“Lady Berwick, who is the man with those exquisite ladies?”
Unfortunately, the play started just then, and she did not receive an answer.
Was it Gideon? Had he noticed her?
Was he looking at her?
She turned to glance at him and saw him looking straight at her, his steel-eyed gaze boring into her.
Then one of the women touched his arm and he turned to her.
Would he be kissing either of those women tonight?
Chapter Three
“You told herI was deaf,” Gideon Knight’s good friend, John Bonham, humorously accused him, dropping into a chair in Gideon’s study at the Musket Club and tossing him a look of reproof. “She almost blew out my eardrums while shouting instructions in my ear about your invitation to her bloody charity tea.”
Gideon looked up from his desk where he had been reviewing documents, and grinned at this man he’d known for ages, one of the few he trusted. “You could have simply told her the truth, but instead you played the dunce when she came to the door to hand you the invitation. Where were you when she came around that first time to complain about the noise?”
“Chasing a mouse in the kitchen. Whatever possessed you to tell her I was deaf?”
“I had to come up with some excuse for your rudeness. You know I almost killed her when she marched around back into the yard. That board I was hammering slipped loose and almost struck her on the head.”
“That would have made a lasting impression,” Bonham said wryly. “Are you going to attend her affair?”
Gideon nodded. “Yes.”
“Why? It will be filled with her boorish friends who would sooner scrape their muddy boots on you than smile at you. And all she wants is your money.”
“No,” Gideon said emphatically, “Lady Berry isn’t like that.”
Bonham arched an eyebrow. “Oh,Lady Berry? Have you gotten that cozy with her already? When have you had the chance to bed her?”
“I haven’t,” Gideon said, casting his friend a warning look. “Nor do I intend to. She’s respectable.”
“Since when has that stopped you?”
Gideon did not know why he was so rankled by their conversation when Bonham was right about his behavior.
This was what he always did with ladies of his acquaintance. If they caught his fancy, he tossed them a look. They always responded. He bedded them.
Once he lost interest, he gave them a pretty trinket and never looked back.
“You retired early last night,” Bonham remarked. “Left me sleeping on a rickety cot in that big, dusty house while you stayed up reading a book here at the club. Jasmine and Chloe gave me an earful when I arrived a few minutes ago. They said you took them to the theater and that was all. Not a kiss or request to join you later. You simply handed them over to Pudge to escort them into the gaming hall and retired up here. Are you feeling unwell?”
“What are you, my mother?” Gideon growled back, obviously irritated, since neither of them had mothers and would not know a mother’s touch if it bit them on the arse.
“Well, you had two beautiful women on your arm. Two courtesans to whom every man in that theater would have given their right arm for a night of pleasure, and all you did was watch the play.”
“‘To whom every man’? What are you suddenly? An Oxford professor? Who gave you permission to keep track of my sexual exploits?”
“Or sudden lack thereof,” Bonham muttered. “Have you decided to become a monk?”
Gideon rolled his eyes. “Who is teaching you to speak like that?Lack thereof?To whom? Now you are sounding like one of those nobs we both detest.”
“It is your diction coach, Miss Wright. She happens to be giving me diction lessons, too. I have also been taking lessons from your dance instructor, Miss Feswick. You and I have been friends and business partners for years. Our ventures are doing well, so why should I not put some of that blunt to good use? Aren’t you doing the same?”
Gideon nodded.
