Page 37 of A Figure of Love

McElroy rubbed his hands together. “Ah! And just in time, too.” He cut Serena a sly look, and she knew that he accurately read the relief on her face. “Shall I dish you up a plate?”

Serena shivered. “No thank you, I’m afraid it is not a taste I have developed.”

“Blood pudding is not popular where you are from?” He wore a smile but it did not reach his eyes. He would want to know what she was doing up in the middle of the night with his friend. He would want to know about her.

“Certainly not in the part of France I lived in, Mr. McElroy.”

“Ah.” He proceeded to fill his plate, but Serena knew this was only the beginning of his probing. She ate, hoping to finish her meal quickly. While she no longer had an appetite, to leave any food on her plate now would be to show weakness, which the sharp-eyed Irishman would not miss.

They ate in silence, until Serena was beginning to think she might be wrong, when he struck again.

“Tell me, Mrs. Lombard, how did a half-French sculptor’s daughter come to meet the Duke of Remington’s youngest son? That must be quite a story.”

Serena almost laughed at the harmless look he tried to assume. She was not worried, she had told this particular version of her history many, many times.

“Robert, my husband, was part of the diplomatic corps and had been entrusted with information intended for British allies. He encountered a small group of men who’d deserted the Grand Armee and had established their own fiefdom in the small town not far from where I lived.”

He nodded encouragingly.

“They attacked him and he was injured, but he managed to slay two of them before getting away. He lost consciousness in the forest and I found him and brought him back to the small chateau and hid him.”

“What a remarkably romantic tale!” He sat back in his chair and daubed his full, sensual lips with his napkin, his eyes wide. “You must have placed yourself in grave danger—and in the face of your countrymen.”

Even after all these years anger surged strong and fast at his words. “They were nothing but roving bands of thugs who raped and stole and terrorized the populace. Our region had been traded between warring nations for hundreds of years. It was not uncommon to hear four languages spoken of an evening in our tiny village.”

“You will have to forgive me, Mrs. Lombard. Like so many people raised in England I suffer from a vast ocean of ignorance when it comes to the greater outside world.”

Serena doubted this man missed anything—either in his world or outside of it. His disingenuous response was just another part of his act. He simmered with anger, no doubt a butt of many Englishmen for his Irish background, which was even more despised than her French heritage.

“I understand your husband was killed while spiriting you and your child to safety.”

Serena was not surprised he knew her story, the details had been noised about widely enough almost a decade ago. Although she suspected he’d gathered his information far more recently than that.

“Yes. The man who was to ferry us across the Channel betrayed us. Robert gave his life so that I and our child might live.” Perhaps he actually felt as abashed as he looked by the abrupt ending of her tale, but Serena doubted it. Either way, she was spared having to endure more of his probing by Jessup’s arrival.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Lombard, but the gentleman is here with the shrubs.”

Serena swallowed back her sigh of relief and gave McElroy a cool smile before pushing back her chair.

“Please excuse me, Mr. McElroy.”

He bowed, his hard green eyes crinkling. “Of course, of course—you have a job to do. No matter, I shall have plenty of time to get to know you better at dinner tonight.”

That was exactly what Serena was afraid of.

∞∞∞

Gareth hadn’t needed to go all the way back to London for the supplies he wanted. But he had needed to go for his peace of mind. Even an hour beating the bags had not mitigated the woman’s—Mrs. Lombard’s—distracting influence on his body and mind. He had experienced this level of obsessiveness before, but always in relation to a mathematical problem or new project. Never a woman. He’d hoped relieving himself would have quenched his desire, but it had been an empty release.

He could not function this way, not with the new brewery, the impending canal project, and half a dozen other matters that required his undivided attention. He needed to see Venetia. She would help him assuage the nagging urge that was clouding his usually sharp brain.

He’d first gone to his London house, which had been waiting and ready as it always was, his servants well-trained and well-compensated to expect their employer at any hour of the day or night. He’d taken care of a few domestic matters and then gone out to a shop he knew specialized in automata. After spending an hour inspecting the new kiln at the pottery he was building—in a part of town so dangerous the land had been bought for a song—he’d gone home and bathed and changed into his evening clothing.

He left instructions to have his bed chamber prepared but ordered no dinner. He would dine with Venetia tonight if she was available. If she was not, he would eat somewhere on his own. Either way, he always slept in his own bed, never at the White House, Venetia’s place of business.

The door to the inconspicuous white building opened before Gareth reached the top step. A footman garbed in sumptuous green velvet and gold lacing greeted him.

“Good evening, Mr. Lockheart.”