Rhyme and Reason (2 page)

Emily frowned. “Sir, Papa is not himself tonight.”

“This morning,” he corrected, then smiled and gestured for her to lead the way into the parlor.

She was about to refuse, then silently she admonished herself. He had every right to expect she would act as his hostess. With his steady gaze slicing into her back, she heard no sound but her wrapper’s train swishing on the floor and the light sound of his shoes. She hushed the uneasy suspicion that she was prey being stalked by a skilled hunter.

The light-green parlor would be bright in the morning sunshine, but now was lackluster with the dim light from the small lamp set on a table near the marble hearth. She crossed the dark carpet to the cherry sideboard. Picking up the bottle of brandy set there, she asked, “Would you like a glass, sir?”

“If you would join me.”

“I find it a bit late for brandy.”

“Or a bit early.”

Emily wished he would stop funning her, for she did not feel the least like laughing. Saying nothing, she put the bottle back on the sideboard and sat on a settee which was upholstered in pale green muslin. As if he were a frequent guest, the man made himself comfortable on the settee facing her.

Or tried to make himself comfortable, she noted with a stray hint of amusement. The delicate piece of furniture did not welcome his height. He finally stretched his legs beneath the low table set between them. When he regarded her with an abrupt frown, she lost any inclination to smile.

“Since you have not corrected me when I have addressed you,” he said into the silence, “I would collect you are Miss Talcott.”

“Emily Talcott.” Folding her hands in her lap, she tried to keep her voice as even as his. “Did you meet Papa at the card table this evening?”

“We have played before, but no session has gone this long.”

“I am certain Papa would have been eager to settle his debts with you if he were more himself,” she answered, pleased she could speak past the thickness in her throat.
How much had Papa lost tonight? She hoped the total would be no more than a few guineas
. If it were more—There was no more. “Under these unfortunate circumstances, I pray you do not consider it untoward of me to handle the settlement of his obligations in his stead.”

“You need not concern yourself about such matters, Miss Talcott.”

“But I do.” She wished he would be less polite. Surely it had been simpler to deal with the men who snarled their demands for their winnings with no hint of courtesy. Raising her chin so she could meet his eyes that were above hers even when they sat, she said, “We are a proud family, and our pride comes from always paying our debts, Mr.—?”

He smiled again, and his face was transformed from its stern façade. Although she had seen it on the stairs, his metamorphosis startled her anew, for she saw glints of mirth in his eyes that had been steel cold. “Forgive me, Miss Talcott, for being such a confirmed chucklehead that I failed to introduce myself. May I blame it on the hour? Allow me to redeem my tarnished honor.” He stood and, lifting her hand, bowed smoothly over her fingers. “I am Damon Wentworth.”

“Wentworth?” She almost choked on the name, but restrained herself enough to ask, “The viscount?”

“One and the same.”

Emily was sure her heart had plummeted into her slippers. What a perfect widgeon she was! She should have guessed Papa was fated to meet this rogue sooner or later, for Lord Wentworth’s reputation was well known throughout the Polite World. Even she, who disdained the whisper of gossip, could not be unaware of the viscount’s hunt for adversaries who were as skilled at cards as he and who had pockets plump enough to keep the stakes high.

Charles Talcott was neither.

“Dare I believe we have met before, Miss Talcott?” he continued when she remained silent. He gave her a warm smile, a smile which she might have deemed charming under other circumstances.

“No, my lord,” she managed to say.

“For that, I’m glad.”

“Glad?”

He sat again and folded his arms on one knee. “I would consider myself quite the gawney for failing to remember making the acquaintance of such a lovely lady.”

Emily ignored his compliment and the peculiar mixture of pleasure and disquiet it sent reeling as wildly as Papa’s drunken steps through her. Locking her fingers together in her lap, she said, “My lord, I know you must have much to do elsewhere. I have no wish to delay you, so if you will tell me the amount of my father’s losses to you, I shall tend the matter posthaste.”

“His debts to me?” He laughed and relaxed back against the settee. “Now I understand why you are wearing such a dreary face. Do not fret, Miss Talcott. There is no need for you to worry about your father’s debts, for he often proved the victor at our table.”

“Papa won the night?”

“Lady Luck is, at best, a fickle companion and chose this evening to make your father her favorite. You appear astonished, Miss Talcott.”

Not wanting to own that she was exactly that, for she could not imagine her father trouncing this glib lord at the board of green cloth, she demurred, “I fear my thoughts are quite unsteady with fatigue.”

“I would think so at this hour. You prove your devotion to your father by waiting up for him as if he were a young sprig.”

She was able to smile more easily. “My sister and I arrived home not long ago.”

“From Miss Prine’s coming-out?”

“Yes, but how—?”

He smiled, his eyes crinkling to accent his deep tan. She wondered how he spent much time in the sun if he played cards all night every night. “It was the most heralded event of the evening, if I am to believe her brother who joined us at the table tonight. You must be exhausted from the dancing and conversation.”

“Mostly from playing the watch-dog. I find launching my sister on the Season more tiring than I had anticipated.”

“
You
are launching your sister?” His gaze swept along her again, and she knew she had been want-witted not to think before she spoke. She fought the urge to chide him for being presumptuous. Whispered rumor warned her words would be wasted on this man who set mamas to quivering with trepidation any time he looked at their daughters. “I must be mistaken. I thought you said you were
Miss
Talcott.”

“I am.”

“Then, if I may be so bold, may I say you are doing the young misses enjoying the Season a great service by not competing with them for the Tom-a-doodles who wish to buckle themselves to a bride?” He folded his arms across the front of his pristine waistcoat and smiled.

“You are as bold as brass, my lord, to speak of such things on our short acquaintance.”

“I prefer to be honest, and I speak of nothing but what any man with a bit of life in him would notice on a single glance.”

She started to reply, but turned as approaching footfalls slowed by the door.

Bollings’s coat always strained across his stomach. Thick, brown hair belied his many years of service to Charles Talcott, but his wrinkled face was lengthened by fatigue and distress. “Mr. Talcott is asleep, Miss Emily,” he said with a wary glance at the viscount.

“Thank you, Bollings.” When the valet hesitated, she added, “Please let me know when Mr. Talcott wakes on the morrow.”

He nodded, then backed out of the room. He glanced once more into the room before he hurried along the hall. Emily ignored the small voice that urged her to call him back. Instead, she faced the viscount who was setting himself on his feet.

“My lord,” she said with the best smile she could affix on her lips, a sorry one she was sure, for every thought was weighed with fatigue, “I thank you again for being sure that my father reached his home and his bed without incident.” Rising, she added, “My family is indebted to you for your kindness.”

“The debt, as I must remind you, Miss Talcott, remains mine.” He started to reach beneath his coat, but halted with a laugh. “I find it impossible to remit your father’s winning to you.” Clasping his hands behind him, in a motion that tugged at the broad shoulders of his coat, he smiled with the glint of mischief returning to his eyes. “When you are dressed so enticingly in such a flattering shade of silk, Miss Talcott, my mind envisions other scenes in which a man might be placing gold upon a woman’s palm.”

Emily gasped as his indecorous words created a similar scene in her fertile imagination. Although she had no idea what the inside of a seraglio might look like, she shuddered. How horrifying to think she resembled a natural while she was speaking with a man who had gained a reputation for being as attentive to the ladies, both of quality and not, as he was to cards! Heat seared her cheeks again at that unseemly thought.

Again happy she did not flush, she answered, “I cannot speak to what you might picture in your mind, my lord.”

“No?” He brushed a strand of her hair back from her face. “I had thought you a woman of much more imagination, Miss Talcott.”

“Why?”

“You did not slap my face for my impertinent words, so I guessed you worldly enough to speak with honesty.”

“If I were worldly enough to envision what you suggested—”

He chuckled. “Which you clearly are, if I am a judge of the righteous indignation in your voice. I did not mean to bring you to cuffs with a demure hit, Miss Taloctt. My words were meant as a compliment.” He raised his hands in a pose of surrender when she opened her mouth to retort. “Forgive me, Miss Talcott. When I asked to speak to you here, I meant only to compliment you for being such a devoted daughter and to reassure you that your father has suffered nothing more than too long an acquaintance with a bottle of brandy.”

“Thank you,” she said, wondering why embarrassment taunted her as if she were the one who had forgotten her manners. “If it discomfits you, my lord, you need have no concerns about me collecting your debts to my father. I shall leave that matter to you and him.”

“Wise of you.”

“If you are assured that my father is well …” Emily knew she was being rude, but dawn would be arriving before she could seek her bed.

The viscount nodded, his dark hair dropping across his forehead. He tossed it aside with an ease that must come from habit. “I am assured of that, and you may assure Mr. Talcott that the accounts between us will be settled to his satisfaction.” When he took her hand and bowed over it, his eyes rose to meet hers.

She saw amusement in their gray depths, and she gasped when he held her gaze as he pressed his lips to the back of her hand. That breath became a soft sigh when an explosion of delight careened through her again. His finger stroked her palm, sending tingles along her skin. He drew her a half-step closer and bent toward her hand again. Instead of kissing her hand, he looked up at her and winked.

Shocked, she pulled her hand away. She was completely dicked in the nob to let him treat her like one of his convenients. Raising her chin in her most imperious pose, she said, “I bid you a good evening, my lord.”

He set his hat back on his head and, smiling, tipped it in her direction. “And I bid you good morning, Miss Talcott.”

Emily had no chance to answer as he strode from the room. She decided that was a good thing, for she had bumbled everything else she had said in his hearing.

Chapter Two

Damon Wentworth whistled a light tune as he climbed into his carriage. His coachee regarded him with bafflement, but Damon did not ease the man’s curiosity at his good spirits at this late hour. Talking about Miss Emily Talcott to his servants would be beneath reproach—even for him.

Chuckling, he drew the door closed and slapped the roof. As the carriage was driven around the square and toward his own home on Grosvenor Square, he leaned back and smiled. The night had not been a waste of time, after all. He had been afraid it would be when he saw how Charles Talcott played and how often the man tilted the bottle to his glass.

He closed his eyes, bringing forth the image of Miss Emily Talcott with ease. He had honed the skill of noting the details others might miss, for it served him well when he tried to gauge what others held in their hands as they sat at the board of green cloth. Just now, he had noticed how, while they sat in the parlor, Miss Talcott’s hands had been clasped so tightly her knuckles were white with anxiety. She clearly had expected that her father had lost heavily to him, and that fact disturbed her. The woman was more insightful than most he had met. At the same time, she was an enticing combination of sophisticated ennui and girlish naïveté.

A smile tipped his lips as he recalled how her black hair had been as silken as her skin and how her blue eyes had sparked with sharp emotion when he had been bold enough to discover that. High cheekbones and an assertive chin would not label her pretty in some minds, but she had a face that suggested there was more to her than the simpering misses who tried to gain his attention when their chaperones were busy elsewhere.

He chuckled again. Miss Emily Talcott had allowed neither his sullied reputation nor his request to speak to her alone in her parlor to unsettle her. She had not been consumed by a fit of giggles when he caught her gaze. All in all, she was a rare woman of uncommon composure.

The carriage stopped, and he opened the door. The sunrise glittered off the stones on the front of his town-house and the windows marching in unvarying precision across its front. At the door, his butler stood, his mouth working as he struggled not to yawn.

Damon did not try to hide his smile. Hillis had served in this household since both he and Damon were young, so Damon knew by the butler’s squared shoulders that Hillis was distressed about something. Not the late hour of Damon’s homecoming, surely for there had been many mornings that had found him at his club still enjoying the company of his fellows and the cards in front of them.

Something struck his foot as he stepped out of the carriage. With a quick motion, he caught the article before it could fall onto the street. A hat! He tilted it, recognizing the silver band above its conservative brim. Talcott’s hat. The man had been so foxed, he had not noticed it was not on his head.

Climbing the steps to his front door, Damon said, “Good morning, Hillis. You look as if your night was as sleepless as mine.”