“Two truly fine meals a day, a libation in the morning or evening brought to your room if you should request one, a warm, tidy room, and mending of smaller items. For a small additional fee, we will engage a laundress if you need one, and we will bring a bath up to your room no more than once per week. We feel, all in all, it is a splendid value.”
“And of course the occasional musicale. One can’t put a price on that.”
“I’m so glad you agree.”
He smiled with vanishing swiftness, as though she’d said something charming.
She couldn’t imagine what.
“And guests with money to burn flock to your establishment, do they, Lady Derring? I could scarcely move through your foyer without brushing against a skirt or a greatcoat.”
Her breath caught.Why, thebasta...!
It took her a moment to recover.
“Naturally our guests do not mill about the foyer, Captain. From this location our guests can go about their employment or enjoy all that London has to offer, such as... the theater.”
“Isthe theatera euphemism for brothels?”
In the silence that followed, the fire gave a violent pop, as if in indignation.
Neither one of them blinked.
Well.
No man had ever said the wordbrothelto her in her twenty-six years of life—that, at least, was one of the advantages of being a countess. It just didn’t come up in polite conversation.
Captain Hardy was either trying to disconcert her, or he was trying to find out whether she indeed was running a brothel. To what end, she could not have guessed.
Still, it was only a word. And she was hardly a fragile flower. Flaming cheeks notwithstanding.
“I’m afraid I can’t provide you with a list of brothels, Captain,” she decided to say carefully. “If that’s your aim, and you’re attempting to speak in code. We aren’t that kind of establishment. Perhaps you ought to seek a different boardinghouse? Or are you in an indirect way attempting to ascertain the quality of our clientele?”
And damned if Tristan didn’t admire her response.
“It’s just that to get to all the other things that London has to offer, your guests must navigate a gauntlet of what Lovell Street near the docks has to offer, including robbery, pub brawls, and the occasional murder. It’s an unusual location for an exclusive boardinghouse with rules regarding propriety.”
She didn’t even blink. Up close, Lady Derring’s eyes were as velvety and alluring as a settee in an opium den. Yet he would warrant she’d just inventoried his eyelashes.
“Isn’t it lovely that The Grand Palace on the Thames is an oasis of comfort and safety in the midst of a chaotic world?”
That was deft, he’d hand that much to her.
“By the way, how did you come to open a boardinghouse?”
She cleared her throat. “Well, I am lately a widow, Captain Hardy—”
“My condolences.”
She acknowledged this with the rote nod it deserved. “—and it seemed to my business partner, Mrs. Angelique Breedlove, and me the perfect opportunity to meet people from all walks of life.” She sounded proud.
“Ah.” He took pains to sound faintly puzzled. “I was curious. I’ve heard your establishment referred to as The Palace of Rogues. A place for rogues, one would assume.”
She went still. Then a hurt that seemed genuine flickered across her features.
He knew a startling—a rogue, even—and tearing sense of regret that he may have been the source of it.
“Scurrilous,” she maintained stoutly. “That’s what that assertion is, if that’s what you heard. If you hear it again, I should be obliged if you’d correct them and tell them it’s a fine establishment, as you can see for yourself. I’m sorry if this disappoints you.”