“I’ll do that,” he said gently. “And it hardly smells of mildew at all, which is a remarkable feat for a building so close to the docks.”
She narrowed her eyes ever so slightly.
“Are you attempting to negotiate the price of your room, sir?”
“That depends. To my original question:Haveyou a room to let, Lady Derring?”
Intriguingly, she paused.
“Based on our discussion, I do wonder if this is the sort of place you’d feel at ease, Captain. And our prices are not negotiable. We feel our guests are given great value for their money.”
“Ease,” he repeated thoughtfully, after a moment. As if it were a word only plebeians found use for.
She seemed to take this as an invitation to tip her head and study him critically with those soft eyes.
He could feel the jagged old glacier of his heart creak as if exposed to a violent sunbeam.
He thought perhaps he should look away.
And then he thought:what a waste of a moment it would be, if I should look away when I could be looking at her.
A pretty woman can get a man to do anything,Massey had said to him.
But he was a man willing to do just about anything to gethisman.
Easier still if the man he needed to get was instead a woman.
He lowered his voice to one of confiding sympathy. “Would you like to inspect beneath my chin, Lady Derring? I might have missed a hair or two whilst shaving, though I’m not inclined to miss any detail at all. About anything. Ever.”
A little silence.
“It’s difficult to shave the day after a liquor-soaked evening, I should imagine,” she said smoothly.
She was very, very good.
“While I’ll allow that this is true, that wasn’t the circumstance this morning, nor will it be during my stay here at the Ro—”
“Grand Palace on the Thames.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Very well, then. Now that I know a bit more about what sort of establishment this is—and it does sound like a fine establishment—would you mind telling me a bit more about the rules?”
She looked relieved. “They’re very simple, really. We expect our male guests to behave like gentlemen in the presence of ladies. Drinking, spitting, or smoking will not be tolerated in the drawing room when ladies are present, and rough language will be fined one pence per word. We’ve a jar, you see.”
“A jar.” He said this with every evidence of fascination.
“But we also have a withdrawing room for gentlemen, in which they can unleash their baser impulses in case the effort of restraint becomes too much to bear.”
Lady Derring was very dry.
“What a relief to hear. Tethering instincts wears a devil out.”
He was rewarded with a smile, one of delightful, slow, crooked affairs, as if she just couldn’t help herself, and he, for a moment, could not have formed words for admiring it.
“Suitable guests don’t find the rules a challenge at all, and if you’re of sound character, you’ve scarcely need to try to behave. You will simply enjoy the camaraderie of our drawing room evenings.”
“I assure you my character is both sound and unassailable.”
“Apart, perhaps, from a slight issue with modesty?”
