The Duke of Marchmont didn’t know where Zoe had found the dress. It looked like Vérelet’s work, but he was positive he’d had nothing to do with ordering it.
He would never have ordered thecorsageto be made so tight or cut so low. If there was an inch of lilac-colored satin covering her bust, it was the narrowest inch he’d ever seen.
And there were Adderwood and Winterton, on either side of her—the golden-haired half-naked angel between two leering dark devils. Not that they were obvious about it. But he knew that they—along with Alvanley, who sat opposite her—were staring at her breasts while pretending not to. He knew how to do that, too.
He emptied his glass.
The dessert course was in the process of being set out, and he was well on his way to being drunk.
Other men.
Lexham had decided to err on the side of caution. Ten guests only. Of the men Marchmont had suggested, Lexham had selected only Alvanley and Adderwood, the two youngest. Marchmont had put Adderwood on the list only because he couldn’tnotadd him. The stout Alvanley was less of a problem. No one could ever accuse him of being handsome.
But Lexham had discarded the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, along with several other steady, older gentlemen. He’d invited Winterton instead.
In addition, he’d invited Adderwood’s sister Amelia, Lady Lexham’s sister Lady Brexton, Marchmont’s spinster cousin Emma—one of the indigent relations he supported—and the American ambassador, Mr. Rush, and his wife.
With only a dozen at table, the conversation was general, ranging freely up and down and across the board.
The meal had reached its last stages, and Adderwood was running the show, thanks to the opening the American ambassador had given him. Rush had marveled at the British press and its propensity to tell everybody everything about everybody and everything. From newspapers, Adderwood easily turned the conversation to books.
He was at his most charming this evening, the lecherous swine.
“Walter Scott seems to be highly popular here,” Rush was saying. “I heard of a dinner at which the hostess asked each of her guests to write down on a piece of paper the Scott novel he liked best. She received nine slips of paper, each one with the name of a different novel.”
“I heard of that,” said Adderwood. “The guests she asked were all men. If one were to ask women to name their favorite books, I suspect the slips of paper would bear the titles of horrid novels.” He turned to Zoe, using the opportunity, Marchmont had no doubt, to ogle her assets. “What do you say, Miss Lexham? Scott or a horrid novel?”
“What is a horrid novel?” said Zoe.
“A book in which a lot of bizarre and terrifying events are told in a desperately romantic fashion,” said Winterton.
Before he could continue, Marchmont said, “Typically, an innocent maiden finds herself in a decaying castle where she is hunted by depraved men, haunted by ghosts, locked into dungeons, attacked by vampires or werewolves or both. There’s usually a madman in the picture.”
“It sounds like Cairo,” she said. “Afreetseverywhere.”
“Afreets?”said Adderwood.
“Demons,” said Winterton, the know-it-all, before Marchmont could answer.
“Everyone there believes in ghosts and demons and giants andjinnand the Evil Eye,” said Zoe.
“Good heavens!” said Cousin Emma. The only excitement in her life was the periodic summons from Aunt Sophronia to accompany her somewhere—excitement that even Emma, whose life was numbingly dull, would rather do without.
“They think all sicknesses can be healed with magic spells and charms,” said Zoe. “I don’t need to read a horrid novel. I’ve lived in one.”
“No, no, Miss Lexham, you want something more improbable than that,” Marchmont said. “Pieces of gigantic suits of armor appearing in the garden. Corpses resurrected via dismemberment, neat stitchery, and electricity. You are too real.”
She frowned. “Too real?”
“Not at all,” said Adderwood. “Miss Lexham is precisely real enough.”
“I meant that the rigors of your ordeal might be too painful for some of the ladies,” said Marchmont. He couldn’t believe she was going to talk about the harem after all his work trying to put it out of people’s minds.
“I wasn’t referring to an ordeal,” said Zoe. “I thought we were speaking of the absurd things in these stories. Ghosts and such. It’s the same elsewhere.The Thousand and One Nightsis famous in Egypt. I saw that my father has this book in his library, but in French.”
“Oh, yes,” said Amelia Adderwood. “I’ve read those stories.”
“I’ve read them, too,” said Cousin Emma. “Magic lamps and flying carpets.”
