The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,92

it.

Surely Con couldn’t argue with that approach. Brothers they may be, Roman could be pure obstinacy when he made up his mind to disapprove.

Con tossed back his drink. “He used to be so forgiving,” he said with a touch of irony.

Trestin settled onto the couch beside Celeste. “If by that you mean he was oblivious to the world around him, then I have to agree.”

Elizabeth relaxed a fraction. At least these two men wouldn’t come to blows.

Lord Trestin continued, “The unfortunate fact is that I fear he might be right to be concerned.”

Con sat forward abruptly. “I can handle myself—”

“You’ve managed to bring it this far. You’ve done better than I had supposed. But the gossip hasn’t waned. In point of fact, I have heard it. These things usually have their time and then they die. Why hasn’t it?”

Elizabeth’s mouth went dry. Her belly turned leaden. Trestin was right. The rumors ought to have stopped by now. She’d been counting on it. Was her father aware? If even Trestin knew what was being said…

But what more could she do?

The longer Con remained silent, the more her fear magnified. She caught Celeste’s eye. What she saw there made her feel like a helpless child. Pity. For poor Elizabeth had once again dug herself a hole impossible to escape.

They were all saved by the call to dinner. They filed into a massive dining room dominated by heavy oil paintings and dark blue walls. They were seated together at one end, with Trestin at the head and Lord Constantine to Celeste’s left. Elizabeth took her chair beside Trestin and folded her hands in her lap. Then she glanced about the room as if lightning were about to strike her. This was the first time she’d sat at a respectable table as a grown woman. She’d been barely out of the schoolroom when she’d fled her parents’ house with Captain Moore, and lived as an outcast after that. Even now she was nothing more than Con’s mistress, welcome only because Trestin had laughed in the face of propriety by marrying his.

She felt the strangeness of formal dining as if she were in someone else’s skin. Coupled with her fear of her father and Celeste’s sympathetic stare, she almost felt like a little girl again.

“So Montborne is suspicious,” Trestin said after they’d all been served the first course, “but I doubt that’s what’s sent you scurrying into the country. Your clan has done a fair job of avoiding Devon.” He shot Elizabeth a pointed look. “And don’t tell me it’s because you were homesick for the cottage. I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

She would mention again how much she really had wanted to retreat to the obscurity of the cottage, but she wasn’t in the mood to tease. A glance at Con told her he wasn’t about to explain their reason for coming, either. He seemed absorbed in his own thoughts.

Was he reconsidering all that he’d tangled himself up in? The way he stared at the candelabra in the center of the table twisted her belly.

“Elizabeth,” Trestin said in a warning tone. “There is always trouble afoot when a Londoner comes to Devon. Or haven’t I told you my theory?”

Roman ran to Devon every time scandal broke around him. She’d come when Nicholas had yanked her world from under her. And today, they were here for a reason. Two, actually.

“Have you heard of the Grand Canal?” she asked when Trestin seemed ready to demand an answer, and Con was frowning so furiously into his soup that she expected it to steam at any moment. “I believe it isn’t far from here.”

Trestin set his spoon down. “Are you a shareholder?”

“Not I,” Elizabeth said. “Lord Constantine has a sum tied up in it.”

Trestin turned to Con, who had lifted his head at the sound of his name. Good. Maybe she’d distracted him from rehearsing the speech she knew must be coming. Elizabeth, while this seemed in my favor at the start, now I can no longer support it in good faith…

“As do I,” Trestin said, much to Elizabeth’s surprise. “As it happens, neither of my sisters required their dowries. When I heard there was to be a renewed attempt to complete the canal, I had my man of business look into it. A canal linking Exeter and the Channel can only be beneficial to everyone.” He smiled in a rare flash of humor. “The fact that it is to go through your family’s land and not mine