Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(58)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“And a good thing, too,” Griffin said with vast disapproval. Good God, anything could happen in a garden at a ball—and he should know.

“No, really, Griffin,” Megs said soberly. “I know you have all those big-brother feelings to overcome, but try for a moment. How can I contemplate marriage to a man who looks appalled at the mere notion of kissing me?”

“How do you know he was even thinking of kissing you?” Griffin pointed out. “Perhaps he was worried about the cold, or good God, Megs, your reputation. He may—”

“Because I asked him,” she interrupted.

“To…?”

“Kiss me,” she confirmed. “And he looked like I’d asked him to lick an octopus. A live octopus.”

Griffin wondered if he could punch a man for not kissing his sister.

“Oh,” he said, which was an entirely inadequate response.

But oddly Megs seemed content with it. “Yes. You see the problem? If he’s not even tempted, if he’s even disgusted by the thought, well, what hope can there be for a satisfactory union?”

“I don’t know.” Griffin shook his head, trying for something better. “You know people of our rank don’t marry for love, Meggie. That’s just the way it is.”

The thought depressed him unaccountably.

“Don’t you think I know that?” she said. “I’m well aware that I’m expected to make a good marriage in which, if I’m lucky, my husband won’t have half a dozen mistresses and give me the pox.”

“Megs,” Griffin protested, truly shocked. When had his little sister become so jaded?

She waved away his male outrage. “But I can at least find some kind of… of friendship, don’t you think? A common understanding, a desire to do more in the bedchamber than produce an heir?”

“Of course,” he soothed. He knew he should be remonstrating her over her shocking language, but he just hadn’t the stamina for such hypocrisy at the moment. “We’ll find you a good husband, Megs.”

She sighed. “It is possible, isn’t it? Caro jogs along comfortably enough with Huff. And Thomas seems content with Lady Hero.”

Griffin stiffened at Hero’s name, but Megs didn’t seem to notice.

She wrinkled their nose. “He isn’t exactly demonstrative with her, but she’s a pleasant sort. I quite like her, really, and she understands that he must be pompous sometimes.”

Griffin unwillingly snorted a laugh.

“It’s just that…” Megs tilted her head back, staring at the shimmering chandeliers overhead for a moment. “Well, if Lady Hero suddenly died—tragically, you know, like in a terrible horse-riding accident or from a lightning strike—I think Thomas would be sad, but he wouldn’t be prostrate.” She looked at him a little wistfully. “He wouldn’t want to die himself. I just think it would be nice to be married to a man who would truly mourn my loss if I died. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” he said as he caught sight of Hero across the room, ethereal and lovely and entirely out of his reach. If she died, he suddenly knew that he wouldn’t much care if he lived or died. “Yes, it makes all the sense in the world.”

Chapter Thirteen

The queen smiled in delight when she saw the acorn about the little brown bird’s neck. An acorn grows into an oak, the strongest tree in the forest, and the forests of her kingdom were filled with mighty oaks. Truly, then, the acorn was the strongest thing in her kingdom.

Queen Ravenhair carefully plucked the acorn from the little bird’s neck. She cupped the bird in her palms and whispered her secrets to him before letting him fly. Then she leaned over her balcony, searching the castle grounds, but all was silent and dark. Only a single light flickered in the stables….

—from Queen Ravenhair

“We lost another ’un,” Nick said as Griffin entered the warehouse early that morning.

Griffin sighed and unpacked the pistols he’d brought with him onto a wooden barrel. The men were working, but there wasn’t the usual laughter and loud talk. The still was eerily quiet.

“Run away or caught by the Vicar’s men?” he asked.

Nick shrugged. “Don’t know. ’E just disappeared.”

Griffin nodded and sat to begin loading the pistols. He’d bought them used, but he’d made sure they all worked well enough.

“An’ word is, the informers picked up three more gin sellers today,” Nick said.

Griffin looked up. “You’re just a font of good news.”

Nick grinned nastily. “Between th’ Vicar and the informers, I’m feelin’ a bit like a doxy wi’ two sailors—one takin’ ’er from in front and the other goin’ at it from behind.”

Griffin winced at the graphic image. “Thank you for that thought.”

“It’s just the way I sees it, m’lord,” Nick said cheerfully. “Now if we could just get the informers and th’ Vicar to pay us for the favor, why, we’d be rollin’ in gold.”

Griffin laughed reluctantly. “That’s not likely to happen any time soon.”

“Naw, it isn’t.” Nick scratched his chin contemplatively for a moment. “ ’Ow’s that lady what you brought ’ere the other day?”

“I asked her to marry me.”

“Why, felicitations, m’lord!”

“And she turned me down.”

Nick shrugged. “The ladies need time to think some matters over like.”

Griffin grimaced and set down the pistol he’d just loaded. “It’s more than giving her time to think. She doesn’t see me as fit husband material. And then there’s the small matter of her still being engaged to my brother.”

“Any woman ’oo’d pick your brother over you is soft in th’ ’ead, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, m’lord.”

Griffin smiled wryly.

“ ’Ave you given any more thought as to what you might do if we lose the still?” Nick asked.

Griffin shrugged, staring at the pistols.

“Me granddad was a shepherd,” Nick said, gazing into the blackened rafters of the warehouse. “Grew up around sheep. Dumbest creatures in the world, mind you, so me da said, but easy and the livin’s not bad.”

Griffin contemplated that odd information for a moment and why it might’ve been offered. “You want to tend sheep?”