It was capitulation. For now.
But they all knew this conversation, and all the silent things that simmered throughout it, was far from over.
“Even if the temptation to go on a murderous rampage overtakes him, with you and Lucien and Ben Pike here, we have naught to fear from him. Even Dot knows how to shoot,” Delilah reminded him.
“She still hasn’t quite mastered the aiming part of shooting,” he said grimly.
“She can be surprisingly valiant. She was once prepared to defend my possessions with a hatpin. Before all of this. Before I met you.”
Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt exchanged an unreadable look.
As friends and business partners, they had their own silent language now, too. As did Delilah and Angelique.
“Did any of you notice how Lady Worth looked at her husband?” Angelique said softly to Delilah, who nodded. “Don’t they seem oddly suited?”
The four of them gazed across at the pair sitting on the settee. They appeared to be murmuring to each other.
“I have a feeling Delacorte will love him,” Captain Hardy said finally, grimly.
This seemed probable. Delacorte loved nearly everybody.
During the few minutes the four residents of The Grand Palace on the Thames debated their fate, Lorcan and Daphne had, in fact, remained silent, siloed in entirely separate thoughts. Mere inches separated them on the settee; she hadn’t shifted away from him, nor had he shifted away from her. She was afraid the four people across the foyer would take note of it and become suspicious if she did. And she was still so weary and chilled, despite the proximity to the fire. His big body gave off heat, and at the moment, she was nearly as impartial to the source of it as a turtle basking on a rock. He smelled like woodsmoke, cheroot smoke, and night air, mingled with what she recognized as wet man. Distinctive, not unpleasant.
Three possibilities bound her in a sort of Gordian knot: they would both be asked to leave, thanks to whatever it was that bothered Captain Hardy about Lorcan St. Leger; St. Leger would be asked to leave, and she would be obliged to tell Delilah that she couldn’t afford a suite; or they would be invited tostay, and she would find herself in a suite alone with Mr. St. Leger.
She’d once scrupulously planned household budgets down to the ha’penny, made sure the minutest details of the family home, from curtain pulls to hinges on the doors to locks, were in perfect working order. She had hired and fired servants; she had arranged seating charts and menus for dinner parties and more. All of this and more had mostly been her responsibility since she was eleven years old.
But she hadn’t the faintest idea how she would endure or respond to any of the possibilities at this moment facing her. Her mind felt blank as a tundra.
He finally murmured, “Mr. and Mrs. Blackguard?”
She didn’t reply. Her nerves were so raw she could feel the entire path of her own breath as it traveled into and out of her body.
“What did you do to upset Captain Hardy?” she finally said.
For a moment she thought he was so lost in thought he hadn’t heard her.
“‘Upset,’” he repeated thoughtfully, finally, with great amused irony. As if he’d never heard a quainter word.
Chapter Five
A few minutes later Daphne found herself following Lorcan St. Leger up the stairs to the suite of rooms that Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Bolt proudly referred to as the annex. The earring was back in his ear; as it turned out, he was in possession of pound notes to pay for their room, after all.
Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt had not reappeared.
The tall young footman had graciously insisted upon carrying her valise the entire distance. Daphne supposed this temporary relief of a little burden was part of what made The Grand Palace on the Thames exclusive. He would have carried Mr. St. Leger’s as well, if Mr. St. Leger had let him.
Mr. St. Leger carried his own portmanteau in one hand. She suspected he was capable of carrying the footman under the other arm, if the mood took him.
Daphne’s heart lodged in her throat at the foot of the stairs and remained there for the duration of the climb to their door. She felt a little as though she was floating above her own body, watching the little procession. She thought, “My goodness! Going up to a room with a strange man is the last thing on earth Lady DaphneWorth would do,” as though she were another person altogether.
She watched his back for any clues to the man she hadn’t yet ascertained from his front. His well-tailored coat stretched clean and smooth as a pelt across his shoulders. Each time they passed by the lit sconces (wax candles, from the looks of things, not tallow—another little luxury), she caught the glint of a strand of silver in his black hair. His boots were beautifully made and very well worn.
And by the time Mr. Pike turned the key into the lock, her heart was thumping so hard it nearly choked her.
Mr. St. Leger hadn’t said a word for the duration. He was obviously preoccupied, as well. Or perhaps he viewed her as luggage, something he’d inadvertently acquired and was now obliged to ferry from place to place.
When Pike proudly flung open their door (which, she noted, didn’t creak; the well-oiled hinges were polished to a gleam, the sort of detail she was accustomed to noticing), she saw a long, handsome settee upholstered in blue brocade arranged in front of a merrily leaping fire. Heavy wool curtains fell to the floor; paper striped in pale blue climbed to the picture rail. Several little tables paired with chairs were scattered about, suitable for writing letters or playing Spillikins or alighting at to devour the scones they were told would be arriving in the morning.
