said again, feeling surer of himself the longer Finn remained quiet, “the child you’ve been tricked into acknowledging is actually mine. I am sorry, old boy. But if you don’t mind, I’d like my son back. He was the cutest little imp when he was born, you see, and I will never forgive myself for quarreling with Elizabeth just a few days later.” He laughed quietly. “It’s too easy, is it not, to rile her passions. I ought to have minded my tongue when she was at her most vulnerable. I sent her running straight back to you instead.”

Finn’s eyes darkened, and the bronzed skin of his brow creased as his eyes narrowed further. That bit about Elizabeth’s passions had done it—just as she’d said it would. For she and Finn had fought like man and wife, even up to the end of their acquaintance. And last year, Finn had briefly cast her aside to pursue a new conquest.

Con was a devil of a handsome man. An objective evaluation, based on his observation that his twin brother was an out-and-out rake. Finn was realizing the crux of it now: Con was worthy competition. And beautiful, wealthy, self-made Elizabeth Spencer did not like to be crossed.

Con almost felt sorry for him. He couldn’t take too much time to pity his opponent, though. He didn’t have the baby yet. Only when Finn stormed out of the room, growling, “That duplicitous little slut. I’ll be damned if she sneaks your bastard under my nose,” did Con finally relax. And later the next morning, when a runner knocked at the door of Merritt House, rousing the staff with the announcement that a baby was to be delivered that very afternoon, did the dread in Con’s belly begin to uncurl.

But it was the ten thousand pounds quietly transferred into his account that fully unwound his insides and allowed him to take an unfettered breath. When the last IOU had been ripped asunder and even the smallest of his creditors walked away satisfied, Con exhaled a deep sigh of relief. He even had a few coins to spare.

Coins he might not have much longer, as he was in the mood to celebrate his own resourcefulness. Until he returned to Merritt House, and his mother greeted him at the foot of the stairs. “Constantine, where on earth have you hidden my beautiful little grandchild? Mr. Benjamin seems to think you’ve no intention of raising him here, but I told him that cannot be true. You wouldn’t keep your own son from his family, even if he was born on the wrong side of the blanket.” Her blue eyes dampened and her voice trembled. “Oh, Constantine, you wouldn’t, would you?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but he had no answer. He merely stared at his mother, powerless to reassure her that no, he wasn’t that kind of father. The uncaring kind. The absent kind. The kind his father had been.

It was his first indication that, perhaps, he hadn’t thought this scheme entirely through.

Elizabeth Spencer would have paid Lord Constantine twenty thousand pounds for the return of her son. Even more, had he asked. She’d not told him so, of course. She’d let him name his price, then bargained him down until he’d threatened to walk. It was not by accident that she had started out penniless and become a celebrated courtesan with an impressive collection of assets.

It was to her benefit, then, that he’d been as desperate for her money as she’d been for his services. After paying for his silence, she still retained more than enough in her accounts to sustain herself and Oliver for the rest of her life. She need not return to her old tricks. A relief, for she’d had a month to come to the realization that she wanted nothing more than to become worthy of being Oliver’s mother.

She would have done it, though. Selling her body was a pittance compared to