Angelique stifled a sigh.
She returned to sit beside Delilah.
Nearby, Dot was embroidering words on a hoop, while Mrs. Pariseau had taken up reading aloud a horrid novel they’d been enjoying. The heroine was about to unadvisedly go up the stairs to an attic.
Delilah gazed at her in silent incredulity while Angelique pretended not to notice.
Angelique took up her knitting—it was meant to be a coverlet for one of the bedrooms—but she merely held it. Then lowered it to her lap again.
“I know,” Angelique muttered crossly. “And I’m sorry. I ought to be able to manage more graciousness.”
“Are youcertainyou haven’t a history with Lord Bolt?”
“I suspect my history with the type of men who believe they are better than everyone by virtue of a title and money, even if this one is a”—she dropped her voice to a whisper in deference to their epithet jar, which was currently empty, much to their pride—“bastard, in every sense of the word, may be influencing me just a little.”
Delilah’s eyes widened.
Angelique felt faintly wretched, which she resented. Because she knew this wasn’t the entire truth, and she had been nothing but truthful with Delilah since they’d met. The entire truth was difficult to put into words.
Then again, Delilah knew her rather well.
“Andhe mentioned that the building next to ours might be a fine location for his gaming hell. That’s why he found it so convenient to stay here.”
Delilah’s jaw fell open. She clapped it shut at once. “No! The onewewished to buy?” Emphasis, alas, on the word “wish.”
Angelique nodded grimly.
They sat with this little unwelcome bit of news for a moment.
“Perhaps you can talk him out of it,” Delilah said, not sounding confident.
Angelique only snorted. “I wonder why he hasn’t yet bought it if that’s his intent. Because we surely would have heard, given our expressed interest in it.”
“Good question.”
They were silent another moment, and then Delilah sighed. “Perhaps you ought to go and establish a détente with Lord Bolt, for your own sake and for the sake of our other guests. And if there’s even the slightest possibility he’ll be our neighbor... well, we might as well attempt to establish cordial relations. If anyone can do it, you can.”
It was the very last thing Angelique wanted to do. But Delilah was right. It was probably necessary.
“Very well. And you’re right. Itshouldbe child’s play.” This was bravado.
Angelique did indeed feel more like herself, bolder and more confident, now that she was across the room and safely beyond the riptide of his charisma.
He’d produced a little book from somewhere in his coat and seemed occupied with it. Perhaps a list of his enemies, or the whores he wished to call upon, or a list of items to check off as he went about getting revenge, or of items he would “want them to get in.” He reminded her of her father on Sunday mornings in church, barely enduring their well-meaning but uninspired vicar.
The pleasant little ambient sounds that made up their evenings at The Grand Palace on the Thames—the click of knitting needles, the murmur of Mrs. Pariseau reading aloud, the sounds of chess pieces gliding across the board and gently tapping against one another, and Mr. Delacorte making his “thinking” sound, a sort of clicking against the roof of his mouth with his tongue—had resumed, much the way birds start up singing again when the cats are out of view.
Angelique listened to it all, marveling at what she and Delilah had created. Her heart felt full, and that gave her confidence, too.
She glanced up at Lord Bolt, who had turned a page and had not once looked up.
“Off I go, then,” she said to Delilah.
“Good luck,” Delilah said fervently. She did not quite wave a white hanky in farewell but the spirit was just the same.
Chapter Three
Angelique sidled over to the little table in the corner where a decanter of brandy was kept for any gentlemen who wished to imbibe, and filled a little snifter.