He hadn’t yet lifted his head from the card. He seemed to be pondering it.
Mrs. Brightwall looked up then, her expression inscrutable.
“Indeed,” Angelique said brightly. “Our guests seem to relish it.”
He finally lowered the card.
Delilah and Angelique smiled at him encouragingly.
“Yes. We will abide by these rules,” he said shortly.
He bothered to neither look at nor consult his wife.
Whereupon Alexandra finally shot him aglance fleeting in duration, but which seemed capable of leaving a bleeding puncture wound.
Angelique and Delilah were both tempted to give him a little kick, too.
“I’m given to understand the suites are comprised of two rooms,” Brightwall said.
Delilah stopped herself from glancing at Mrs. Brightwall. “They are.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Durand and Mrs. Hardy,” Alexandra said. “These rules are wonderfully civilized. Yes, I can abide by them.”
Brightwall’s jaw tensed slightly.
“We’re glad you agree, Mrs. Brightwall. Mr. Benjamin Pike will show the two of you to your suite, if you’d like to see it now. We’ll have Dot bring the tea up to you.”
Alexandra stood, followed, more slowly, by her towering husband. He was momentarily very still, as if suppressing a twinge of pain.
And suddenly both Angelique’s and Delilah’s hearts went out to them.
Tea could solve nearly every ill, but they didn’t think it was going to do much to fix whatever was ailing the Brightwalls.
Perhaps spirited discourse would. One could hope.
The suite to which the boardinghouse’s strapping young footman brought them was located in what their proprietresses referred to as the annex. Blue velvet curtains poured to the floor from tall windows, through which the very tops of thespires of ships were visible. A long blue settee presided over the center of the room, and comfortable chairs surrounded two little tables—one for dining, one for games. On the mantel a decanter of what appeared to be brandy glowed in the reflected light of the leaping fire.
All in all, Alexandra conceded it was a handsome room.
But why the devil were they here?
“Magnus, if I may ask a question?”
Magnus turned to her coolly, eyebrows upraised, as though she were a footman who had made an inquiry.
“This seems like a lovely place. The Grand Palace on the Thames...”
“That strikes me as more of a comment than a question.”
She clenched her teeth against a spurt of anger. “May I ask why we have we come here, instead of to the town house on St. James Square?”
Which is where she had lived since shortly after their wedding.
He’d owned it for years.
He absently peeled a glove from his hand as he glanced around the room, taking inventory of their furnishings.
“I am selling the town house.” He stuffed his gloves into his coat pocket.