Kasey Michaels (21 page)

“Callie?” Armand repeated questioningly, his voice a soft purr. “How charmingly informal, I’m sure.”

Simon shot him a look, kicking himself mentally for his careless verbal blunder. There was no room for lapses with Armand Gauthier and, if he knew his man at all, he’d probably pay for this one within the hour.

Bartholomew also lost his smile as he quickly sat forward in his chair, aghast. “Can’t dance?”

“Not a step, or so she says, and I am forced to believe her. So, Bones, will you volunteer to teach her?”

“Not me!” Bartholomew vigorously shook his head in denial. “Haven’t set foot on a dance floor in three years, and I’m not about to change my ways now. It’s the waltz, you know,” he announced with conviction meant to impress his companions. “The waltz was the very death knell for dancing.”

“Which is the same as to say Bones has an unfortunate habit of treading all over his partner’s instep in any dance more intimate than a quadrille,” Armand slipped in. “Isn’t that right, Bones?”

“Miss Millson had to retire from the Season, no thanks to me,” Bartholomew gritted out, retelling a three-year-old story they all already knew. “It was either that or try to clomp around with a crutch stuck up under her arm, which couldn’t have helped her prospects any, considering she already had that unfortunate squint.” He sighed deeply, as if proving that he was, as always, the victim of a cruel world. “Her papa still cuts me each time we happen to pass each other in the clubs. It was my fault, I know, but that don’t mean I also was responsible for the silly chit ending up eloping with her penniless country doctor, does it? Well?” he asked, looking at Armand and Simon searchingly. “Does it?”

“No, no, definitely not,” both men answered in unison, for to disagree would only mean a rehashing of the entire sequence of events, which would get them nowhere and only upset Bones more than he was at that moment.

“Which brings us back to Miss Johnston and her sad lack of skill at the dance,” Armand pointed out, looking to Simon. “I take it you’ll be hiring a dancing master and arranging for a few lessons?”

“Done and done, as Imogene has one Odo Pinabel even now tippy-toeing across my carpets,” Simon told him, cocking his head toward the front of the house, in the direction of the music room. “If you listen closely, you can hear my dear mother pounding out the very first off-key notes of a—why, that’s a waltz, I believe. Hadn’t you heard her before this? Ah well, perhaps my ears are more finely attuned to discordant sounds. I don’t hold out much hope for success with Imogene insisting upon hammering out the rhythms, do you?”

They all listened for a few more moments, Bartholomew wincing as the viscountess picked her way through a rather difficult passage, hitting two incorrect notes for every one that rang true. “I’d heard the racket, Simon, but thought the dear lady was simply practicing her scales. But to ask Miss Johnston to learn to dance to that? Well, it won’t do. It won’t do at all!” he announced, putting down his wineglass as he rose to his feet, smartly pulling down his waistcoat over his nonexistent belly. “At least I can remedy one problem. Besides, I think I want a look at Simon’s new responsibility, just out of curiosity, you understand.”

Simon rose as well. “She is
not
my responsibility, Bones,” he corrected, allowing Armand and Bartholomew to precede him to the doorway. “I am merely being prudent, keeping her out of harm’s way until I can deal with Kinsey, then rewarding her with a bit of a Season for her trouble—and to thank her for keeping Imogene occupied. No more, no less.”

Armand halted in the doorway after Bartholomew had already passed through, turning to look at his friend. “Do you really mean that, Simon?” he asked, looking at him closely.

“I do,” he answered, gathering up every ounce of conviction he could find inside him. He was shocked to realize that, after spending several hours with Callie that afternoon, crying friends as it were, that conviction made for a pitifully small bundle.

Armand smiled, his flash of white teeth nearly as mischievous as the glint in his dark eyes. “Then I wouldn’t, using poor Bones as an example, be treading on any toes if I were to decide—upon further acquaintance, of course—that our dear Miss Johnston might possibly become more to me than your responsibility?”

“She is not at all in your style, Armand,” Simon pointed out, aware that his jaw muscles had grown uncomfortably tight. What the devil was the matter with him? “For all her daring, her breeches, her outrageous behavior, she is gently bred and reared. As her guardian, I—”

“Her
guardian
?” Armand asked, cutting him off. “Oh-ho, I scent a contradiction here. I believe you just told me that she is not even your responsibility, much less your ward. Or is it only me that you have found necessary to warn off the tasty little morsel?”

“Callie is—” Simon stopped, took a deep breath, and deliberately ended, aware that his friend was intentionally baiting him, “Miss Johnston is not a tasty little morsel, Armand.”

“But, my friend, even from my quite short association with her, I believe I can safely conclude she’s also a long chalk from, say, a Miss Millson,” Armand pointed out with maddening certitude. “She needs, deserves, a man of intelligence, of spirit. She’d be entirely wasted on a country doctor or the like. Don’t you agree?”

Simon’s next words were drawn from desperation, but they sounded impressive enough, for all he knew that Callie would laugh in delight if she were to hear them. “Her father is Sir Camber Johnston, a man knighted for his invaluable service to the Queen herself. Banish the sight of her in breeches from your mind, Armand. If she was for a moment outrageous, she remains as untouchable as any debutante.”

“Which makes my conclusions all the more true, and all the more sad,” Armand said, his tone and his expression equally noncommittal. “You and your mother are both going to do your best to take that enchanting little minx and turn her into a patterncard of all the most boring virtues exhibited by the endless parade of insipid debutantes cluttering up the ballrooms this and every Season, aren’t you? Which would be a damnable pity, in my opinion. A small wager, if you will, Simon? The price Bones paid for his slug of a horse seems fair, with the winnings going to one of the local charities. You cannot make a sow’s ear of our little silk purse. Not to entertain Imogene, not to turn me away from the memory of the sight of her in breeches, not to convince yourself that you are immune to her rather, as you yourself termed it,
outrageous
charms. Are we on?”

“You’re out for some private mischief, aren’t you?” He stared at Gauthier as that man coolly averted his eyes, holding out his hand and inspecting his cuticles. “My God, Armand—you are, aren’t you?” Simon asked, for once unable to read his friend’s motives. “Why?”

“Because I like this little Callie of yours, old fellow,” Armand said, his American drawl now faintly tinged with the accents of France. The man was deliberately employing the voice that Simon had heard him use to such great advantage as he laid down his winning hand at cards. “And because,” he continued, “as much as it pains me to admit it, of the love I bear you. There is, you see, more than one way to ruin a woman. And a man. In short, I believe you might just have your eyes on the wrong prize, Simon.”

Simon threw back his head, laughing aloud. “You’re out of your mind!” he exclaimed, walking back to pick up his glass of champagne. “Now go on, follow Bones into the music room, rescue Miss Johnston from her dancing master, and do your best to beguile her with your handsome presence. I’ll be along in a moment. I just remembered something I have to do, a few papers I promised to sign.”

“You’re opening the field then, Simon? You don’t really want her for yourself?” Armand asked, addressing the viscount’s back as he stood at the drinks table, pouring himself another glass. “Are you sure?”

Simon turned around, nonchalantly resting his hip against one corner of the small table. “Positive, Armand. Have at it with my blessings, if you’re so eager to catch your neck in the parson’s mousetrap. Just be careful, as Miss Johnston has evinced an interest in learning how to flirt,” he said, returning drawl for deliberate lazy drawl, for the first time not seeing the man as his beloved comrade but as his possible adversary.

It was also, he realized as Armand smiled, saluted smartly, and quit the room, the first time he might have lied to his best friend.

What worried him was the thought that he might also be lying to himself, a thought he immediately banished as ridiculous.

Callie hadn’t realized how much she had been counting on Simon to become her dancing master until her real instructor had shown up, out of breath and perspiring quite heavily. He had doubtless run all the way to Portland Place—perhaps even leapfrogging over the knocked-prone body of his hapless current pupil in his haste to pocket the exorbitant amount of money Simon seemed compelled to pay anyone who so much as pointed him in the correct direction as he searched out the dining room in his own house.

Not that she wasn’t pleased with Mr. Odo Pinabel. He was certainly a nice enough man, if one didn’t mind his affected lisp, or the fact that his hands seemed perpetually cold and clammy. Or that his breath smelled of onions.

And then there was his eyebrow. The poor man only possessed one of the things—stretching straight across the bridge between his eyes and as, thick and black as a woolly, creeping bug. She couldn’t seem to keep her gaze off it.

Although the eyebrow did come in rather handy, seeing as how Callie was already learning to count “one-two-twree” by its movements. She was entranced by its jerky climb up Mister Odo Pinabel’s tall forehead, moving hitch-hitch-
hitch
! with each beat, the last one signaling that, yes indeed, it was now time to dip and turn and begin to count again.

So there were the clammy hands, and the onions, the deliberate lisp, and the eyebrow—added to the Viscountess Brockton’s inexorable attack on the pianoforte—none of which made waltzing quite the romantic adventure Callie had pictured in her mind’s eye.

“One-two-
twree
, one-two-
twree
. Fasther, Mith Johnston, fasther!” Mr. Odo Pinabel commanded, his eyebrow climbing higher and higher, threatening to disappear into the thick black thatch of hair that seemed so out of place on his head—almost as if it had landed there by mistake and might actually belong to someone else entirely. “Mith Johnston, cro-operate, puleeze! It would be twerrible to twrip in public, and shimply crush-ing for my conseth-ah-quence.”

“Yes, Mr. Pinabel,” Callie said, averting her head, for it seemed that the dancing master not only lisped, his speech was as damp as his palms. She’d nearly drowned when he’d talked of crushing and consequences. “I’ll try.”

“It’h shimply the mushic, that’th all,” Mr. Pinabel assured her as the viscountess hit another chord, one that should be heard only the once and then lost for all time. This, however, was Callie’s second thought, the first being that there had been four unfortunately moist esses in Mr. Pinabel’s explanation. If there had been an even half dozen, she decided, prudently ducking her head and rolling her eyes as he whirled her into another turn, she’d have to learn to waltz with an umbrella guarding her face.

When the door to the hallway opened and Bartholomew Boothe walked in, Callie looked at the newcomer with enough smiling enthusiasm to make the clearly uncomfortable man blush above his high shirtpoints.

“I’ve come to rescue you from that jangle of well-meant noise I heard as I passed by the door just now, Miss Johnston,” he hastily announced, bowing to her, his gaze raking her from head to foot as he did so, the light of appreciation in his eyes doing wonders for her mood. “And may I say,” he continued as he straightened once more, “that I have never been so honored as I will be to play your accompaniment for the remainder of your lesson.”

“Hah! Over my broken and bruised body,” the viscountess declared flatly, banging both her heavily beringed hands down on the keyboard and discovering yet another chord best lost to the ages. “I’m getting the hang of it, Bones, and I’ll thank you to stop leering at the gel and go away. You aren’t needed. Aren’t wanted. Haven’t been asked, either, now that I think on it. Or am I wrong? Did that interfering son of mine send you?”

“Well, um, well—” Bartholomew stammered, still inspecting Callie, who—feeling rather proud of her appearance and more than willing to show herself off a little bit—deliberately stepped away from Mr. Pinabel, took hold of her skirts at either side, and then turned herself in a full circle so that he could see all of her new splendor. She then grinned at Bartholomew again and wrinkled her nose in a playful move that let him know she had been deliberately baiting him. Or was that flirting with him? She’d have to ask Simon, if he ever deigned to give her another lesson.

“Bones! I’m talking to you!” Imogene pressed, giving the keys another hard bang. “Did my son send you?”

Bartholomew looked at Callie solemnly, grinned quickly in what more closely resembled a pained grimace, then sobered once more. It was as if he knew he shouldn’t smile and by that smile condone her forward behavior, yet at the same time felt he might be insulting her if he didn’t at least acknowledge her own happy smile. He was so sweet, so adorable—so clearly confused and put out of kilter—that Callie longed to kiss his cheek.