“But he isn’t likely to go door-to-door in the building robbing our guests at pistol point.”
This time his pause was lengthy. “No.”
“What is helike,Tristan?”
“He’s intelligent and shrewd. Charming and well-connected. Efficient, organized...” Captain Hardy sighed. “...probably even brilliant. And we considered him dangerous, because the men who reported to him would do anything for him.” Captain Hardy recited this flatly, as though he’d said it before. “And we couldn’t get a single one to betray him, through any means.”
“Interesting,” Delilah said. “It sounds like the two of you are more alike than you are different.”
Lucien gave a short, astounded laugh and closed his eyes and shook his head to and fro slowly. He knew exactly how Captain Hardy would hear that.
But Delilah had learned the language of her husband’s body, the shift of light across his eyes, the twitch of a brow. She’d memorized them over every precious moment they’d so far spent together. And though they had all been understandably under considerable strain for a fortnight, something unfamiliar lurked beneath the tension of his mood. It might even be pain, which puzzled her.
Delilah knew she was her husband’s weakness. So while it wasn’t easy, she returned his now icy, incredulous stare with a melting one.
“Tristan... He’s currently a free man, convicted of nothing, apparently, who seems to have areasonablyrespectable trade, charming manners, and is protective of his wife, who appears very fond of him. I should think these are qualities with which you can identify. And surely you aren’t suggesting the daughter of an earl married beneath her?”
This was a startling and skilled feint. Of the four people standing in the sitting room, two of them had, by societal standards anyhow, married beneath them: Delilah had been a countess when she’d married a blockade commander. Lucien was a viscount and the bastard son of a duke, who’d acquired his own wealth and had married a formergoverness who was also the former mistress of an earl. Viewed through the eyes of society, they were unlikely matches, indeed.
But all of them believed they’d made the right and only choices of spouse for themselves.
A flicker of rueful appreciation for Delilah’s tactics briefly interrupted Captain Hardy’s determined stoniness.
“Perhaps he’s like Lucien, and all it took was the right woman to inspire him to change his wicked ways,” Angelique suggested into the breach.
Lucien snorted good-humoredly.
“And if he is a privateer,” Delilah added, “it means St. Leger now works for the crown, as you did.”
Captain Hardy stared at his wife in stunned silence for a full three seconds.
“I... what on... not atalllike I did.” His voice was practically arid with disbelief.
Delilah laid her a hand on her husband’s arm. “Tristan,” she said softly.
After a moment, he took a breath.
His tension eased; he simply couldn’t help it when she touched him.
But only a little. Not entirely.
“Tristan... peopledochange. Look at Lucien, for instance. All of thetonhated him at one time.”
“Hated?” Lucien was startled.
“Passionately disapproved of, more precisely,” Angelique amended diplomatically.
This was true. When Lucien had been captured and thrown in the Thames to drown one midnight a decade ago, no bastard son ofa duke had ever been more notorious or more beloved of the broadsheets. Tempered by battle and struggle, he’d returned, with a fortune of his own, and was now generally considered quite reformed and civilized by all the members of White’s.
“We appreciate and respect your concern. Truly. But as we’ve all discussed before, the decision about whom to admit into The Grand Palace on the Thames has always belonged to me and Angelique. And I simply can’t countenance sending either of them back out into the storm. Especially Daphne.Hestrikes me as a man who can take care of himself, regardless. Whether the two of you would like a say in who is admitted to The Grand Palace on the Thames is a conversation we can have another day.”
The unspoken words were, “and we can tell you right now how that conversation will go.”
“I agree with Delilah,” Angelique said gently.
And just like that, all four were in uncharted waters. It was truly the last place any of them wanted to be after a fortnight of relentlessly increasing tension, filled with sleeplessness, uncertainty, eerie drafts, worry, rambunctiously cheerful Germans, and on the threshold of what might well be the storm of the decade, which would seal all of them up together for at least a week.
“Delilah...Pikecame to get us when he got one look at the man. He did the right thing.”