Page 1 of Seducing Sophia (Scholars of Seduction)

CHAPTER1

London, 1811

“Hard luck,old boy—you’ve lost!” a voice cried.

“FitzRoy never could take his liquor.”

Adrian set his brandy glass aside and glanced at his five companions. Friends from Oxford, they had seduced their way around most of the women of London.

And none more than Adrian himself. He might have lost this particular drinking game, but what he lacked in capacity for liquor he more than made up for with stamina, and skill, in the bedroom.

And not just the bedroom.

He allowed himself a wry smile. A true connoisseur of seduction should be able to utilize whatever came to hand. Armchairs, desks, rugs. And, in one instance, a garden path. His knees might have suffered with abrasions from the gravel, but the sounds coming from the woman writhing beneath him had told him all he needed to know about the degree of success his ingenuity elicited.

But, unfortunately for him, his companions, as did most other sets, viewed the capacity for liquor as an almost equal measure of virility. And this latest enterprise of theirs involved drinking games, at which they were all champions—except him.

He could never understand the appeal of the stuff. An excess of brandy left a man with lighter pockets and a sore head. Sex also left a man with lighter pockets—particularly if the lady in question was as grasping as his beloved Cristelle. But, for a strong-willed man who was not at risk of succumbing to what the weaklings called love—a good, hard rutting served to clear the mind.

And love—and liquor—were the twin vices that rotted a man’s soul. Poor Will Blackstock had been proof of that. Adrian’s best friend who he’d shared a dorm with at Harrow and then roomed together at Oriel College, Oxford, had indulged in too much of both, and they’d led to his ruination and death. Neither appealed to Adrian. He planned to live a long while yet, and enjoy the pleasures that life could afford him—pleasures that did not enforce the shackles of responsibility.

Dominic—Duke of Peterton, and recognized leader of their set—leaned back in his chair with a creak of leather and gave Adrian a lazy smile, a look of satisfaction in his heavily lidded eyes.

“So, FitzRoy,” Peterton said. “As you’ve lost, you are to be the first to embark on our quest. And, I must say, I cannot imagine anyone better to strike forth as the pioneer of seduction.”

“How so?” Adrian asked.

“Aside from myself, of course, you’re the one who stands the greatest chance of bagging your bird.”

“Women aren’t birds to bag.” Another man spoke—George Oxton, Earl of Maybury.

Peterton gave a snort. “Not all men share your peculiar tastes, Georgie. When your time comes, if we can’t find a suitable quarry among those harridans, you’ll have to persuade your prey to wear a red wig when you shag her. Tell me, does the carpet downstairs need to match the red color of the thatch on the roof?”

Oxton colored and drained his brandy glass.

“Leave him alone,” Adrian said.

Peterton let out a laugh. “I don’t know why you’re championing him, FitzRoy. You know he’s taken your beloved Cristelle under his protection, don’t you?”

“He’s welcome to her,” Adrian said. “I parted company with her last month.”

Peterton laughed. “Did she wear you out?”

Adrian sighed. “Not at all.”

“Good,” Peterton said. “I’m relying on you to show the rest of us how the art of seduction can be perfected—all in the name of research, of course.”

The six of them in Peterton’s set had agreed to embark on a quest in the study of seduction. One woman each. To enhance their prowess in the art of making love, and, of course, the art of persuading a woman to part her thighs.

“Have you grown tired of the delectable Cristelle?” Peterton asked. “I hear she can do exquisite things with a feather quill. She could teach you a thing or two about what makes a woman scream with pleasure—help you bag your bird.”

“I need no lessons in that,” Adrian said. “But, in any case, I would have parted company with her before embarking on our quest. Even I understand it’s the height of bad form to be fucking more than one woman at any one time.”

“I don’t see why,” Peterton replied, with a laugh.

“Well, you wouldn’t,” Adrian said. “Where I view women as separate courses in a banquet, to be savored individually, you seek to pile them together on a single platter, to be devoured all at once.”

Peterton licked his lips. “Quite right. And I’d like nothing more than to devour that prim Mrs. Huntington.”

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