Kasey Michaels (25 page)

“Is everything all right now, milord?” Emery asked as Simon paused outside the door, belatedly realizing that his cravat was all but undone and remembering that, at some point, Callie’s fingers had been tangled in its folds. “The viscountess said that the young miss was feeling homesick, and that you had gone to talk to her. She won’t be leaving us, will she, milord? We’ve all grown rather fond of her belowstairs, and Mr. Plum as well.”

“Really?” Simon commented, finding it difficult to believe that Emery could be so informal.

“Oh, yes, milord, it’s true. Brings a bit of life to the place, Miss Callie does, if you don’t mind my saying so, and keeps her ladyship from mucking about too much in all our business. Roberts is especially fond of Miss Callie now that Her Ladyship’s time is more taken with fittings and the like and less with trying to outfox him at every turn. It truly would be a pity if they were to go.”

Simon looked at Emery quizzically. “How long have you been with me, Emery?” he asked, both shocked and enlightened by the man’s long speech.

“I was a footman to your father, rest his soul, my lord, and watched you grow from a boy.”

“Yes, I thought so. And yet, in all this time, this is the first I can remember you being quite this, well, this
familiar
.”

“Yes, sir,” the butler returned, lifting himself up very straight, returning to his usual formality. “Shall I pack my bags, milord?” he asked sorrowfully.

Simon turned, looking at the closed door to Callie’s bedchamber. He remembered their kiss. He remembered the lie that hung between them. He could visualize Callie’s reaction when she learned he’d taken Filton down by himself, cutting her out of the action. He then turned back to the butler, a rueful smile curving his lips. “Only if I can go with you, Emery,” he said, walking off toward his own chamber. “Only if I can go with you.”

Friends and Accomplices

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,

As black as a tar-barrel, which frightened both the heroes so,

They quite forgot their quarrel.

—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

—Joseph Addison

Chapter Eleven

F
or the length of two entire days and nights, Callie seriously considered going home. What was she doing in London in the first place? She had come here for one reason, and one reason only, that of shooting Noel Kinsey, Earl of Filton.

A simple enough thing, if one thought like Caledonia Johnston, that is.

But, no. She had to crawl into the wrong coach. She had to come smack up against Simon Roxbury, Viscount Brockton. He, in his turn, had to be the most insufferable, annoying, infuriating, interfering creature ever to walk upright on God’s green earth. Not only had he wheedled her mission out of her, but he had stuck his sleek aristocratic nose into her business and then—which was probably the most humiliating of all—taken charge of her, her plans, everything!

How had she let this happen? She wasn’t a follower, she was a leader. Anyone who thought differently could just apply to Lester Plum, who could probably be found sitting in the Viscountess Brockton’s boudoir right then, discussing the finer points of French pastry, the delights of cream sauces, and this evening’s menu, all while munching on the illustrious Scarlet Upwode’s chocolate tarts.

Noel Kinsey, the object of Callie’s thoughts of revenge, was nowhere to be found. The curst fellow had been out of the city for more than a fortnight. That was a long time. Long enough for Callie to be gifted with a new wardrobe, cursed with enough lessons in deportment to stun an ox into submission, saddled with the viscountess’s hopes for her son’s matrimonial future, and smitten to the marrow by that same odious, insufferable Simon Roxbury, who was no better than he should be—and probably worse.

How had her anger turned to interest, and her interest to what she most firmly believed to be a transitory infatuation generously mixed with exasperation? She’d somehow succumbed to a temporary muddle of her heart and brain that had left her—
her!
—hiding in her bedchamber like some dieaway miss. Why, she had even confided in the viscountess, in a most blatant lie, that her monthly flux had come upon her with a vengeance and she simply couldn’t leave her rooms.

She wasn’t a coward! She wasn’t anything of the sort! So why was she still hiding here, locked away from the comparative freedom of the remainder of the Portland Place mansion? Why was she cooling her heels by lying in her bed reading foolish magazines or standing at the window like some lost soul, staring out over the street below, wishing herself outside in the watery sun that had broken over London since she had first taken to her bed?

She ought to murder Simon. No, murder was too good for him! She ought to take a page out of their plans for Noel Kinsey, that’s what she should do. She ought to marry him, actually marry Simon Insufferable Roxbury, that’s what she ought to do. Marry him and take very, very good care of him so that he lived to be one hundred or more, suffering her retribution every day.

For he had gotten to her. He had gotten deep inside of her. He’d touched a spot she hadn’t known existed, a soft, squishy part of her that thought less of the vindication of her beloved brother, Justyn, or of revenge against the hated Noel Kinsey than it did of honeyed kisses and sweet embraces and long nights spent indulging in ecstasies Simon’s kisses, his touch, had promised.

Which was, of course, why she hated him.

Oh, how she wanted to be able to hate him!

“Good news!” Bartholomew said, bursting in on Simon’s solitude, his self-imposed exile from his family and friends that had lasted two long days and two very nearly sleepless nights spent sharing the hours with a decanter of brandy.

Simon eyed his friend curiously, then looked past him to see Armand enter the study, the satisfied smile on his friend’s face nearly compelling him to hoist his weary body up and out of his chair just, so that he could march across the room and knock the man down.

“Good news?” Simon then repeated, wondering how his tongue had grown fur overnight, then rubbing a hand across his still-unshaven cheek. Lord—how low could one man sink?

He didn’t know what had done more to drive him into the bottom of a bottle. His disastrous interlude with Callie? The sight of Silsby as he had stumbled into his bedchamber last night to see the rapidly balding man trying on Odo Pinabel’s toupee? Being forced to listen to the valet explain that someone named Scarlet had come to live in Portland Place, and he longed above everything to impress her?

Had his formerly bachelor household always been this bizarre? How had he never noticed?

Bartholomew, clearly upset at being ignored, proceeded to wave a folded newspaper in front of Simon’s face. “I was right, Armand, he didn’t see it. I told you so. Probably hasn’t seen a newspaper in days, poor old sot, ever since he made poor Miss Johnston so upset and sent us all away. She hasn’t forgiven you yet, has she, old friend? Well, she will now, by God!” he ended, slamming the newspaper down on the desk, setting off a thunderclap of pain behind Simon’s eyes that made him wince.

“What is it?” Simon asked, drawing the newspaper to him. Lifting it up, he scanned the words in front of him, silently questioning when it was that he had forgotten how to read. In fact, the only thing he could remember was that he only drank champagne, and that he limited himself for a reason. Brandy, if he indulged in more than a single glass, had always made him sick. Wretchedly sick. Sick unto death. He felt a belch rising and turned it into a cough. “Christ on a crutch,” he grumbled, looking to Armand. “Are you going to help me, or just stand there, grinning like a bear?”

Armand took up a chair in front of the desk, folding his long length into it and crossing his legs at the knee. “It’s like Bones said, Simon. Good news. Just what you’ve been waiting for, or so you’ve told us, told yourself. I’ve been seeing the thing differently of late. Miss Johnston, however, is probably only slowly coming around to my same conclusion in these past two days, realizing your perfidy even as you continue to fight it. Did she spurn you? Is she even still here? Have you had her locked in her rooms, thrown a bar across the door? Because you can’t let her go, Simon. Not now when you’re discovering that Imogene was right all along.”

“Go to blazes, Armand,” Simon said dully, dropping his head into his hands. “And don’t go running to Imogene, if you bear me any affection at all. Because you’re wrong. Dead wrong. On all counts.”

“Still fighting the inevitable, I see. Too bad,” Armand said, sighing theatrically. “Pity.”

“Fighting what inevitable? What’s a pity? What are the two of you talking about?” Bartholomew asked, snatching up the newspaper once more. “Doesn’t anyone want to hear the good news? Filton’s aunt has gone and stuck her spoon in the wall! Last week, as a matter of fact. She’s all tucked up in the family vault by now, the way I figure the thing.”

Simon looked to Armand, who only nodded at him, winked, and said, “A woman is dead, Bones. And you consider this to be
good
news?”

“Well, not for the aunt, certainly, Armand,” Bones agreed, at last dropping into a chair, so that Simon no longer had to watch the man flying around the room like an agitated bird caught indoors. “But she
was
old, Armand. Dead old. Old people die, that’s the way of things—have to make room for the younger ones, you understand?”

“I believe I do, Bones,” Simon said, beginning to feel some of his good humor returning. “Although I’ve never heard the natural order of things described in just that way—as a necessary resettling of real estate. So, the aunt is dead. And where is the so-estimable Filton, I wonder? Will he come back to London as he promised, do you think, or go into mourning?”

“Go into mourning? Only if his aunt didn’t leave him her fortune. Except that, without a fresh infusion of funds, he’d need to be hack in London more than ever, wouldn’t he? Still, let us hope, for the sake of your plan, that she didn’t line his pockets for him,” Armand supplied silkily as Roberts entered, two glasses of wine balanced on a silver tray. “Ah, thank you, my good man. This is just what our small party needed. I didn’t request a glass for you, Simon,” he explained as Roberts left the room. “Would you care for some champagne, or would a bucket of cold water over your head suffice?”

Simon eyed him narrowly. “Miss Johnston says you’re rather appealing, in an irritating sort of way. You know, I’ll be damned if I don’t agree with her, at least partly.”

“And I’d probably be damned if I could know half of what the two of you say to each other,” Bartholomew complained, shaking his head as he glowered at his friends. “So? Now what do we do?”

Simon also shook his head, in his case hopefully to clear it—relieved that, as easily could have happened, his eyeballs had not tumbled out of their sockets. He squinted at the mantel clock. “What do we do? As it has already gone noon, I would say that the two of you sit here while I go upstairs and let Silsby reconstruct me, then the three of us will take a drive past Filton’s residence. If the knocker is back on the door, we’ll know that I can set my plan in motion. Agreed?”

“Then she dances now?” Bartholomew asked, obviously believing Callie was to be a part of that plan—which, it had been explained to him a dozen or more times, she was not. Bones was a good sort, but he did have some difficulty with details. “Good. I was worried about that.”

“Damn!” Simon said. He banged his fist against the desk top, then winced as his teeth did a small jig in his skull. He rose from his chair and started toward the door. “You brought me your copy of this morning’s newspaper, Bones, I take it? I’ll have to have my own copy burned before Cal—er, Miss Johnston sees it. Once she learns Filton is back in town there’ll be no holding her. She’ll want to be out in Society as of tonight, and probably insist the blasted man be invited to her ball.”

“You can’t launch Miss Johnston into the social whirl tonight if you wanted to, Simon. It’s Sunday, remember,” Armand reminded him, tipping back his chair so that he could look up at Simon as he stormed past. “The lovely Lady Lloyd will be expecting you, as she does each Sunday. As you already disappointed her last week, you might want to rethink another insult. She could prove to be troublesome if she were to take it into her head that you’d thrown her over for some young country miss your mother is sponsoring. I doubt Miss Johnston needs that sort of problem as she enters Society as—what was it?—oh, yes, as her
reward
for entertaining your mother.”