They smoked contemplatively for a moment.
“If you had children, where do you suppose they’d sleep here at the Grand Palace on the Thames?” Marchand asked the room at large. “Have you enough rooms? Is there a nursery of some sort?”
“I just assumed we’d fill the annex ballroom with them,” Hardy said.
Bolt gave a short, distracted laugh.
There was a pause. “I always thought it would be nice toraise children in the country,” Bolt confessed. “I’ve a house I inherited that I seldom visit. I was raised there.”
Delacorte and Hardy looked at him, surprised.
One got the sense that Lucien had never before mentioned any longing to raise children in the country. And this Marchand recognized as a potential opening.
“You’d probably make a pretty sum if you sold this place today.” He gestured, indicating the Grand Palace on the Thames. “Might never have to work at anything ever again.” Marchand casually blew a stream of smoke ceiling-ward. “I recall when your annex wing was for sale, I was disappointed I’d missed the opportunity.”
“Both buildings actually belong jointly to our wives,” Bolt told him. “I bought the annex building and gave it to Angelique in the hopes she would marry me. Ironically, before that, I was eyeing it for a gaming hell, too.”
At Marchand’s expression, Bolt gave a short laugh. “Yes, it was mad to give her a building. I was in love. What can I say? I would have given her the moon. I’ve never regretted it. She promptly gave half ownership to Hardy’s wife, because Hardy’s wife gave Angelique half of the Grand Palace on the Thames when they became partners.”
Despite himself, Marchand found himself admiring the efficiency and pure trust implied in this partnership. And therein lay its strength, he was sure.
And therein also lay the reason that persuading them to sell might be trickier than Marchand had anticipated.
“If they ever want to sell...”
He had the sense he’d just uttered a sacrilege, judging bythe quality of the silence and the closed, cautious expressions that greeted those words.
But all it really took was a seed planted, he knew.
It would grow, or it wouldn’t. He would certainly look for opportunities to nurture it.
Nobody took up the question.
“I have a hunch that all of you would be wonderful fathers, in different ways,” Marchand reflected, into the silence. “It might require combining forces, however. Hardy for the discipline, Bolt for, oh, let’s say grace, Delacorte for the comedy. Like that.”
He’d made all of them smile, and damned if that wasn’t a good feeling.
“You never know. If you stay here too long,youmight even accidentally leave here with a wife, Marchand. Lots of people seem to do that,” Delacorte said wistfully.
Marchand snorted. “She’d need to rope and tie me first.”
Chapter Six
Dinner at the Grand Palace on the Thames was a merry, chaotic sport in which everyone won, most particularly Mr. Delacorte. Tureens sloshing and brimming with hearty things were swiftly passed in every direction, and Ginny learned quickly that one needed to be nimble and alert to avoid mid-air collisions. Tonight she’d nearly taken a butter dish to the temple because her eyes were on her plate. She’d been applying herself diligently to the fish stew and herbed potatoes in an attempt to avoid looking directly at Mr. Marchand, who had somehow contrived to sit almost directly across from her.
Today she’d endured a stingingly awkward visit to Weston’s on Old Bond Street to inquire about satyr buttons. All the gentlemen behind the counter had eyed her reprovingly, clearly keenly disturbed by the invasion of a young, well-bred, unchaperoned woman into their masculine sanctum.
“Good heavens, miss. No. That travesty of a button sounds like something George Stultz would do to waistcoats,” the gentleman at the counter sniffed, when she’d inquired about the satyr buttons. “You might try athisshop.”
She’d departed with a scorching blush and returned atonce to the Grand Palace on the Thames, her quotient of bravado spent for the day, though she was painfully aware that shame was pure indulgence given the urgency of her mission. She did not look forward to her visit to George Stultz’s shop tomorrow.
Ironically she had Mr. Marchand to thank for the miracle that happened next.
Because her traitorous head inevitably lifted and turned as if of its own accord, and her gaze collided with Mr. Marchand’s.
Whereupon she swiveled it sharply away again, toward Lord Bolt.
Who had just rotated his torso to pass the bread to his wife.
