He hooked his thumb in his waistcoat pocket, his eyes going hooded.
“What?” she asked, shoving thatHin there hard. “Was my diction not correct?”
“It was fine,” he said gruffly, “but now I can’t get the image of you slipping about in my bed out of my mind.”
Netta stilled. He stood several feet from her, yet she swore she could feel the heat rolling from his body. Or maybe that was her own body acting like a furnace.
Summerset was so perfectly put-together. His cravats were always knotted just so. His stockings matched his waistcoat. There was never a crease or a wrinkle anywhere on his person.
Her fingers itched to disorder his perfection. To put some well-earned wrinkles in those breeches.
He turned his head aside, and the connection pulsing between them broke. “I have an idea to help you with your elocution.” He strode to a sideboard and pulled a jar from the bottom shelf. Glass marbles rattled inside, glinting in the sunlight. He returned and sat beside her. “Have you ever heard of Demosthenes?”
Her father had a library full of Greek classics, but she couldn’t admit to that. She shook her head.
“He was an orator who lived two thousand years ago.” Summerset rested one arm along the back of the settee, his thumb just brushing the shoulder of her gown. “Legend has it that as a child he was a very poor speaker. In order to improve, he put pebbles in his mouth. If he could learn to speak clearly and understandably around the pebbles, then his speech when his mouth was free would be exemplary.” He raised the jar, and the sea-green marbles clinked against each other. “I quite forget why he felt so compelled to improve his speech. Something about a lawsuit, I believe, and he had to act as his own attorney.”
He exhaled, his nostrils flaring. “It always comes down to money.”
She glanced around the parlor. The sheer curtains appeared to have spun gold threaded through them. The chairs and side tables were all made from the finest rosewood. Gems glittered on Summerset’s cravat pin, the buttons to his jacket, the ring he wore on the thumb of his right hand.
Money didn’t seem to be a problem. But if it was…. “You will have the four thousand pounds you promised me, won’t you? I don’t want to go through this performance only to have you claim poverty.”
“Have no worries, my money isn’t the issue.” He cocked his head. “That sounded quite good, Netta. You didn’t drop oneH. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.”
Drat. She’d forgotten herself. She gave him a cheeky grin. “You toffs always give my kind too little credit. Wot’s the use of ‘anging around you lot to lift a bauble now and then if I can’t mirror ‘ow you talk?”
“Right.” He sighed. “Marbles it is. Open up.” He plucked a round ball from the jar and held it in front of her mouth.
“I don’t think—”
He pressed the marble between her open lips and dug out another.
“Oy!” The glass clicked against her teeth and she shifted it to her cheek. “That’s right—”
He popped another one in. “Don’t worry, they’ve been washed. Now, repeat after me.The grey fox found himself a bit of fun and hardly had a happier time in his life.”
She pinched her mouth shut and glared at him.
“No?” He lifted a lock of her hair and twirled it about his finger. “How aboutthe headstrong hen hated when the furtive fox fired up her fury.”He tugged on her curl, and her scalp tingled. “I dare you to say that three times in a row.”
“Yur da fox an’ mm da ‘en, I s’pose?”
His lips stretched into a wide grin, the edges of his eyes crinkling.
Her lungs stalled.
It was the first true smile she’d seen from him. The first one spawned from sincere amusement instead of affectation.
It was beautiful.
How much of himself did Summerset hide away? How much of his insouciance was pretense?
She was all too familiar with disguises. She should have recognized he wore one sooner.
A door banged shut, and footsteps pounded down the hallway.
The earl’s shoulders tightened and he swiveled his face to the parlor door, the happiness evaporating from his expression.
