The Wallflower Wager - Tessa Dare Page 0,4
Not a great deal better. But better.
“Pretty girl!”
From the dressing room, Mr. Duke gave an annoyed groan.
“I’m so sorry for the imposition,” she called. “Delilah only came to live in Bloom Square a few weeks ago. Her mistress passed away. Parrots are loyal and intelligent, and they often outlive their human companions. So she’s not only been uprooted from her home, she’s in mourning.”
“I must say, she doesn’t sound particularly aggrieved to me.”
“She does say the most amusing things, doesn’t she? ‘Pretty girl,’ and ‘yes,’ and—Do you hear that one? ‘Fancy a . . .’ what? I never can catch what she’s saying at the end. It’s certainly not biscuit. ‘Fancy a cuppa,’ perhaps? But who gives a parrot tea? It sounds a great deal like ‘fancy a foxglove,’ but that makes even less sense. I don’t mind saying the mystery is driving me a bit mad.”
“Fuck.”
She froze. “I’m not that upset about it.”
He returned to the bedchamber, now clothed in a pair of trousers and an unbuttoned shirt. “It’s what the parrot’s saying. ‘Fancy a fuck, love.’ That bird came from a whorehouse.”
She spent a few moments in scandalized silence. No one had ever spoken to her in such a manner—but that wasn’t the disturbing part. The disturbing part was how much she liked it.
“That can’t be,” she said. “She belonged to a little old lady. That’s what I was told.”
“Bawds turn into little old ladies, too.”
“Pretty girl.” Delilah gave a cheeky whistle. “Fancy a f—”
Penny pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no.”
“Yes! Yes! Ooh! Yes!”
Mr. Duke sat to pull on his boots. “Please tell me I don’t need to translate that for you.”
Penny couldn’t think of anything she might say to make this exchange less horrifying. She couldn’t have said anything at all. It wasn’t that she’d lost her tongue. Her tongue had curled up and died.
Boots donned, he strode to the door and held it open for her. Penny gratefully lifted the birdcage and hurried to escape.
“I know how fragile a lady’s reputation can be,” he said. “Just so it’s understood—no one can ever know you were here.”
“Lady Penelope?”
Penny jumped in her skin.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Burns, stood in the corridor. Her eyes slid to her employer. “Mr. Duke.”
Mr. Duke cursed under his breath. If she were the sort to use profanity, Penny would have cursed, too.
Mrs. Burns had managed the Wendleby house for as long as Penny could remember. When she was a girl, the housekeeper had terrified her.
Little had changed in that regard. The woman was even more frightening now, clad in black from head to toe with her hair parted severely down the center. The candle she held threw macabre shadows across her face.
“Is there some way I can be of service?” she solemnly intoned.
“My parrot flew in through the window and I came over to retrieve her,” Penny hastily explained. “Mr. Duke was kind enough to help. Mrs. Burns, perhaps you’d be so good as to accompany me home?”
“That would be prudent.” The housekeeper gave her a disapproving look. “In the future, my lady, might I suggest you wake a servant to let you in the house.”
“Oh, this won’t happen again.” Penny slid a glance toward Mr. Duke as she moved to leave. “I can promise you that.”
In fact, Penny had formed a simple plan to cope with this situation.
Thank the man for his help . . .
Calmly make her retreat . . .
And then never, ever leave her house again.
As the owner of properties all over Britain—hotels, town houses, mines, factories, country estates—Gabe was accustomed to awakening in unfamiliar rooms. Three things, however, never altered.
He always woke with the dawn.
He always woke hungry.
And he always woke up alone.
He had a set of rules when it came to sexual congress—he didn’t pay for it, he wouldn’t beg for it, and he damned well wasn’t going to wed for it. When based in London, he found casual lovers with no difficulty, but lately he’d been moving from place to place so often he simply couldn’t find the time.
On this particular morning, he sat up in the bed, gave himself a shake, and familiarized himself with his surroundings. Mayfair. Bloom Square. The house that ought to bring a satisfying profit, once it was finally ready to be sold.
The house next door to her. Lady Penelope Campion—the aging, frazzled, unsightly spinster who . . .
Who wasn’t any of those things. Not by a mile. As fortune would have it, Lady Penelope Campion turned out to be