It was the principle of the thing, surely.
And something to do with the way her hand had felt resting on his arm when he walked herinto the sitting room. It was the oddest thing. But it was as if suddenly everything in him was marshaled in preparation to catch her should she need it.
Why hadn’t a daughter of an earl married yet? At her age?
This puzzled him.
The young lord sitting across from him was the sort of man the daughter of an earl ought to marry. Titled, privileged, boring, safe, and rich.
“Will your parents be worried about you, St. John?” Bolt asked.
This made Lord Vaughn, who was just past twenty if Lorcan had to guess, sound like the veriest little boy. Lorcan shot Bolt an amused look. He wondered if Lord Vaughn had smoldered at Angelique or Delilah.
“No doubt,” St. John admitted after a moment. “But they knew I was out with Delacorte. They like him.”
“They were bound to, eventually,” Delacorte said complacently, pleased.
“Still live with your parents, eh?” Lorcan asked dryly.
St. John shifted in his chair. “I like my parents,” St. John said. “It’s a big house. Barely see them some days.”
“My friend Mr. Hugh Cassidy is an American who stayed here, and married St. John’s sister,” Delacorte told Lorcan. “He met her right here at The Grand Palace on the Thames when her family came to stay. Mr. Cassidy took her off to live in New York.”
“You don’t say,” Lorcan reflected.
“St. Leger and I in fact met when a pirate was attempting to kill me,” Bolt volunteered, apparently inspired by the talk of piercings. “It was after the war, in the sea outside of Spain. Pirates boarded our ship, and his ship came along and noticed our signals and... let’s just say we were triumphant. And there were quite a number of piercings that day.”
St. John looked both pale and enthralled.
“One evening we even all playacted pirates in the sitting room,” Delacorte told Lorcan and St. John.
“Did you now?” Lorcan was wildly amused. “Even the ladies? Even Hardy?”
“All of us.”
Unsmilingly, Lorcan and Hardy exchanged a glance. Hardy as a boy had been as full of willing wildness as Lorcan had been. As quick to laugh or fight. Smart. Just as frightened and feral as he was.
Lorcan hesitated.
Then said, “Do you remember, Hardy... what that bloke what sold apples used to say every time we tried to nick one?”
For a moment it seemed as though Hardy intended to coldly refuse to respond. And then, seemingly almost against his will, the corner of his mouth tipped up. “‘I’ll purple yer backsides, ye mongrels!’”
“Backside.” Lorcan shook his head. “When the word ‘arse’ was right there and ready to be used.”
Hardy clearly fought it, but he gave a short laugh.
“Funnier if you were there,” Lorcan explainedto the others in the room, who were listening and smiling, clearly willing to be amused but a bit confused.
But Lorcan knew the words would viscerally conjure for Hardy the world they’d once shared: the terrors of St. Giles, the anarchic pleasures of boyhood. The proving ground for both of them until Hardy had understandably seized a way out that was serendipitously presented to him when a naval officer had taken him under his wing.
“So. How did all of you come to live in a palace by the docks with such a quality smoking room?” Lorcan mused.
“I came here because I tracked smugglers here,” Hardy said. “But stayed for the beautiful woman.”
“Indeed. Such noble pursuits, smuggler tracking.” Lorcan exhaled smoke. “And beautiful women.”
Bolt surreptitiously shot Hardy an unreadable look.
