A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,57

his smile never reached his eyes. “I’ve cashed out. Just Ingram will be fine, Saybrook.”

“Please, have a seat,” Honey said, when the silence began to stretch.

Simon took a seat on the settee, the last unoccupied place to sit in the tiny room other than the writing desk or window seat.

“Would you care for some tea? This is cold but I could ring for more?”

Simon smiled, tempted by the thought of the contumacious cook playing parlor maid. “No thank you.” He turned his gaze back to Ingram, whom he suddenly recalled with startling clarity. “How is your hand?”

The other man’s eyes flickered. “Better than no hand.”

Simon supposed it was the only thanks he’d ever get for saving Ingram’s hand, not to mention his life. Not that he was interested in gratitude.

“You two were acquainted in the War?”

Simon let Ingram answer Honoria’s question. “Yes, I met Lord Saybrook. Once.”

Tension poured off the other man in waves.

Well, well, well. Here was another damaged dandy.

Simon had to smile. Ingram even looked a little like him—or at least what Simon used to look like: tall, blond, blue-eyed, handsome, charming.

Well, Simon was still tall and blue-eyed.

“Are you staying at your brother’s house in town, my lord?”

Simon turned at the sound of Honoria’s voice. “I don’t know yet. I’ve only just arrived.”

Her eyes flickered over his dusty riding clothes, which her friend—Lady Sedgewick—had frowningly noticed when he’d walked into the room.

“Could I have a moment with you, Miss Keyes. Alone.” It was rude, but Simon was exhausted after the long ride.

The countess colored and Ingram seemed to double in size like a venomous exotic reptile. Simon ignored them both.

If Ingram had some sort of lingering bone to pick with him then Simon would love nothing more than to thrash it out with the other man at some point. But that wasn’t what he was there for today.

“Of course,” Miss Keyes said, her face redder than her friend’s. “Perhaps a walk in the garden?”

Simon opened the sitting room door and shut it behind her.

“They don’t know,” he said flatly as he followed her down the stairs.

“No, they don’t.”

She led him onto a small terrace that led to a pretty garden.

“There is a bench just over there.” She pointed but Simon was looking at her face, which had gone beet red as she recalled the last time they’d been in a garden with benches.

He followed her down a path surrounded by neatly pruned rose bushes and toward a tiny sitting area with only one bench. She sat all the way on one side.

Simon remained standing. “The duke tells me you have reconsidered my offer.”

Her gray eyes blazed up at him. “Did he tell you what he did?”

“No, but I can imagine. Did he pressure you by threatening your career?”

“Worse. He threatened Lady Sedgewick’s livelihood and she is not like me—she does not have a comfortable home and a nest egg. She needs to work for her bread and the duke has already snatched two pieces from her grasp.”

If she expected her words to surprise him, she was destined to be disappointed.

“I already told you, Miss Keyes: my brother will do whatever is necessary to get what he wants. You should be glad he has only meddled with a few of your friend’s potential clients. It is easily within his power to make her a pariah.”

The color drained from her cheeks. “What kind of monster is he?”

Simon felt a protective twinge toward his brother at her words.

“He is a powerful man. That is what they are like, Miss Keyes. That is how they get and keep power.” Simon shrugged. “And you and I are just as vulnerable to his will and whim as your friend, Lady Sedgewick You can fight him, but you’ve already seen some of what he is willing to do.” He saw the frustrated fury in her taut face and felt a pang of sympathy. “I am sorry about that night and what it has led to. Truly.”

“I am an adult, not a child, my lord. I was there that night, half of what happened is my fault.”

Simon did not think it would be wise to argue the matter. He also didn’t see any point in telling her that her life would be a disaster when word of what they’d been doing in his brother’s study finally came out. Which it would—things like this always came out. The duke could only hold them in fear for so long. And when the truth came out? It would not