Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(20)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“You don’t know me well. I don’t even think you like me.” She opened her hands in her lap. “For what purpose are you making this offer? I don’t understand.”

He tilted his head back, staring at her. “I think it perfectly obvious. I have the money and you need it.”

“Do you make such offers to every lady who needs money?” She began to blush the moment the words left her mouth as she realized the possible double meaning, but she held his gaze defiantly. Would he take the easy way? Turn this into a joke?

But he didn’t. He looked irritated now, but he answered her nonetheless. “No, of course not.”

She simply looked at him.

He leaned forward suddenly, his elbows on his knees. “Money is the one thing I’m good at. You can trust me completely in this matter. I don’t cheat. I don’t steal. When it comes to financial dealings, you can rely on me.”

He said it almost like a confession, and she was strangely touched, as if he’d shared something deeply personal with her.

Yet she’d only known this man for less than forty-eight hours. Years of practicality held her back. “I do appreciate your kind offer,” she said carefully, “but I think I must decline it for now.”

He nodded as if he’d expected her answer and sat back. “My offer is still open should you change your mind.”

She suddenly felt lighter, even though she’d refused his money. He was on her side. She wasn’t working alone anymore. “I haven’t thanked you, have I?”

He shook his head, a smile playing about his mouth.

She inhaled, fighting down her own silly smile. “Well, I do thank you. Mr. Templeton seems like a competent architect and, perhaps more importantly, an honest one. I would never have found him without your introduction.”

He shrugged. “I’m glad to be of service.”

“There is one question I have for you, though.”

“Only one?”

“Why were you in St. Giles yesterday morning?”

If she expected confusion or denials of wrongdoing, that wasn’t what she got. Reading grinned and knocked on the ceiling of the carriage to signal the driver to stop.

“I was in St. Giles on business,” he said as the carriage halted. He opened the door and looked back at her over his shoulder. “Wicked, wicked business.”

He jumped down and tipped his hat to her. “Good morning to you, my Lady Perfect.”

He slammed the door and the carriage started forward.

Hero sat back against the squabs, whispering, “And good day to you, my Lord Shameless.”

Chapter Five

Well, this was quite the problem as you can imagine! For Queen Ravenhair trusted—and distrusted—her advisors, ministers, and men of letters all equally. How to choose which of the three princes would make the perfect husband? After puzzling on the problem for several days, the queen mounted her mare and announced to a gathered throng of her subjects that she had come to a decision. She would invite all three gentlemen to her castle and there hold a series of trials to discover her perfect consort and the man she would wed. All the court cheered.

But the stable master, standing by the head of the mare, was silent….

—from Queen Ravenhair

The first thing Griffin noticed as he entered Mandeville House that night was the multitude of candles. That and the two footmen and the butler who rushed to take his hat signaled that Mater had decided to turn a simple family dinner into an Event.

Griffin sighed.

Dinner with his family was wearisome enough without the extra frills.

“My lady has already sat down,” the butler said, his tone managing to sound both obsequious and disapproving at the same time.

“Of course she has,” Griffin muttered. It wasn’t enough that he’d have to endure a formal dinner with Thomas and his perfect fiancée—he must be late as well.

He stifled a yawn as he followed the butler up the stairs to the dining room. The few hours of sleep he’d been able to catch between leaving Lady Hero in her carriage and waking belatedly to dress for dinner didn’t seem nearly enough.

“Lord Griffin Reading,” the butler announced as if everyone in the room didn’t know him already.

“You’re late,” Caroline, the elder of his two sisters, said. Caro had always enjoyed stating the obvious. She was considered a beauty by most, but Griffin privately thought that ill humor overrode any amount of glossy dark locks and large brown eyes. “Where have you been?”

“In bed,” Griffin said succinctly as he made his way down the room to his mother. He stopped to touch the cheek of Margaret, his younger sister. “Been well, Megs?”

“Oh, Griffin!” she said. “I have missed you.”

She smiled up at him, her round cheeks rosy. Megs was the youngest of the family at two and twenty and Griffin’s personal favorite.

He grinned and continued to the foot of the table. There were seven at the long table: Thomas at one end with Lady Hero to his right and Caro on his left; Mater was at the other end with Wakefield on one side and Lord Huff, Caro’s husband, on the other. Megs was between Caro and Wakefield. Which left the last empty chair standing between Huff and Lady Hero. She was wearing a sort of misty green tonight that made her red hair blaze like flame in the candlelight.

Griffin bent and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Good evening, Mater.”

“You needn’t boast of your debauchery,” Caro sniffed.

Griffin raised his eyebrows. “It’s only boasting if I tell who was abed with me.”

“Please refrain for all our sakes,” Caro said.

Griffin met Mater’s gaze, which was part amused, part exasperated.

“You shouldn’t tease your sister,” she murmured.

“But it’s so easy,” he whispered back before straightening and moving to take his seat.

“You’ve missed the fish,” Huff said.

His brother-in-law was a short, burly man. Caro had inherited the Mandeville height and stood several inches taller than her husband—a fact that mortified her to no end but that Huff didn’t seem to notice at all. Actually, Huff didn’t seem to notice much of what his wife did. Nevertheless, he was fond of Caro in an absentminded sort of way, and Caro was quite happy with her match since Huff was one of the richest men in England.

“Was it any good?” Griffin murmured back.

“Cod,” Huff said somewhat obscurely.

“Ah.” Griffin took a sip of the red wine that had just been placed before him. The social niceties out of the way with his brother-in-law, he really had no choice but to turn to Lady Hero. “I hope you are well, my lady?”