Lady Derring Takes a Lover - Julie Anne Long Page 0,44

seconds earlier, he fervently hoped would be administering the Scoundrel’s Wheelbarrow.

“Breedlove?” he repeated. “Lady Derring,” he emphasized meaningfully. “But surely, with names like those . . .”

They both shook their heads.

“Forgive me. Well, I’m terribly embarrassed.”

“And you should be,” Delilah said almost tenderly.

Angelique stifled a laugh.

“I don’t get up to that sort of thing, ever, you know.” He beseeched them with big dark eyes.

“We can tell,” Angelique assured him.

He looked crestfallen and a little anxious. “I daresay. Well, that leaves me in a bit of a bind. I’ve no place to stay for the night.”

“Well, what brings you to London, Mr. Farraday, besides those, er, pastimes?” Angelique asked.

He blushed again. Then fidgeted a little.

At last he sighed. “I bolted, you see,” he said earnestly.

They didn’t see.

“Bolted?” Delilah prompted, gently.

“I bolted because I don’t want to marry her!” he blurted, in frustrated anguish. “I was meant to propose—everyone expected it of me—and I couldn’t bring myself to do it and so . . . well, I bolted. Was midway to a house party where it was supposed to happen to much rejoicing, and in my bed at the coaching inn, and I thought, sod it, I can’t, I just can’t. And I left. I suppose that makes me sound heartless and callow.”

They contemplated the responses that were most honest and truthful: a swift boxing of the ears or a “why, yes, you great oaf, you’re a cad of the first water.”

“We think you sound just like a man,” Delilah decided upon finally, sweetly.

Also truthful.

“Thank you.” He beamed.

They both fought powerful urges not to roll their eyes.

“I am not proud of myself, mind you, but I’m too young to be leg shackled and I’m not in love with her. She’s my friend! How tremendously odd would it be to marry someone who has been your lifelong friend?”

“It actually sounds quite tolerable, even preferable,” Delilah said.

“I’d like a chance to be in love, you see. A little passion. A little excitement! A little adventure! Some worldly experience!” He blushed a little again.

They both could volunteer to him that worldly experience wasn’t precisely what it was cracked up to be.

Though Delilah, when he’d said that, was surprised to realize she might like a little more of that as well.

She thought of Captain Hardy’s long-legged stride as he disappeared out the door this evening. Where did he go?

Why had the tiniest part of her gone with him?

“Before we permit you to stay, we’ll need to learn a little more about you,” Angelique told him.

“You’re going to interview me for suitability. But . . .” He looked bewildered. “This is a building by the docks.”

“By the River Thames, London’s glorious lifeblood. A place where travelers from all over the world first lay foot on British soil. It is the very beating heart of London. By the docks!”

She made docks sound like Fields of Gold.

“But you’ve a man sleeping across your entrance. He said you were coldhearted.”

“It’s adorable that you think he’s sleeping,” Angelique said at the same time Delilah said with great delight, “Only one man?”

Mr. Farraday’s eyes darted toward the door. Then back to them.

He jounced his leg uneasily.

They smiled upon him warmly.

His frown disappeared. He appeared to be basking in their pretty smiles.

Delilah smoothly continued, “It’s just that the poor man outside was refused entrance to The Grand Palace on the Thames on the grounds that he’s a bit of a rogue and he has been drinking away his sorrows ever since.”

This wasn’t entirely untrue.

Mr. Farraday might be country gentry, but he wasn’t a fool. He took this in with an eyebrow dive.

And then he began a surreptitious and more thorough inspection of the premises. Perhaps beginning to become more resigned to the reality of things, his eyes flicked up to the ceiling, took in the chandelier, scanned the floors, the stairs.

She imagined he lived in a manor house in the country, built a century ago to withstand anything from marauders or visits from wandering royalty.

His expression suggested he was satisfied, if not ecstatic.

“But I’ve no other place to stay tonight,” he fretted. “Nobody knows I’ve bolted to London and I don’t want anyone to know.”

“Fortunately, we have a marvelous room just come available. And while you certainly look like a gentleman and we have sympathy for your plight, there’s no guarantee you shall have a place to sleep tonight, either, until we learn a bit more about you.”

Flattery, vague threats, a faint air of menace, a certain risk—her mother would have been appalled