The Misses Gardner were in the corner settee, naturally, taking to the shadows. They did not look up when he entered. They apparently found their laps endlessly fascinating. He stared at them, troubled by something he couldn’t quite articulate. Mrs. Breedlove was examining something Dot the maid appeared to be embroidering. She was wearing a puzzled frown.
His restless eye finally found Delilah sitting in a chair near a lamp, something soft, blue, and woolly unfurling from her knitting needles.
He went still. That image bypassed a place in his mind where cynicism lived. In fact, it thrust a soft pillow under the cynicism and bade it take its shoes off and have a nap.
“Captain Hardy! Good evening.” Delilah looked up, and in that unguarded instant he thought perhaps the expression on her face alone was worth the twelve pounds he’d paid to stay here.
Even if she was a nefarious smuggler, or aiding and abetting one.
It was such an inconvenient and yet quite educational realization that he, somehow resistantly, refused to cross the threshold into the room just yet.
“We’ve a new guest, as you can see.” She said this somewhat triumphantly. See, we have guests, Captain Hardy!
He glanced at the big young blond man. “Do you mean guest or captive?”
“Ha!” The young man brightened and his arms loosened a bit. He flicked a gaze over at Tristan, taking in the Hoby boots, the well-cut coat, the demeanor, making the kinds of judgments and drawing the kinds of conclusions that people all over England did.
“Oh, Captain Hardy, you are a card.” Delilah managed to make the entire sentence sound sweet, but the word card emerged through slightly gritted teeth. “I’d like to introduce Mr. Andrew Farraday, of Sussex, in London for a visit.”
Mr. Farraday sprang to his feet, radiating the sort of self-satisfaction and bonhomie that made Tristan feel about a thousand years old. He had a Grecian nose and a chin with corners like a box, and doubtless, whatever part of the country he was from, young ladies suffered scorching blushes whenever he was near.
He wondered if he’d been lured in right off the street by Mrs. Breedlove and Lady Derring and their pretty smiles.
Tristan accepted the large outstretched paw and shook it.
“Captain, is it? Don’t your sort, military blokes, usually stay at the Stevens Hotel? I’ve heard as such from a friend at White’s.”
It was a friendly, completely reasonable question.
Delilah swung her head toward Captain Hardy, her entire face a question. He wondered if it was hopeful: yes, do, Captain Hardy, go and join your own kind.
Mrs. Breedlove looked immensely curious, too.
“I like to be near the ship I’m intending to buy as I make preparations for travel, and I find the accommodations here to be tolerable.”
“Oh, tolerable,” Delilah repeated. “You’ll come to know, Mr. Farraday, that this is Captain Hardy’s way of gushing.”
“And the evenings in the drawing room are not to be missed,” Captain Hardy added. And after a beat added, “Literally.”
Having thoroughly confused young Mr. Farraday for no good reason, he settled in with his book.
A glass of brandy had already been poured for him. He had to admit, there was little to complain about so far concerning the accommodations at The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“I found my room quite comfortable and the view of the Thames stirring, Captain Hardy,” Farraday said, clearly gamely attempting to follow the rules regarding socializing. “The pillow was fluffy and the fire most warm.”
“I’ve little use for fires that aren’t warm, myself,” Tristan said.
“Ha,” Mr. Farraday replied uncertainly.
“We’re so pleased you were comfortable, Mr. Farraday,” Angelique soothed.
Tristan opened his book.
“A captain, eh! That sounds very interesting. Have you seen battle?” Mr. Farraday tried.
Tristan looked up. He waited a beat, then gave a faint, patient smile. “Yes.”
He returned to his book.
“Have you ever been wounded?” Farraday continued, a moment later.
Tristan looked up. “Yes.”
He returned to his book.
Another moment of silence.
“Shot?”
Captain Hardy slowly, slowly lifted his head.
“Yes.” He leveled upon young Farraday a lengthy, quelling look. “You?”
Delilah raised her knuckles to her lips to stifle shocked, completely inappropriate laughter.
“No,” Farraday said faintly after a moment. Crestfallen.
It was a little like watching an affectionate, panting spaniel given a rude nudge by a booted foot.
“Perhaps something about hunting,” she suggested, just shy of desperately. “Or . . . dogs. Or horses? Perhaps Captain Hardy would prefer not to relive the glories of battle in our sitting room.”
There was a little silence.
“Glories,” Captain Hardy muttered, sounding mordantly amused.
He ducked his head to his book, looking like a turtle stubbornly ducking its head into its shell.
The man was insufferable.
And yet whenever she looked at him something happened to her breathing. As if she’d been snatched up and transported to the top of a mountain.
“Who wants to play chess?” Mr. Delacorte boomed, and everyone jumped a bit. He swept into the room like a refreshing storm system.
“Mr. Farraday does,” Angelique said instantly.
“Who is . . . where is . . . ah! I’m Mr. Stanton Delacorte.” He planted himself before Mr. Farraday. “And you must be Mr. Farraday. Deuced good to meet you. Captain Hardy won’t play me because he’s afraid to lose, something he’s not accustomed to doing.”
He winked broadly.
“The very notion makes me quake in my boots, Delacorte,” Captain Hardy intoned, without looking up.
Delacorte laughed delightedly.
“He’s never quaked a day,” Delacorte told the room at large. “Damned hero!”
Captain Hardy glanced up balefully and returned his gaze to the page.
Mr. Farraday, proving he was indeed like a spaniel, immediately glowed at the sound of a friendly voice and proffered his hand to be vigorously pumped by Delacorte.
“I sell exotic treatments to apothecaries,” Delacorte said. Who, resigned, moved over and put a pence in the jar for his damned.
“Oh!” Mr. Farraday said, in complete confusion, but cheerfully enough, because what else could one say? “I’m a fair hand at chess.”
“Well, then, shall we?”
Angelique had poured a sherry for the two of them and a cordial for the Gardner sisters as they attended to their mending, and Delilah had taken two sips when she said, offhandedly, softly, “I wonder if it’s just that Captain Hardy is a bit shy?”
Angelique turned her head slowly and regarded Delilah with incredulity.
“Words like shy do not apply to men like Captain Hardy any more than they apply to a rock or a trebuchet.”
“I see. And you know this because you’ve cataloged all the varieties of men, then?” Angelique’s tendency to adopt sagacity—about, well, nearly everything—was lately shaving curls off Delilah’s nerves. “Or have you been privy to a menu?”
Angelique was not rattleable. “I’m not saying that I have. I’m also not saying that I haven’t.”
“A field guide would be useful. Perhaps a set of books like those Mr. Miles Redmond wrote. If one showed up at the door, we could identify him straight away. I suppose we’d call him the Silent Bronze-Visaged Taciturnicus.”
Angelique’s face lit up with wicked amusement and a little surprise.
Why were people always surprised to find Delilah was amusing? Why did people persist in thinking she was sweetness and light?
“I think we ought to bring him out of his shell,” Delilah mused. “Perhaps with a little more encouragement he would be more charming.”
“He’s all s
hell, Delilah. As in musket shell. If you bring him out of his shell, you’ll get naught for your trouble but a little smoke and a powder burn.”
And yet Captain Hardy looked benign enough at the moment, legs outstretched at the little table, book propped in his hand, a scarcely touched glass of brandy next to it. The firelight was burnishing his already golden skin, and the tips of his eyelashes had gone a sort of apricot shade. They were thick, and she wondered, absurdly, what he’d looked like as a boy. They seemed a vulnerability in a man who was elegantly spare and whose presence was weighty.
“His thighs are very good,” Angelique allowed, as though assessing the lamb chops.
“I don’t suppose I’ve ever thought about a man solely in terms of body parts before.”
“Don’t start, darling. You haven’t the constitution.”
Delilah clamped down on her back teeth. The success or failure of The Grand Palace on the Thames hinged on its proprietresses maintaining a congenial relationship, but it seemed increasingly unfair that she was the one who so often had to bite her tongue.
“Mrs. Breedlove, would you care to be our third in Whist?” Mrs. Jane Gardner said very shyly.
“I’d love nothing more,” Angelique lied prettily and went to join them.
But once Angelique got started in Whist, Delilah had learned, she was a ruthless, gleeful player. And this was why, Delilah was certain, Angelique would never have truly filled her pockets with rocks and waded into the Thames even if Delilah hadn’t come along, and this was why, no matter what, their endeavor would be a success. Neither one of them liked to lose.
The room, if not precisely unified in social activities, was pleasant and easy and she exhaled a little. Surely they could make this a success.
Perhaps it was the sherry.
Or Angelique’s condescension. She laid her knitting aside and picked up her glass of sherry and made her way across the carpet to the captain, feeling like a sailor navigating to the Rock of Gibraltar.
Chapter Thirteen
“Please don’t get up, Captain. I’ve just come to see if everything is to your liking.”
“‘Everything’ seldom is. But this evening and my accommodations are tolerable. Won’t you please sit down?”
Delilah pulled out a chair and settled in across from him.
“Tolerable,” she repeated thoughtfully, as if rolling a fine cognac about in her mouth. “I don’t suppose you’re familiar with the word hyperbole, Captain? It doesn’t always go amiss.”
He smiled faintly. “The very fact that a word like hyperbole is even necessary is what is wrong with the world.”
She smiled. “What an unusual mind you have, Captain Hardy.”
“I expect it’s quite an ordinary mind, perhaps extraordinarily focused.”
“On things like war, rather than, for instance, musicales.”
“I do not focus on war when I’m not fighting a battle,” he explained with a certain maddening, condescending patience.
And then he was silent.
And waited for her to say something.
“What do you focus on?” she tried.
“At present, I am struggling to focus on page six of Robinson Crusoe.”
“I’ve always wondered what war would be like.”
“Women wouldn’t understand or be able to endure the physical rigors of combat, Lady Derring. I see no point in describing them to you.”
“Yes. While having a baby is as easy as a game of Whist.”
This made him go absolutely motionless.
His eyes actually widened.
She’d managed to shock him.
Then again, she’d also shocked herself. Why on earth had she said that?
“Have you . . . had a child, Lady Derring?”
But he was certain he knew the answer—Derring had no heir—and for some reason Tristan regretted asking it instantly, because her eyes were briefly stricken.
“No,” she said softly. Sounding ever-so-slightly defeated.
He hadn’t the faintest idea what to say next. Absolutely none. And this seldom happened to him. He wanted to apologize, but he wasn’t about to presume her childlessness was a source of regret for her. Or imply that she had somehow failed. He supposed the information was useful.
He did not enjoy her obvious discomfiture, however, even though she’d quite brought it on herself.
Bloody hell. No good could come from aimless social occasions, he thought grimly.
“I have never felt as though . . . sometimes I wonder at the point of having a body,” she said softly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Did that sound odd? I’m sorry. I have had too much sherry, I fear.”
He looked at her glass, which was full, minus perhaps three sips.
“If we’re to discuss bodies, I’m going to need another brandy. Perhaps you must have another sherry, too.”
She gave a little laugh. “I think not. No, that is, I will not. You see, one of the luxuries of being a widow is that I can now say no when I want to. Until now, there has never seemed to be a point to me, other than as a commodity for someone. And now I can do as I please.”
She’d said it lightly and with some satisfaction.
And yet it was perhaps the most devastating thing someone had said aloud to him.
He wasn’t quite certain why. But he felt the weight of it land on his chest. Along with a peculiar irritation. Something not quite anger, but more like helplessness, as though he ought to be able to save her from that. Not something he’d had occasion to feel before.
“I’m not certain I understand what you mean,” he said carefully.
“You see, I went from my parents’ home straight to my husband’s. I was the savior of the family. Or rather, the Earl of Derring was, and I was the means by which he rescued us from poverty. After my husband died, there were a few moments where I couldn’t quite feel my limbs, as though nothing about myself had ever actually belonged to me. Perhaps it was shock. It wasn’t because of sherry or laudanum, certainly, for I’d had none. I’m rather new to sherry. Angelique’s influence. The earl liked a brandy. I liked chocolate in the morning. I am rambling now, you see, you must stop me—you’ve quite a bemused expression.”
He’d been listening, his stomach contracting in what he recognized as a response to something like injustice. As if he ought to have been there to prevent her from feeling that way, which made no sense at all.
But also, strangely, he listened because he liked hearing the lilt of her voice, and how she was flustered now, when everything about her was usually so brisk and competent.
“My expression, I hope, is thoughtful, and forgive me if it seems bemused,” he said carefully. “I was a soldier, you see. As an enlisted man, I was primarily cannon fodder. Cannon fodder is necessary and expendable, so I suppose I felt useful in that regard. And part of something. And yet. And so . . . I think I understand to a small degree.”
He’d never expressed such a thought to anyone before. Let alone a woman.
“Expendable,” she repeated on an exhale. “What a horrible word.”
She was watching him as though the idea of his being slaughtered in battle was distressing. Perhaps it was simply in the way of hospitality here at The Palace of Rogues. Limpid-eyed sympathy dispensed with the after-dinner brandy and the smuggled cigars.
But it was admittedly not unpleasant to be looked at in that fashion by those soft eyes of hers.
“I was there to kill or be killed. I understood that. I had orders and I obeyed them. But there are moments in the mass of men in battle where you forget you are a separate being . . . and so . . . I do believe I know what you mean. It’s humbling to realize that one’s importance in the scheme of things is, in fact, quite small. While it can be devastating, in some ways it becomes a source of strength.”
And he was amazed, in fact, that he did understand her.
“Beautifully put, Captain Hardy. I believe I’m coming to realize that.”
>
He had never thought about it in such terms. And what it might do to a person’s will or soul, to be seen as expendable.
They sat in a moment of silence.
“But you rose in the ranks.”
“I rose in the ranks.”
“And you are no longer expendable.”
“Arguably.” He smiled faintly.
She smiled, too, as though she was pleased to make him smile.
“But if you were an enlisted man, not there on an officer’s commission, there must have been a compelling reason for them to promote—”
“Valor,” he said shortly.
She blinked.
“Valor,” she repeated. Her voice lowered to a baritone.
She was taking the piss out of him!
The effrontery!
He stared at her. He had no idea what to feel in the moment, so astonished was he.
He was amazed to discover that he liked it quite a bit.
“Did they teach you how to answer questions with one word, Captain Hardy? You’re a miser with your history.” She was teasing.
“I’m not terribly interesting.”
“I doubt that sincerely.”
He lowered his book completely and stared at her. “Are you flirting with me, Lady Derring?”
Her jaw dropped. Then she clapped her mouth closed again. “Good heavens . . . I . . . what on? . . . No.”
She seemed so shocked and appalled his internal pendulum swung wildly between insulted and amused.
But her cheeks were glowing pink.
Which is why that pendulum came to rest on fascinated.
Lady Derring was lying.
And she was bad at it.
“I’m accusing you of disingenuousness, Captain Hardy.”
“Disingenuousness? I’ve called men out for less.”
When she smiled, a painfully charming crescent moon of a dimple appeared at the corner of her lush mouth. Her top lip rose into two little rosy peaks in the middle.
He imagined tracing them the way he would draw his finger along a route on a map.
His breath was briefly, shockingly, and violently stopped by a surge of lust.
As if it had been lying in wait for him for days now, like the blockade runners on the road lying in wait for smugglers. Just waiting for him to notice.
Lady Derring Takes a Lover Page 13
