Kasey Michaels (29 page)

“No, brat, I don’t,” Simon grabbed hold of her elbow, pulling her close against his side. “I agree that the occupants look safe enough. If anything, I should be worried about protecting them from association with you. That being the case, Callie, there will be no conversing. There will definitely be no dart playing. The last thing I need right now is more trouble. Understand?”

He then ushered her into the common room and, pulling out a chair at the table closest to the door by the simple expedient of hooking one of its legs with his booted foot, rather roughly pushed her down onto it. “Now, just sit here and behave yourself. I’m off to find the innkeeper and secure us a private dining room. I won’t be longer than five minutes.”

Another young woman—most young women—would have looked up at Viscount Brockton adoringly, impressed by his masterfulness, and said, “Yes, my lord. Anything you say, my lord.”

But Callie had never really much cared for being like other young women. She glared up at Simon, realizing that she was definitely still angry with him and for any number of reasons. How dare he think she would get him into trouble? How dare he believe she didn’t know how to behave?

And, worst of all—how dare he kiss her then act as if it meant nothing to him, that it was nothing more than something to
tease
her with! “Go to the devil, Simon Roxbury,” she told him, pulling her elbow free of his grip. “You just go to the devil!”

He took off his curly-brimmed beaver, shaking water from it as he looked around the taproom, then sighed. “Make that four minutes.”

“There’s no need to hurry on my account,” Callie bit out, stripping off her gloves and flinging them onto the table as he turned and walked back into the hallway. He was probably ready to burst into the kitchen itself in search of the innkeeper or some female he could then sit down beside Callie—who was already looking longingly at the dartboard hung on the far wall.

Her fingers itched to feel a dart balanced between them.

She cocked her head to one side, smiling at an exceedingly harmless-looking young lad dressed in a farmer’s smock and loose trousers.

It was almost too simple.

By the time Simon returned, Callie had removed her bonnet and abandoned her reticule—prudently hiding it beneath Simon’s hat. She stood with her toe on the chalk line drawn on the floor, a dart poised between her thumb and index finger, her gaze intent on the target as two of the farmers placed small bets as to whether or not the “young miss” could score a second bull’s-eye.

She did.

“You’re incorrigible,” Simon said quietly as he walked up behind her. She stood her ground, letting him know she was not in the least afraid of his anger, and watched the young farmer try, and fail, to duplicate her feat. “And you’re only doing this to punish me, aren’t you?”

She smiled at him so sweetly she marveled that treacle didn’t run out of the corners of her mouth, to dribble down her chin. “That thought did occur to me, yes, although it isn’t the only reason. Will you now box my ears,
brother
?”

“Brother?” Simon repeated, looking to the men who were now urging Callie into another game. “Well, at least you have some sense. And you’re enjoying yourself, brat, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes!” she said, her smile now quite genuine. “I’ve been so
good
, Simon—even you have to acknowledge that I’ve stayed in my lovely cell and never once climbed its crystal walls. But now I have to have a little fun. I may even deserve it. Is that all right?”

Simon looked to the doorway, then back to the men sitting at the tables. “Oh, bloody hell,” he said, stripping off his coat. “Two out of three, Callie, and then we’ll have ourselves some stew in the room I’ve reserved for us.”

Then be turned away from her and held out his hand for the darts. “Bets, gentlemen?” he inquired. “Remembering, of course, that I taught m’sister here everything she knows.”

The rabbit stew was delicious, so tasty that Callie—remembering that she was away from Imogene’s ever-watchful eye—dared to use bits of crusty bread to sop up the last of the gravy and onions, then lick her fingers when she was done.

Simon sat across from her in the small private dining room, his elbows propped on the heavy oak, his chin in his hands, his empty plate shoved to the center of the table. “In the societies of some countries,” he drawled as she pulled her smallest finger out of her mouth, sucking on it with pursed lips, “what you’re doing would be considered a most provocative act. England being one of them, I believe.”

She bit down on the tip of her finger, and spoke around it. “I don’t understand,” she told him, sucking on her fingertip once more before removing it, then blushed to the roots of her hair as she saw his involuntary wince. “Oh.”

“Yes, quite.
Oh
.” Draining the last of his ale—champagne being beyond the scope of the bill of fare at the Duck and Drake—he rose and walked to the small window overlooking the inn yard, standing with his face averted from her, his hands clasped behind his back. “The rain has nearly stopped,” he remarked, rather tightly. “We’ll be on our way in another ten minutes.”

Callie wiped her hands on her serviette, then neatly folded it and replaced it on the table as she looked to Simon. He was so handsome in his white shirtsleeves, with only his buff colored waistcoat covering his fine, broad chest, and the slimness of his waist and hips visible beneath his close-fitting breeches. He was so handsome she could cry.

“Imogene will be frantic,” she said, also rising. “I doubt she believes an acceptable toilette for Almack’s can possibly be completed in less than four hours. And are you quite certain Noel Kinsey won’t be in attendance? How do you know that, how can you be so sure? I know you said I should be patient, but I really wish to be on with it. I’ve been good, you have to admit that. But now I want to have the man back in London where I can help you destroy him. Armand says you’re certainly able to do that, being very proficient at card-playing himself.”

Simon turned around, smiling at her, although that smile didn’t seem capable of reaching his eyes. “It’s easier to speak of the absent Noel Kinsey, and our plans for him, than to talk about what’s really on both our minds? Isn’t it?”

“What’s really on our minds? What else could there be?” Callie tipped her head to one side, pretending not to understand what Simon meant. She spared only a moment to consider the why and how of what had happened, precisely when she—Caledonia Johnston—had become such a craven coward. Another quick look at Simon gave her the answer. She hadn’t been the Caledonia Johnston she remembered ever since this dratted man had first kissed her, and possibly even before that.

He looked at her intently for a moment, then at the closed door to the hallway. “Let me find a servant and have him tell someone to have my curricle around front in ten minutes—then we’ll talk, all right?”

He waved her back to her chair as he exited the room and she sat down, willingly. After all, it was preferable to falling down, and her knees were showing signs of buckling at any moment. She’d been having fun, playing at darts, teasing Simon by calling him “brother” going so far as to companionably clap him on the back after a good throw. And then she had been happily engaged with the rabbit stew—for losing at darts seemed to have given her a prodigious appetite.

But now she was very much aware of how alone the two of them were—just like that day in her bedchamber—and she was finding it difficult to think, to breathe. She only wondered if Simon had escaped the private dining room for the same reason—to collect himself, to keep from giving in to the temptation to investigate whether or not kisses were just as sweet the second time as the first.

“There, that didn’t take a moment,” he said briskly as he reentered the room. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. How I know so much about the comings and goings of one Noel Kinsey. It’s simple enough to explain,” he began, taking up his own seat once more. “In a word, brat—servants.”

“Servants?” Callie shook her head. Really, it was impossible to follow Simon as he jumped from one conversation to the next. One moment she’d thought he’d wanted to discuss them—the two of them—and the next he was back to Noel Kinsey. “But how—?”

“There are levels and levels of society, Callie,” he continued, “one of the most interesting being that of the servant halls both in London and in the countryside. Here, in the city, there exist several taverns devoted entirely to the servant class, all broken down as to the hierarchy peculiar to such individuals. Butlers and majordomos frequent one, footmen another, valets a third. The talk there revolves around their own lives and that of their masters—with each one trying to outdo the other as to how important those employers are, where they have been, who they’re gambling with, dancing with, marrying. And, of course, there is the usual litany of complaints. For instance—did you know that just a month ago Filton turned off both of his footmen and his undercook, cheating all three of them out of their last quarter’s wages? Just one of the many reasons I’m looking forward to bringing him low.”

Callie wriggled in her seat, her eyes gleaming, her smile wide. “No! And you really know all of this? What else do you know?”

Simon pulled his watch from his pocket, levered it open and checked the time, then snapped it shut once more, sliding it back into his pocket. “Would you care to know what the earl of Filton had for dinner last night?” he asked, clearly delighted with himself.

Callie slapped her palms against the tabletop, totally relaxed once more. Because Simon was right. Here, alone together at this inn, was no proper place to discuss improper kisses. She didn’t need any of Imogene’s strictures to tell her that. “Oh, this is delicious!”

“Not really,” Simon quipped, laughing out loud. “I don’t much care for stuffed tripe, myself. Now, shall we go? I’m having visions of an hysterical Imogene sending Lester out by way of a search party which, I’m quite certain, would mean losing our dear Mr. Plum forever.”

Callie stood, putting on her gloves as she watched Simon shrug back into his jacket, then picked up her bonnet and headed for the door. And then she stopped, halted in her tracks, and narrowed her eyelids. “Something isn’t right here, Simon.”

He turned to her slowly, one eyebrow arched. “Really?”

She nodded furiously. “Yes. Really. When we were driving, I believe you spoke as if Filton were not in London yet. Hinted that he most certainly would not be at Almack’s tonight, although he would attend one of the assemblies within the next few weeks. But now you’ve told me what be had for dinner last night”

“I did?”

“Yes. Yes, you did. You couldn’t know what he’d eaten for dinner if he was still in the country. Gossip doesn’t travel that fast.” Her bonnet flew in the direction of the tabletop. She pulled off her gloves, one after the other, and tossed them in the same general direction, then sat herself down once more. “Noel Kinsey is in London, isn’t he? Now. Today. Yesterday. Tell me, my lord. Is it possible that he never left the city at all?”

Simon stood very tall, very still. “As you’ve said, Callie, as my mother has agreed—there are times I simply talk too much.”

Callie was barely listening to him. She was too busy thinking about walking the floor with books piled on her head, and strawberry-and-cream potions, and long days locked inside Portland Place contemplating a revenge she now knew Simon Roxbury had never planned for her to share. “He’s here. Here, in London. And you’re probably already halfway to ruining him. Aren’t you? Oh, how could you?” she asked, her voice low, husky, full of hatred, hurt, real physical pain at his betrayal. “How
could
you!”

He walked over and perched himself on one edge of the table. “Now, Callie, let me—”

“Explain? Let you explain? You don’t have to, Simon. I already understand. It’s all clear as crystal!” She popped out of her chair like a jack-in-the-box, pushing her chin into his face even as she repeatedly poked a finger into his chest to punctuate her next words. “You couldn’t lock me up. You couldn’t send me back to my father with any degree of surety that I’d stay put,” she said, her words all but tumbling over themselves.

“But then there was Imogene,” she went on quickly. “Ah, yes. Imogene. With her stays and her silly dieting, and her insistence on starving herself into becoming a countess, at the very least. She took a liking to me, thought up a pleasurable fantasy of matching the two of us together, marrying me off to her dear, only son. Ha! Is that when you first glimpsed an answer to your dilemma—to all of your problems? You knew what you could do with Caledonia Johnston—how to keep the interfering chit occupied and out of the way. Oh, yes, I see it—I see it all. Imogene was a bother to you.
I
was a bother to you. But put two bothers together, send them off in circles, chasing their own tails, believing their own plans, your own
lies
—and you would be left free to play out your own game.”

He tried to take hold of her finger, but she pulled herself free, slapping at his hand. “But then Imogene arranged for a ball. Did it behind your back, I’m sure. That must have given you quite a nasty turn, Simon. That, and you probably began to feel sorry for the poor country girl you’d duped so badly. So you got me a voucher to Almack’s, the one place Filton would never go. You’d
reward
me with a little fun because I’d amused Imogene for a few weeks, throw me a small bone to keep me happy, keep me from asking too many questions. You even
kissed
me, made me feel as if I might actually be desirable. Anything, anything at all you could do to keep me content to cool my heels in Portland Place. Anything you could do to keep me out of your way. Bastard! Am I still right? Well? Am I? Feel free to stop me anytime I say something that isn’t right.”