Hugh tried not to look as though he’d freshly imagined taking the earl’s daughter from behind.
“Cassidy. Good to have you back.” Captain Hardy and Bolt shook his hand and brandies were poured. The new entrants lit cigars and all at once they all leaped into satisfying talk of the business of the day—hiring new crew for the ship, discussion of adding another cutter to their fleet down the road, silk prices.
“Have enough money to run for mayor, Cassidy?” This was a question from the earl.
“Is there truly such a thing as enough money, sir?”
The earl laughed. “I knew I liked you, Cassidy.”
“As it so happens, I believe my endeavor will be quite adequately financed. I’ve been fortunate in my investments. The Triton Group here being one of them.” He gestured expansively to the other men in the room.
Hugh always looked for opportunities to champion his friends.
“Lord Vaughn, I may know a fellow who can help you capture that snake,” Delacorte said suddenly, to no one’s surprise except Vaughn’s. Delacorte always knew somebody who could do something unusual.
“You don’t say?” The earl was intrigued.
“Chap hails from India. He says he can do it without hurting the snake at all—seems you need to entice it with dead snakes or other tasty tidbitsand whatnot and a brazier for warmth. I’ll take you to go and have a chat with him, if you’d like.”
The earl hesitated. “Well, that’s big of you, Mr. Delacorte. Thank you. I’d like that. How did you meet this fellow?”
“Works for an apothecary friend of mine. Met him the other day. They took a dozen of the new impotence cure I’ve just got in from the orient. I don’t suppose you could use some of those, too?”
And then he winked at the Earl.
The earl appeared immobilized by astonishment.
A faint spasm in the area of one of his eyebrows signaled they were undecided about diving in outrage.
All the men in the room held their breath in hushed, anticipatory glee.
“Thank... you?” the Earl said finally, very, very carefully. “It’s kind of you to ask, but at the moment I don’t anticipate a need.”
All of which made everyone in the room rather like him.
There was a little relieved silence.
“But... you wouldn’t happen to have anything to...” the earl cleared his throat “...er, calm... the female nerves, would you?”
“Mmmm... not as such,” Delacorte said, exhaling smoke. He was often the deliverer of shocking questions, but a question hadn’t been invented that could shockhim. “Females all being different people, you see. Perhaps if I knew more about the complaint.”
Not one other man in the room wanted to know more about the female complaint and they prayed the earl wouldn’t expound.
The earl hesitated. Then sighed. “My oldest daughter. She’s grown into such a fine young lady over the past several years, you know . . . perhaps you’ve read an item or two in the gossip columns?” He looked up, half proud, half abashed. Everyone just smiled politely. “They do like to write about her. She has been everything that is proper and elegant, and we are so proud. But lately she’s been a bit . . . unpredictable.”
He glanced at Hugh, who was the only one in the room who knew about the cheroot.
Hugh suspected the earl had no idea of the true scope of Lillias’s capacity to surprise.
“The only predictable thing about women is their unpredictability,” Lucien said knowledgeably.
“Well, out of the blue a few weeks ago Lillias suddenly climbed the church tower. Bolted right up it after church.”
Of all the things Hugh had expected to hear in the brown smoking room, this was perhaps last on the list.
“Did she say why?” He shouldn’t have asked. It occurred to him that it was better that she remain a problem akin to an irritating noise on the periphery of his awareness, and not evolve into a person who would take deeper root in his imagination.
“Said she suddenly wanted to see as far as she could see. And while she was up there... she rang the bell.”
