“Miss Talbot?”
Her eyes flicked open. Hargrove, looking so very familiar and normal, stood just inside the open door.
“Did I forget we had a prior engagement?”
She wished they had an engagement of an entirely different kind.
“You know you didn’t,” she said. “I apologize for coming uninvited. I was ... I was...,” she trailed off and tossed up her hands.
What could she say?Glynnis might confess the absolute base and terrible truth, that she had no fiancé and no money.
He looked at her curiously. “Are you finding yourself with time on your hands before your dinner with Dodd?”
She startled, having completely forgotten he knew.
“You do look to be at sixes and sevens,” he added. “And beautiful, too, may I add.”
“I am not dining with Lord Dodd as it turns out.”
Should she tell him?She would be pouring a large cup of gossip-water if she did.
“Has something happened?” he asked, coming farther into the room but leaving the door open.
“Will you sit?” she asked. “You make me unsettled standing there like a footman.”
That made him grin. “It’s the hour for a glass of wine, don’t you think?” he offered.
Glynnis was grateful he was being so hospitable. “Yes, I do. And thank you.”
She waited while he tugged the bell pull and ordered wine from the swift housemaid before he sat on the sofa opposite her.
Oh, what could be done on a sofa!
“You’re blushing, Miss Talbot.”
Her gaze snapped to his.
“And now you’re blanching.” He rested his elbows on his knees leaning forward. “What on earth has got into you?”
She couldn’t tell him she’d hoped to make Lord Dodd her husband, but everything else was fair game, she supposed. As soon as she had a glass of claret in her hand, she told him every sordid detail.
“With his aunt,” Hargrove declared, not looking as shocked as she would have expected.
“By marriage,” she reminded him. For even if the man was a licentious gadabout, Lord Dodd wasn’t depraved. At least, she assumed not.
“Exactly the case,” Hargrove said. “I knew it.”
“You knew it?”
“There was something off about that pair, and no self-respecting aunt-by-marriage, meaning no relation at all in truth, would stay unchaperoned with a man about her age. And both of them single as sausages.”
“Indeed,” Glynnis agreed.
“You had quite an eyeful, I take it.”
“Yes,” she said softly and sipped her wine, beginning to feel soothed. “I wish I could eliminate that eyeful, too. It’s not pleasant to have someone else’s amorous congress floating about in one’s head.”
He was trying not to smile. It was obvious. He lost the battle with himself and laughed outright.
