‘You look positively marvellous! What a daring dress.’ Cynthia leaned closer. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to help you settle in. I know you are investigating a murder, but the only one at risk of an untimely death here is me. I forgot how singularly demanding Lady Langley can be. I do love her, but the woman can suck all the air out of a room.’
Before Clio could reply, a staid gentleman in black and white entered the parlour and announced dinner was ready.
Grey joined his sister and Clio with Lady Langley at his side.
‘I hate that painting.’ Lady Langley frowned at the portrait. ‘Cynthia, darling, you simply must sit next to me at dinner.’ The sly woman turned her eye to Grey. ‘You can sit on my left, but mind your feet, sir. I won’t have you trying to seduce me with your toe delving beneath my skirts.’ She winked, leaving no one in doubt of exactly what she hoped he might manage. Thankfully, the duke was nowhere near the quartet. He looked deep in conversation with aportly gentleman on the opposite side of the crowded room, though Clio wondered if he would care about who hitched his wife’s skirts as long as it was not him.
Grey’s cheeks darkened, and he clenched his jaw before executing a perfect bow. ‘I would never dare take such liberties, Your Grace.’
She pursed her lips and shrugged. ‘More’s the pity for me.’ Sighing heavily, she took Cynthia’s arm and led them into the opulent dining room.
‘May I?’ Grey moved closer to escort Clio to dinner. Not seeing any way to avoid the offer without being extremely rude, Clio nodded. But she refused to touch his bare skin. She ignored his expectant hand, instead claiming the crook of his arm. The brushed wool of his dinner jacket was rough and warm against her tingling fingers.
‘You look rather well this evening.’ His words were mild, but his growled tone made her toes curl in her heeled slippers. ‘I never realised women could wear corsets quite like that. What a revelation.’
‘Women can wear whatever they like, however they like it.’ Clio kept her gaze forward.
‘Lady Godiva would wholeheartedly agree.’ Grey leaned closer, the heat of his body seeping through her gown.
Clio did turn then, because he so effortlessly stoked her fire. Of course, he would compare her to a blonde beauty who held no resemblance to Clio whatsoever. Not that it mattered. She didn’t want Grey picturing her naked any more than she wanted to see him bare and glistening in firelight.
Damnation!
Her mind was relentlessly clever at remembering details. She’d never had cause to despise that gift until now.
‘Lady Godiva was willing to set aside her own modesty to fightfor her townspeople. If her husband hadn’t been such a greedy tyrant, perhaps she would not have been forced to such drastic measures.’
‘I wholeheartedly agree. Although her methods seem to reward rather than discourage such behaviour, wouldn’t you say?’
‘As the only tyrant I know, you would be a better judge of that than I.’
Grey paused next to her chair and pulled it out. ‘First, your bird claims I’m a bastard, now you call me a tyrant? I won’t challenge Sir Robin, but I will call you out, madame.’ He whispered the threat into the shell of her ear.
Clio shivered. Not from fear. From anticipation. Which was far more unsettling.
‘Name the time and place, sir. Pistols or swords?’ They were back to flirting when she should have been fighting him. How did he so easily blur the lines between conflict and seduction?
She sat before he could answer. When he took his seat next to her, he dropped his napkin and used the excuse of retrieving it to lean closer.
‘Tonight. The library. Once everyone is abed. Bring only your wits.’
Clio couldn’t stop the rush of desire flooding through her veins, made all the more potent by her vision of him. The candles on the table flared in unison.
‘There must be a draught,’ Lady Langley declared before waving over a footman. ‘Check all the windows, Geoffrey.’ Her hand lingered on the servant’s arm, his neck reddening as she whispered something. Straightening abruptly, the poor boy nodded quickly and made a show of checking all the windows. Not an easy feat in such a large room.
‘I say, we weren’t introduced.’ The man who had been talking to the duke sat on Clio’s right and winked at her. ‘Viscount Beachley.The new one, not the dead one.’ He guffawed loudly. ‘Poor Arthur. Always had the rottenest luck. In cards and in wives, it would seem.’
Ah. The cousin set to inherit. What a delightful man.
Clio glanced at Lady Langley to see how she would react to such an insult against her deceased brother. The duchess was too interested in pinching the bottom of yet another young footman as he served her the creamed onion soup.
‘I am so sorry for your loss.’
Before Clio could say any more, the new viscount waved her words away with a soup-coated spoon and narrowly missed spraying the woman to his left with the first course.
‘Bah. We were never close. Though I feel sorry for the poor little nipper he left behind. Her father dead. Her mother, God only knows where. Without Lady Langley, the urchin would be bound for the orphanage. Lucky little thing to have such well-appointed relatives.’
It seemed a waste of time to point out the glaring contradictions in his speech. Thankfully, the new Viscount Beachley was far more interested in hearing himself talk than listening to anything Clio might have to say. The only benefit to his incessant chatter was having an excuse to keep her back turned to Grey. While the topic of his many accomplishments spun out endlessly over the seven-course meal, Clio kept returning to Grey’s proposition.
