“Exeter. Mister Exeter.”
“Mister E,” Mrs. Hardy repeated, wonderingly, on a hush. The women shared a secret, a swift little mirth-filled glance he could not quite interpret. “And he’s your...”
“Solicitor. After a fashion.”
“Are we given to understand that you did not, indeed, drown in the Thames? There was a funeral, you know.”
“More after the fashion of a celebration, in some quarters,” he said calmly. He was certain he knew precisely who celebrated. Just as he knew precisely how he’d wound up in the Thames.
“It was reported that some women rent their garments,” Mrs. Hardy told him, dryly.
He smiled placidly. “They generally do when I’m about.”
Mrs. Breedlove had turned to study the flowers on the mantel with a little frown.
He knew this because he’d looked immediately for her reaction.
Mrs. Breedlove leaned forward a little. “Help us to understand something, Lord Bolt... If you didn’t drown, then...”
“As I was leaving a gaming hell I was accosted by two men and hurled into the Thames. I survived. Don’t know who the poor bloated soul was who was fished from the river and presented as proof of my demise, but it wasn’t me. I was on my way to China by then on a serendipitous clipper ship. Scooped from the water. I’m fortunate I did not wind up in a pie, like an eel.”
“This is London. One should never take for granted what winds up in a pie,” Mrs. Breedlove said evenly.
Frankly delighted by this, he transferred the whole of his attention to her. The later afternoon light through the window burnished her hair the color of an old doubloon, a shade or two darker than her gown.
“Words to live by,” he said gravely.
She turned ever so slightly away again, as thoughhewere the sun, and not the great orb aiming beams through the window.
A silence ensued.
The room was comfortable, he’d grant it that. The proportions were gracious and pleasing. Through the sturdy closed doors came the strains of a muffled reel. A bit like the way it would sound if ghosts were having a party. Lucien had reached adulthood feeling both on the outside of things and at the center of things (usually gossip), and for an instant he felt that way again.
“As for that duel... It takes particular skill to avoid a target as big and black as the Earl of Cargill’s heart. He can still use his shoulder, but I’ll warrant he thought twice about using his mouth that carelessly again.”
They went perfectly still.
Mrs. Breedlove leaned forward just a little, and it took every scrap of breeding his father had insisted he acquire to keep his eyes on her face and not where they yearned to go, the expanse of creamy décolletage. “Lord...”
“Bolt. Or Viscount Bolt, if you prefer.”
“If you could help us understand why you’ve chosen to...” she paused ostentatiously “...favor... our establishment with your resurrection? And what are your plans for the future?”
Oh,welldone, Mrs. Breedlove, he thought. He had a weakness for a good, irresistibly subtle piss-taking.
He met her direct gaze evenly. Her eyes were hazel, full of soft greens and golds, a surprisingly gentle color in such a coolly possessed woman. A bit like a spring dawn. The gears of time suddenly slipped. He was nine years old and back at his father’s house in the country, and the joy of it pierced the breath from him. For one moment he’d felt like a window had been thrown open in a stifling room.
For a mad moment he wanted to be alone with that feeling, if only to remember who he once was.
He was not that person now.
“You were selected after a bit of research conducted by Mister Exeter, primarily because you hadn’t any guests at all at the time and it seemed as though you never would, but also because your location is conveniently proximate to a bit of business I intend to transact. And I wished to keep my reentry into London society entirely secret at first. Hence the token, a cheap bit of sub-rosa nonsense I bought in a bazaar in Morocco. I do not intend to keep my presence a secret any more. And if after this conversation you still doubt me, read the broadsheets tomorrow.”
He took a sip of his tea as they rigidly, with wide eyes, took this in.
“Oh, and my plans are to open a gaming hell,” he added brightly. “And I shall need you to get in Lapsang Souchong tea while I’m here. I cannot possibly continue to drink whatever this is.”
“Dear God. He can’t stay here! How do we get him to leave?”