The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,63
heed it. “Fair and cruel? You know her well, don’t you, Pickett?”
Percy shrugged, losing interest fast. “The ton is small and Lady Folkestone is more intriguing than most. The poems I could write about her…”
Ellie cut him off. “Let us return to the topic. What would you like, Folkestone? Dancing? Some other amusement?”
“Not dancing,” he said decisively. “Beyond that, I care not how we spend the next hour or two.”
But he cared very much how they would spend the time after that. She saw it in the way his eyes turned dreamy, almost as dreamy as Percy’s. But if Percy dreamed of poems, Nick dreamed of something far baser.
She just barely controlled her shiver. “I shall arrange charades for those who want it. If you don’t wish to play, I’m sure you can find another game.”
“I already have,” he murmured.
She blushed. Then she stepped back, knowing she had already spent too much time with him. At a party where everyone longed for gossip and no one was creating any, she knew without looking that half her guests were watching their interaction.
“Very well,” she said. “Be kind to my friends, though.”
“When am I ever unkind?”
That begged for a setdown, but she raised her chin and gave him a sunny smile. “Enjoy your game, my lord. I know I shall enjoy mine.”
She walked away before he responded. Now was not the time to spar with him. It was the time to make nice with her guests, make sure her sisters talked to the right men, make herself stay calm and collected…
Make herself stop wondering what Nick would demand from her that night.
* * *
Fifteen minutes to midnight. Nick had survived another day — not just without facing an assassination attempt, but without murdering any of Ellie’s guests.
He had Ellie to thank for that. If she hadn’t sought him out when she did, he might have continued talking to Norbury. And if he was honest, he knew he’d almost lost his carefully controlled, utterly false bonhomie. Nick didn’t sense any rottenness in Norbury’s soul, although the man was guarded enough that Nick couldn’t be sure. But he still didn’t understand why Ellie had befriended such a dull prig. To take it a step further, why had she befriended any of these people? From what he understood, this was a tamer circle than those she usually entertained — but still mostly shallow. When he had known her, she hadn’t wanted an empty London life.
From his seat at the card table with Marcus, Nick surveyed the rooms. Most of the older generation had retired. The charades had ended, but Ellie made no sign that the party would ever dissolve. She had cornered the Earl of Salford in the main drawing room, but Nick couldn’t get close enough to hear their conversation without his eavesdropping being apparent.
The twins were playing a duet for piano and harp, and Sebastian Staunton had been dragooned — quite willingly, it appeared — into turning pages for them. They were accomplished enough to flirt and play at the same time, and Sebastian wasn’t stupid enough to miss that opportunity. Norbury read a book, ostensibly, although Nick hadn’t seen him turn a page in the last quarter hour. Several other guests were playing cards or billiards, with enough wine around them to supply a ship of the line. And the Duke and Duchess of Rothwell were murmuring to each other on a settee in the drawing room — a welcome break from the way Rothwell had watched Nick throughout the evening with a disapproving scowl that would have done his father proud.
That left Miss Etchingham alone with her embroidery near the fire. He wondered at that, but it wasn’t his place to comment. He tossed his final card on the table. “I’m sorry to keep stealing your money, brother.”
“Where did you learn to play?” Marcus demanded, pushing another marker toward Nick. “You never won when we were younger.”
Nick retrieved Marcus’s marker and added it to the pile of notes in front of him. “Five months on a ship is enough time to learn any vice that involves drink or cards.”
“It’s not your skill that has changed,” Marcus said, collecting the cards and tapping them together into a neat pile. “You just know better when to go in for the kill. Another hand, or do you think our hostess will let us go to our beds?”
Nick glanced at the clock. Twelve minutes. “She will let us go at midnight, I’d wager. Not enough