Emily clenched her teeth. Lost? Hah. She’d never once been invited to the Barker estate. “Oh?” Her voice lilted with just the right amount of we-both-know-you’re-not-telling-the-truth in her tone. “Well then…I suppose I’ll have to check my schedule.”
Stopping in front of their carriage, Nicholas turned at the open door and frowned at her. “But you said—”
Millie cut him off. “I’m sure you’ll want to rearrange your calendar, dearest. Not only will your friend Bella Grayson be in attendance, but Charles Henley as well.”
“Now that I think of it,” Emily shifted her gaze from Nicholas’s scowl to Millie’s hopeful eyes, “yes, I do believe I am free.”
“Excellent.” Millie beamed. “See you tomorrow evening then, Miss Payne, Mr. Brentwood.” His name lingered on her lips, her eyeballs on his form. Then with a huff to her aunt to “please try to keep up,” she darted down the row to her own carriage.
Nicholas’s chin twitched as if he ground his teeth. “So much for lounging the day away on the morrow, hmm?”
She replied by grasping his offered hand and stepping into the coach. Let him wonder all he wanted. Millie would wind him around her little finger, leaving her free to entice Charles Henley.
She straightened her skirts and smoothed her pelisse as she settled onto the leather seat. As much as she yet again hated to admit Nicholas Brentwood was right, he was. Her goal this season was to snare a husband, but not just any man.
The prize stag—Charles Henley.
Chapter 7
Wine splashing into goblets, silverware clinking—all sounds receded and time stopped for Nicholas. A fine bead of sweat cooled his brow, and he tugged at his cravat. Four glistening blobs of gray taunted him from their half shells on a gilt-edged plate. Mayhap by loosening his cravat, the oysters would slide down his throat without inducing his gag reflex. This was wrong. Whoever conceived of wrapping one’s lips around cold pieces of raw mollusk in the first place? The delight of a warm slab of mutton pie far outweighed this epicurean nightmare. For the tenth time in as many minutes, he thanked God he’d not been born a wealthy man.
Across the table, Emily’s eyes laughed at him over the rim of her cup. The little vixen ought to be an officer herself, for her gaze didn’t miss much. Three more weeks of this—four if Payne was delayed—and he’d be back to dragging corpses from the Thames or hunting down a murderer bent on a killing jag. And it wouldn’t be soon enough. Nothing was more torturous than dressing in garments tighter than a straightjacket while eating fish bait served on fine china.
Picking up her dessertspoon, Emily tapped her wineglass, drawing everyone’s attention. “Millie, dear, may I be the first to thank you for your gracious hospitality. How thoughtful it was of you to serve your cook’s famous oysters. Don’t you agree, Cousin?”
Nine pairs of eyeballs skewered him—Millie’s shining, Emily’s lit with wicked amusement. He picked up his fork. Very well. Two could play at this game.
“My thanks as well, Miss Barker.” He glanced at the pale man beside him. “Though my apologies to you, Mr. Henley. I suspect even the smell of seafood swells your throat.”
Emily snapped her face to the fellow, her lips flattening. Indeed, Charles Henley had pushed his chair as far from the table as decorum allowed.
Henley reared back his head and pierced him with a look. “How would you know that, sir?”
Nicholas smiled. “Even now a slight flush creeps up your neck and, though concealed, you scratch the back of your hands as if chafed by wool.”
“Very good, Mr. Brentwood! Do tell…” Miss Barker leaned forward, one long curl draped over her bare shoulder. A sultry light smoldered in her gaze. “What can you say about me?”
That she was a lioness? A jackal? A leech on the lookout for blood? Without breaking eye contact, he lifted an oyster to his lips and tipped the shell, blocking a retort that ought not be spoken in mixed company—or any other for that matter.
“Come now, sir.” Her mouth curved into a feral smile. “Can you detect any secrets simply by observing me?”
She leaned farther, the slant emphasizing her cleavage and the tilt of her lips admitting she knew it. The oyster landed in his gut like a bomb. Once again, the weight of all eyes around the table pressed in on him.
“Why, Miss Barker,” he forced a pleasant tone to his voice, “like a fine wine, a woman’s secrets are better left to cool in a dark cellar until ready to be served, lest a sour taste remain in the mouth.”
“Well said, man!” Beside him, Henley rallied, though it was hard to tell if it was from Nicholas’s answer or the fact that a servant had removed his plate of poison. To his left, one man over, a colonel in dress uniform exclaimed, “Hear, hear!” and the fellow next to Henley lifted his glass in a toast.
Millie’s eyes narrowed. “I wonder, Mr. Brentwood, what secrets do you harbor?”
“Perhaps you ought ask Miss Payne, for I daresay her eye is as keen as mine.”
“Why…yes! What a delightful dinner game.” Millie flashed a smile at Emily. “Well? What intrigues does Mr. Brentwood hide beneath that cool exterior?”
“My cousin is”—Emily sought his eyes—“orderly to a fault. Demanding as a magistrate. Entirely concerned with honor and justice. Why, I daresay with those traits, he ought be a Bow Street Runner.”
Millie’s fingers flew to her mouth. “Scandalous!”
Henley snorted. “Imagine.”
And the fellow next to him, an Italian named DiMarco, leaned sideways and elbowed him. “You going to sit there and take that, Brentwood?”
“Ahh, but Miss Payne is correct.” He threw out the words like a sharp right cross. Blunt truth had ever been his weapon of choice. “With my keen sense of honor and justice, it would hardly serve were I to rebut her in public.”
Emily yanked her gaze from him, defeat obviously as desirable to her as a mouthful of oysters to him.
“Judging by that silver tongue of yours, Brentwood,” the colonel’s voice rumbled louder than the din of chatter that’d slowly resumed, “I’d say you’re a lawyer. Tell me, what is your business?”
Nicholas tossed back a swallow of wine. He couldn’t very well say he was Emily’s nursemaid, though in truth, that was what he’d been reduced to. Replacing the goblet, he paused as the next course was served—a dish of bombarded veal and ragout. His taste buds slowly awoke, and he smiled at the colonel. “I am staying at Portman Square upon Mr. Payne’s request.”
The colonel nodded. “Completely understandable, given the situation.”
The rest of the meal went untasted. Nicholas smiled and parleyed in all the right places, but the colonel’s response lodged in his mind like a stone in his boot.
When the women finally departed and the port decanter passed from man to man, Nicholas sat back, glass in hand, drink untouched.
“Looks like you’re the prize stallion again this season, Henley.” Puffs of cheroot smoke punctuated the colonel’s words.
“Yes, and once again I intend to dodge the golden noose of matrimony.” Henley downed his port in one large gulp then swiped his hand across his mouth, leaving behind a rogue smile. His hair, the color of a mug of ale, was cropped short and held in check by pomade, stylish, yet not garish—the kind of man who hid behind a carefully constructed mask. “Why purchase the wine cask when sampling grapes from an entire vineyard is so much sweeter?”
“You might get a bit of competition from Brentwood, there.” Mr. Barker aimed the red tip of his cheroot across the table. “You seem to have caught my daughter’s eye. So? What about it? Which filly will you choose?”
Staring down the barrel of the loaded question, Nicholas tightened his jaw. No good answer could be given without trapping himself. He lifted the glass to his lower lip as if to drink.
“Mr. Henley is correct, no?” DiMarco filled in the silence for him. “These English women are a garden, molto belle. Roses to savor in bouquets.” The man’s eyes twinkled. “It is not the
italiano way to limit oneself to a single bloom.”
Nicholas set down his glass, biting back a grimace. These were the men Miss Payne hoped to snag?
Barker took a long drag on his cigar, the end glowing as bright as his eyes. “Henley might think otherwise when his harem suddenly changes to your tent, Brentwood. Your arrival, I think, is fortunate.”
“Oh?” His muscles tensed, desire urging him to jump on that comment and ride it into the ground. Instead, he ran his index finger around the rim of his glass, following the action with his eyes. Better to wait for the quarry to circle back before striking.
“Bully, Mr. Barker, and I vow that Major Hargreave would agree with you.” The colonel’s bushy eyebrows waggled at Nicholas. “When the old boy catches wind of this, he’ll be taut enough in the sails to hear you’ve jumped on board, especially if it buoys Payne’s boat a little higher in the water. Owes him quite a tidy sum, as I understand.”
Nicholas tucked the name—Hargreave—along with the remark, into a chest stored deep in his memory.
“I suspect your uncle—was that on your mother’s side or your father’s?” Barker ground out his cheroot while the truth burned on Nicholas’s lips. How to answer that?
“No matter.” Barker flicked his fingers, negating a response. “The point is, I suspect Payne is rather in a dither over this whole slave act passing last week. Though it was very insightful of him to expect the passage and summon you to town. At any rate, it’s a deuced good thing he’s got your fresh blood for a new venue. So tell us, Brentwood, without the slaving industry, what’s Payne’s game to be now?”
DiMarco, Henley, the colonel, and Barker stared down the table at him. Expectation charged the air.
Lord, please, do not let me shame You with a lie. The prayer barely formed into a coherent thought when a footman swooped into the dining room, small silver tray in hand, and set it on the table in front of him. “My apologies, sir. The messenger said it was urgent and refuses to leave without your answer.”
A folded paper sat atop the tray. Nicholas retrieved it, disregarding all the eyes that followed his movement. Sparse words and an ink blot suggested the note had been written in haste:
237 Hancock Lane
Moore
He pursed his lips, inhaling deeply through his nose, then pulled his eyes from the note. He nodded toward the colonel’s cigar. “Excuse me, Colonel, might I?”
The man’s brows connected, yet he stretched out his cheroot. “Highly irregular, man.”
Nicholas connected the tip of the paper to the glowing end, leaving it there until a wisp of smoke and a red spark grew into a flame. Pulling back his hand, he held the burning note over the tray. When nothing but ash littered the silver, he stood.
“Gentlemen.” He strode out the door, a thousand questions piercing the black wool of his dress coat.
Bella’s lips pulled into a pout. “I still can’t believe you never told me about your cousin. Mr. Brentwood is striking in more than one way. I understand why you kept Millie in the dark, but me? Are we not closer than sisters?”
Emily’s mouthful of sherry soured on her tongue. “I suppose I am a horrid person, Bella.”
Licking her lips, she averted her gaze. Across the sitting room, Millie sat enthroned on a rosewood wingback, holding court with Catherine, Jane, and Anne. Emily leaned sideways and bumped shoulders with Bella. “But I’m not as bad as Millie.”
A wicked smile spread across Bella’s face. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Keeping one eye on the other women, Bella lowered her voice to a whisper. “It seems Mr. Henley took quite a break from his political intrigues to start a scandal of a much more intimate nature. I heard that he and Millie—”
“May I assist you with your wrap, Miss Payne? We are leaving.” Nicholas Brentwood swung into the sitting room, his bass tone masking the rest of Bella’s words.
Frowning, she glanced up at him. He stood before her, holding out her pelisse like a mandate. Authority surrounded him, magnified by his broad stance and even broader shoulders. The severe cut and dark color of his coat added to his stark manner. Could the man never relent from ruining her fun?
“I am hardly ready to leave now, sir.” She turned back to Bella.
“Yet I insist.”
Those three simple words pulled her to her feet, though her fingernails dug into the heels of her hands. Yet I insist meant an ugly confrontation simmered just below that cool green gaze should she refuse. She’d experienced his strong will often enough in the past week—each time she’d thought to have her own way. The man ought to give up law keeping and apply as tyrant of a small country.
“Is something wrong, Mr. Brentwood?” Millie flew to his side, hands clasped, eyelashes fluttering. The consummate hostess concerned for her guest. Emily choked back a snort. Millie’s only concern was that she’d not had time enough to garner the man’s attention.
“Not at all, Miss Barker. Simply a matter of business.” A small smile softened his explanation. “My apologies for such an abrupt departure.”
Millie’s lower lip folded, and she turned to Emily. “Men and their business. Entirely too tedious. Why, you and I have had no time to visit at all. I suppose I shall have to call upon you on the morrow, hmm?”
Though phrased as a question, it wasn’t. It was a verdict. Or maybe a threat. From the corner of Emily’s eye, she caught Bella’s raised brow and could feel her own forehead crease. Millie Barker had never once come to call at Portman House.
Emily slid her arms into the sleeves of her pelisse, the heat of Nicholas’s hands still warming the shoulders where he’d held the fabric—and then she knew. Millie’s call would have nothing to do with herself.
Emily locked eyes with Bella. “You’ll stop by as well?”
Bella’s gaze strayed to Nicholas. “My pleasure.”
“Ladies, I bid you good evening.” Nicholas nodded and turned on his heel. “Come along, Miss Payne.”
His long, hard lines disappeared through the door. Emily huffed. Was she a dog to trot after him at his command?
Bobbing a thank-you curtsy to Millie and murmuring a “good evening” to the rest, she scurried to catch up with him on the front steps. “You had better have a stunning good reason to pull me from this household at such a breakneck pace, sir.”
He glanced at her but didn’t answer until he offered his hand at the carriage door. “I’m not entirely sure of the purpose, but not knowing how long I’d be gone, I deemed it best to bring you along.”
Emily narrowed her eyes at him on her way up into the coach box. “You don’t know where we’re going?”
He paused before hefting himself up. “I didn’t say that.”
Exasperating man. The leather seat creaked as he settled in, his manner as nonchalant as if they were taking a drive in the country. She blew out a breath, long and low. “You don’t know why we’re going?”
“That is correct.”
The carriage lurched into motion, as abrupt as his answer, and the jostle triggered a slight headache. Or maybe it was Nicholas who triggered the twinge at her temple. Streetlight reached in through the windows, feathering over the strong planes of his face, sweeping along defined cheekbones and jaw, and resting on the curve of his full lips. A fierce scowl assaulted her own mouth. Oughtn’t an ogre look repulsive?
She lifted her chin. “So you’re telling me, sir, that you’ve ruined my chances to charm Mr. Henley, giving Millie free rein to bat her eyelashes at the man for the rest of the evening, and you don’t have the slightest idea as to why?”
“Yes, yes, and yes.” He cocked his head at her, challenge lighting his eyes. “You ought to thank me, you know. Mr. Henley is a louse.”
“Oh, spare me! What would you know of Charles Henley, other than the fact that he has an aversion to seafood, which I think was merely a lucky guess on your part.”
“Really?”
She curled her fingers to keep from righting the smug tilt o
f his face. “You are hardly omniscient, Mr. Brentwood. How would you know the heart of a person?”
“I never claimed to read hearts, just behaviors. Details as well.” His eyes held hers, driving home his point. “A person’s character is most clearly seen not by what they show, but what they hide.”
“Such as?”
The carriage wheels ground over cobbles. A watchman cried the hour. She could even hear Nicholas’s body moving inside his greatcoat, the creak of leather as he shifted on the seat, but other than that, silence reigned. Eventually, her gaze strayed out the curtained window, traveling from one passing hackney to the next.
“You will keep what I say in confidence?”
His quiet tone and the implication it carried snapped her gaze back to his. “Do you not trust me, sir?”
The sharp cut of his jaw softened. “I trust in God alone, Miss Payne, and that is enough.”
She gaped. “What a lonely way to live!”
“Not at all.”
There was a fullness in those words. A kind of naked truth that reached into her own heart and illuminated a hollow shell. If she didn’t know better, she’d say that Nicholas Brentwood and God were on speaking terms. No, it was more.
He spoke as if God was his intimate confidant.
The very thought unnerved her, and she ran her tongue over dry lips. “I assure you, Mr. Brentwood, any observations you share shall remain with me. Now…what did you see?”
“I assume you mean something besides the hired help palming a pickle fork.”
“Seriously?”
His smile reached to his eyes. “No. The Barkers’ servants all appeared aboveboard.”
She rapped him on the arm as if he were Alf. “Beast.”
“It’s an offense, you know, to strike an officer of the law.” His eyes sparkled as playfully as her pug’s. “So…this DiMarco fellow, what do you know about him?”
“Not much. He’s in town for the season. A family friend of the Barkers. Millie tells me he’s on the prowl for a wife.”
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