He kept a wary eye on Delacorte, who reminded him of a friend’s spaniel who, given the slightest opportunity, would hump his calf. Lucien had always needed to keep an outstretched booted foot gently pressed against the dog’s sternum while its claws scrabbled the floor in the vain hope of gaining some kind of purchase. He could still see those doggie eyes gleaming in manically joyful, determined desperation.
He inspected the room. The carpets were a brown-and-beige scrolled pattern, the curtains hung in great panels of tobacco-colored velvet, and roomy leather chairs arrayed about the type of worn wood tables upon which men could heave boots. For God’s sake.
“They really do think we’re simple creatures, don’t they?”
He hadn’t realized he’d said it aloud until he heard it echo in the room.
“Women, you mean?” Mr. Cassidy said, proving that he, at least, wasn’t a simple creature.
“That is... do they think colors will upset us?” Lucien was darkly amused. “Prove too stimulating? Prompt us to break out into duels and fisticuffs and fits of curse words?”
Mr. Cassidy gave a short laugh. “I like brown, frankly. Dirt, manure, gunstocks, my favorite mare. All brown. All wonderful things.”
“I had a Moroccan mistress whose eyes were the most beautiful chocolate brown,” Lucien mused.
Mr. Delacorte and Mr. Cassidy went still. They stared at him as if this Moroccan mistress had strolled nudely into the room and stretched out on a couch.
“Ah. Not a mistress crowd, I see,” Lucien said regretfully. He inhaled a lungful of cheroot smoke. “My apologies.”
“No need, Lord Bolt,” Delacorte said kindly, as if Lucien had instead quietly broken wind. As if it could happen to anybody.
But he’d unfortunately created the kind of nonplussed silence that threatened to last the duration of the cheroot.
Lucien occupied himself by inspecting his companions through the veil of smoke.
The young and craggily handsome Mr. Cassidy had rather piercing blue eyes. His mouth smiled easily but there was something determined about the set of his jaw, and a sort of... suppressed impatience about him. As though he harbored a burning secret ambition or purpose. All determined men looked rather like that. Lucien had seen that kind of man look back at him in the mirror. Mr. Cassidy played his cards close, of that Lucien was certain. He wasn’t certain he cared enough about the reason for it.
“Perhaps it’s not because they think we’re simple,” Mr. Delacorte volunteered suddenly, causing the other two men to pivot toward him abruptly. “Perhaps it’s more the way they would look after a pet. It’s out of concern. Women don’t trust us to look after ourselves and so they make it easy, you see. I had a blind aunt. We did the same in her house. Made sure she couldn’t trip on or break things. Kept her path clear and simple like. They think we’re like my blind aunt.”
When both Lucien and Mr. Cassidy laughed, Mr. Delacorte’s face was fulsome with happiness.
Lucien fixed Delacorte with a warning glare, foot at the ready should he become too enthusiastic and leap forward to peer at his buttons again or clap him with great cheer on his back or bellow “what ho!” or the sort of things Lucien was certain Delacorte did.
“No disrespect meant to your aunt, Delacorte,” Mr. Cassidy added, hurriedly.
“Of course not.” Delacorte waved his cigar dismissively, glowing with bonhomie. “She had a wonderful sense of humor. But Brownie and Goldy are all that is kind and solicitous and I don’t think I shall ever wish to leave.”
“Brownie...” Lucien said slowly, with wicked, gleeful disbelief “...and Goldy.”
“Oh, I would never call them those names to their faces, mind you. I shouldn’t be able to bear their disappointment if they heard me call them that. You won’t tell them?” Delacorte pleaded up at him. His eyes were a rather lovely sort of misty blue. One would think they were the eyes of a dreamer if they weren’t embedded in Mr. Delacorte’s solid, pleasant face, which was perched atop a body reminiscent of a Welsh pony. His hair tufted out about the tops of his ears, however, which called to mind a red squirrel.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Lucien said, which was a lie. If a strategic opportunity arose, he absolutely would inform the proper Mrs. Breedlove that her nickname was “Goldy” just to watch the fascinating way in which her expression would change.
“I know the former Lady Derring is now married to a certain Captain Hardy. What do you know about Mrs. Breedlove?”
He didn’t see any reason to be subtle about it. As he’d told her, life was short. He wanted information.
“As kind as the day is long,” Mr. Delacorte maintained stoutly. “Like waking up and every day is sunny, with the two of them in charge here.”
“She has a clever wit and she is everything that is fine and proper,” Mr. Cassidy contributed.
Lucien fixed Cassidy with a brief narrow look. This was a careful response. Mr. Cassidy doubtless had other thoughts about her that he wasn’t about to share. What red-blooded man wouldn’t?
Lucien would warrant Mrs. Breedlove knewverywell how to be improper. She moved as though she knew the pleasures life had to offer, in bed and out of it.
Imagine the pleasure in teaching her not to be proper, if the opposite proved to be true.
Mr. Cassidy shifted restlessly from one leg to the other, as though he’d like to be outside gamboling through the woods or whatever it was Americans did since they’d freed themselves from England’s smothering clutches.