turned out to be Calliope’s great-aunts Doris and Louisa. The slender one gave him such a look of disapproval that his knuckles began to tingle as he remembered the rap of the ruler wielded by his childhood governess. The other aunt sniffed and stroked the head of a rather portly pug, who snorted at him as if he were as unimpressed with Nick as his owner.
Then, he came face to face with the viscount. Despite Nick standing a whole head taller than the man, Calliope’s father gave off an air of command that had him standing up straighter and hoping his cravat wasn’t askew.
“Papa, may I introduce Mr. Dominick Burke? Mr. Burke, my father, Viscount Barrington.”
“My lord,” Nick said, sweeping into a bow which forced Calliope to let go of his arm. “It is an honor to meet you at last.”
“I am the one who is honored that you would accept my invitation. I look forward to coming to know you, Mr. Burke. My Calliope has nothing but good things to say about you.”
Nick couldn’t help a glance in Calliope’s direction, both confused and elated to hear she’d had anything kind to say about him at all. It didn’t matter if she felt she must for the illusion of their courtship. He would take the crumbs from her table if it was all she had to give; he was so pitifully besotted.
“Mr. Burke,” interrupted a feminine voice from his left. “I had no idea you would be here! How lovely to see you again.”
He tensed as he recognized the voice, slowly turning his head to find the last person he would have wanted to discover here. His gorge rose as he came face to face with the one client he’d been glad to be done with.
Lady Carlotta Thrush had been married when she’d hired him for an affair that had lasted nine months. The woman was a beauty, with dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and a mouth that had been wrapped around his cock more times than he could count. Her husband’s suspicions had frightened her into cutting him loose, for which Nick had been eternally grateful. She was frightfully dull and talked too much, often without saying anything of substance.
Where in the past he might have enjoyed the prospect of taking up with an old client, the way she looked at him put Nick’s teeth on edge. Now a widow, she looked as if she were mentally counting the contents of her reticule.
“Lady Thrush,” he said as politely as he could manage, even as her gaze traveled over him with meaningful intent. “It has been an age.”
Long enough that she ought to have set her sights on a new lover, or at least approached Benedict for another arrangement. Just then, Nick was glad to be snared into a contract of his own so he would not have to bear her himself.
“Far too long,” she purred, reaching out to take his arm. Lowering her voice so that only he could hear, she added, “How I have missed you, mon amour.”
Nick bristled at the intimate moniker, one she employed because she thought it more sophisticated to use the French words. The vapid chit seemed oblivious to his discomfort as well as his distaste, steering him away from Calliope. When he peered over his shoulder, he found Calliope watching them with pinched lips, her brow furrowed. He gave her an apologetic look and did his best to extract his arm from the other woman’s hold.
Carlotta fawned over him, simpering and preening as she introduced him to two of her friends. He could still feel Calliope’s gaze, piercing and unwavering. A little smile ticked at the corner of his mouth while she fumed, her expression downright murderous when she glared at Lady Thrush.
Now, perhaps, she’d experienced a taste of what Nick had been wrestling with all these weeks. It would seem his goddess was jealous.
It took only one day of the house party for Calliope to discover that Lady Carlotta Thrush was capable of making the most annoying sound on Earth. She made it often, shattering the tranquil happiness Calliope usually derived from visiting her father’s home with screeching, shrill laughter. It filled the drawing room when the men and women came together for cards and charades, it rattled the china when they sat down for dinner, and it made her want to jam the knife of her place setting through her ear if only to make it stop.