of lust.
The notion of seducing her made him breathless, because he thought it was both possible and inadvisable for a dozen reasons. If he applied himself, he could rationalize those reasons out of existence.
“What are you doing on this floor, Captain Hardy? Oh! Were you going to visit Mr. Delacorte?” All at once she was radiant with hope. “Did the two of you become friends? I know he likes to play chess. He’s loud but he’s clever and quite a nice fellow all in all, I think. But he’s already gone down to breakfast, I’m afraid.”
She sounded like a mother who so hoped someone found her slow son likable. And he remembered her expression—the fleeting bleakness—when he’d asked her if she had a child. Lady Derring was trying to create a family of sorts here, he was fairly certain.
He was hopelessly charmed. “My chess skills are moderate at best and if I’m going to lose at something I’d rather put up a more respectable fight.”
“I don’t suppose you often lose at anything, Captain Hardy.”
“Not since that one time, lo these many years ago.”
He allowed himself a moment of basking in her smile. Like the fluffy pillows here at the boardinghouse, pleasures like her smile were so rare in his life as to qualify as luxuries.
“But if you’re not looking for Mr. Delacorte, then, Captain Hardy, what brings you to this floor? I should think you’d have mastered navigation by now.”
She was dogged.
“I must have inadvertently headed out one flight too soon in my eagerness to get to my comfortable blue room.”
He’d said that to make her face glow, and it did, even if she was a trifle skeptical of the flattery.
“Speaking of winning . . . By the way, who is the lucky bas—who is the person who managed to reserve this suite before I could? And when will we meet him or her?”
She hesitated. Interesting that she was taking care with the words she chose.
“Oh, one day, perhaps, you will meet this guest, depending upon how long you stay, Captain Hardy. Until then we keep the room tidy and comfortable, the same way we keep yours tidy and comfortable.”
He wasn’t certain she was being unreasonably discreet, but it did sound rather like circumspection.
He would find out, one way or the other, because he always did.
And if he found out while he was lying in bed next to her, naked, so much the better. Whatever sacrifice had to be made.
He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Do you know, on my way up to my rooms late last night I saw Miss Gardner coming down this very hall. Away from the room.”
“Miss Gardner?” She was confused. “But she’s . . . but they’re . . . which Miss Gardner?”
“The . . . big one.” He felt a right fool for saying that.
“You don’t think . . . Mr. Delacorte . . . and Mrs. Gardner . . . were . . .” She was pink again, and her hands were up to her face then came down.
She was picturing it, and no one ought to do that for sanity-preserving reasons.
“But there are rules here at The Grand Palace on the Thames about entertaining strange women in one’s room!”
He gave a short laugh. “If rules alone would keep people in line, the way a harness kept a team of horses neatly trotting along, England would have no need for a navy, Lady Derring.”
Her face was a picture. “I think life has been unkind to Miss Jane and Miss Margaret,” she said, hesitantly. “I’m glad they are here so we can treat them gently and kindly and make them feel safe.”
He felt he was hearing a list of things that Lady Derring wanted from life.
Why did it feel like he was hearing his own true purpose delineated for the first time ever?
“I’m certain Miss Gardner simply took a wrong turn,” he said gently. But he wanted to take the worried, conflicted expression from her face.
He wasn’t at all certain this was the case, but he’d find out.
She looked relieved, and as though, suddenly, his emotions were a mirror of hers, he was relieved, too.
Which troubled him. He frowned faintly, as if desiring her was something uncomfortable she’d compelled him to against his wishes, like sitting in their drawing room at night.
He ought to go. Massey would be awaiting orders.
She noticed his silence and his frown. “Is here anything I can help you with, Captain Hardy?”
“Perhaps,” he said tersely. “Delacorte offered me the most vile