Rhys found he wasn’t inclined to bend or stand down beneath Bretagne’s pressure. “A story that’s between her and me.”
That got a lift of Bretagne’s eyebrows, and Rhys couldn’t help feeling a moment’s satisfaction. Under no circumstances would he betray Miss Birdwell and tell Bretagne the story of how they’d become entangled with each other, which had involved her swiping an invitation not intended for her and sneaking out to a masquerade ball where she’d danced, cheated a card cheat, won Papa’s ring for herself, and generally had one of the best nights of her life.
Rhys could neither begrudge her that night nor reveal it to another living soul.
Once Bretagne comprehended he wouldn’t be getting any information on that subject from Rhys, he said, “You’re here for Tilly, yes?”
It wasn’t a question.
It was a demand.
“Yes.”
“And why is that?”
“She’s helping me.”
Which was both true and untrue, at once.
She was both helping him recover Papa’s ring and obstructing him at the same time.
But more was true, too.
She was helping him in ways he didn’t understand, but felt.
Bretagne’s eyes narrowed into near-black daggers poised to wound at the slightest misstep from Rhys. “You’re not toying with her?”
“No.”
“You won’t hurt her?”
“Never.”
He’d nearly growled the word.
In his entire life, he’d never spoken a word with as much intensity.
Bretagne stubbed out his cigar in a dish outside the French doors. Before he reentered the drawing room, he caught Rhys’s gaze. “Then I’ll leave you to it.”
With that, Bretagne left Rhys outside to reckon with those words, alone and, frankly, unbalanced.
To his ears they sounded suspiciously like permission.
Permission to court Miss Birdwell.
Which, in his nine and twenty years, was a first.
9
From her place behind the table, Tilly held an unimpeded view of the doors the men had disappeared through.
The room had gone quiet without them in it. Lucy continued flipping through her correspondence. Isabel remained concentrated on her embroidery, but with a newly heightened air of watchfulness about her. And Tilly kept her gaze cast down toward the books spread before her.
But her stillness was a façade.
Inside, she was stirred.
Lord Rhys…here.
