Read A Man Above Reproach Online

Authors: Evelyn Pryce

Tags: #England, #Historical Romance, #Love Story, #Regency Romance, #Romance

A Man Above Reproach (9 page)

BOOK: A Man Above Reproach
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They had arrived in the red room and there they were, just as he had imagined.

Nicholas surged forward to snatch one, but Elias was in front of him. He opened the book on the top, scanning the front. No signature. Not the next one he checked, either. He got through twelve of them before he found it, buried in a middle stack.

To a man above reproach.

—JG

Nicholas raised one of the books skeptically. “On society’s ills? Have you bought a lot of radical papers from the bookshop of a whore?”

“Don’t call her that,” Elias snapped, shoving the signed copy into his jacket.

To a man above reproach.

What the devil did that mean? Of course it could not be something simple like “Thank you” or even something sweet as in,
I will always remember our short time together.

Instead,
To a man above reproach
.

She couldn’t be serious, because he knew it would be a lie. She didn’t think him above reproach. In fact, he thought she wanted to reproach him over and over. Repeatedly and personally.

He heard Nicholas flipping pages, but hadn’t the energy to explain.

“May I take one of these, Lennox?” he asked.

Elias nodded assent, preoccupied. He decided he would not call on her. He would leave it alone. He would concentrate on the estate, as he should have been doing, as if he had never set foot in the Sleeping Dove.

A week passed. Josephine concentrated very hard on not thinking about the duke. By no means would she allow herself to think of him by his first name. She reminded herself on several occasions to not wonder if he had gone to the Dove looking for her. This didn’t matter. She would even write it down, if it was sticking in her brain too much: little scraps of paper that said things like
Doesn’t matter
and
Changes nothing
. Sometimes she would decorate them elaborately, with vines. She was thinking about translating them to cross-stitches.

She could not deny, though, that she ran to the Sleeping Dove when Mother sent word that she was needed.

When Josephine entered, it was oddly quiet. All the girls were assembled around a huge, lacquered, shining piano in the spot where her old one had been. They could have been at church, they were so still. Sapphire sat at the bench, unsure notes tinkling under her fingers as if she was afraid to play it. The men were still outside in the dining area, so the women were alone with their awe.

“BB!” Sapphire cried when she noticed her. “From the duke! It’s exquisite!”

Josephine had her hands out to her sides, in a gesture that she hoped conveyed the need to stop the nonsense.

“It must be sent back,” she said in an approximation of an authoritative voice, though she knew it was colored by the arresting gift in front of her. “You never should have accepted it in the first place.”

“Josie, he’s a duke,” Sally said, close to her shoulder. She sounded shell-shocked. “We cannot ignore something like this—we would risk our incomes. And he’s my Nicholas’s friend. Is he all that bad?”

“Loathsome.”

“He’s gorgeous,” Sapphire said, tilting her head in a wistful way. “He smells like heaven. I know; I was in his lap.”

Mother Superior reclined at the front of the pianoforte. She wore a more serious expression than Josephine had ever seen.

“This isn’t about you and your game anymore, chit,” she said. “Your paramour gives a gift to the Dove and has paid over half the same amount for the private audience that you will grant him. Now.”

Josephine’s eyes watered with rage. He would ruin everything, the foolish, foolish man. He did not play fair.

“Absolutely not,” she hissed. She had to stop herself from stomping her foot like the hundreds of tantrums she had thrown in her youth. Her father had called it “ill breeding” from her mother’s side of the family. “I do not have to obey his money and his title.”

Sally put a hand on her arm and said for her ears only, “But we do.”

“Bugger him,” she swore.

All of the ladies gasped and their heads turned toward the back door.

Elias was leaning against it. His legs were crossed at the ankles, lounging, as if he were watching a play. He must have been there the entire time.

“Josephine,” he drawled. The sound of the name from his mouth sent chills through her. After a week of trying not to think of him, all she had done was think about him. “I implore you to discuss this without an audience.”

Mother bowed low, lifting her skirts from the filthy floor to better afford her groveling. The piano shone in the room as if it were on fire. “We are sorry, Your Grace. Your generosity is appreciated by the girls of the Dove.”

“Josie,” Elias said, holding out his hand this time. “Please.”

The buzz of flies could be heard for lack of another sound.

“You leave me no choice,” she said. She was fuming. She wanted to be alone with him just so she could scream at him. Josephine crossed the room in a few steps and did not take his outstretched hand. She was already thrown enough by his mere presence, they need not touch.

“Wise decision,” he murmured, close to her ear. He stepped aside so that she could precede him into the hallway.

Of course, the first thing she did was scream at him.

“How dare you, you blithering idiot!”

“Would you rather go to the room your employer set aside for us or perhaps your courtyard?”

Elias had planned his attack carefully, based on her previous behavior. She would be righteously angry, he knew. The route that he had decided on dictated that he would just ignore her rage as best he could. He had believed it might work… until he saw her flashing blue eyes roll over into a menacing grey.

“You called me by my name! In front of Mother! Did you just assume she knew my name? You are very good at assuming things. What gives you the right to meddle in my life in the first place? Do you bound about London from whim to whim?”

Elias began walking down the hallway. This was a trick he used often, with much success. People will follow you if they want to continue a conversation or, in Josephine’s case, if they want to bellow at you. He revised his tactic to letting her run out of steam. She eventually had to say all she had to say, hadn’t she? Besides, it was good to just hear her voice.

“Oh, this silent I-am-walking-away thing will not work, Lennox. I know what you are doing. This hallway ends soon and I will not go into one of these rooms with you. I am not going to be your mistress. And take back your blasted piano.”

They reached the end of the hallway, next to the room Mother had given him with her compliments, the so-called Grande Suite.

“It is not a gift for you,” he told her, which was not true. He had spent the week going over all of his accounts to the farthing, making sure that any properties he was responsible for could sustain themselves, rooting out debts his father had tried to hide. He had worked straight through two nights without even realizing it, trying to keep her out of his mind. When he found a large accounting error and a surplus of money, he spent a good amount of it on getting her alone. It burned him to do it like that, but there was no other way.

He had his hand on the doorknob. “It is not just for you. It is for the girls. They deserve better than off-key music; they deserve one thing of beauty in this wretched place. Surely you cannot disagree.”

Brilliant. She could not. He opened the door.

“Fine,” she sighed. “The Dove appreciates your generosity. Is there something you would like me to play this evening while you find an appropriate woman for yourself?”

He actually growled. He could not stop it.

“You push me to play the villain, so I will. I paid handsomely for your time, love. You cannot just return to the floor. Mother will agree with me. If you advertise as a commodity, you must be prepared to deliver.”

“I do not—”

“Yes, yes. You charge for conversation. I paid for it. So far, you have shouted at me. So, would you prefer the room or the courtyard, Miss Grant?” He gestured inside.

“But who will play piano tonight?”

“Thackeray tells me that Sapphire has been managing, though I am sure she does not have your panache.”

She flushed. “Thank you.”

“You have my word; I will not take liberties. Please, come in and sit down—there are things we must thrash out before I lose my mind to them.”

He ushered her in, without touching her and before she could protest again. There was wine on the table as he had requested. She sat, still suspicious, and he poured her a glass. The room was gaudy but comfortable, though the bed in the corner put thoughts into his mind that were not welcome. He felt like he had a brain fever. He had never been so tempted by a woman in his life. He wanted to snatch all the pins from her hair and let it tumble onto her shoulders. He had a feeling she would argue less if they both had on less clothing. Well, if she wanted to leave the stockings on, he supposed that would be fine. His thoughts were getting away from him again. He would not stand to be lumped in with the undesirables that she catered to every night. Elias composed himself and produced the signed copy of her book from his waistcoat and slid it across the table.

“What do you mean by ‘a man above reproach’?”

She expelled a burst of laughter. “Is that what I wrote? I was so angry at you, I did not even remember.”

“I am to infer that it was not a compliment.”

“It is true, either way. You are a duke, which no one hesitates to remind me at every turn, therefore whatever you do cannot be wrong in the eyes of a peasant like me.”

Elias was having trouble reconciling the vitriol with the perfect mouth it came out of out.

“No one, outside of the members of my own family, would ever have the gall to speak to me the way you do,” he said, hoping his voice was even enough to fool her into thinking he was calm.

“Does your wife?”

He had been about to take a sip of wine. Thankfully, he had not. He would have choked on it.

“My what?”

“Your wife. The one you brought to my store. She is well past childbearing age, are you not concerned with siring an heir?”

“Gads, Josie, you have—”

“Please do not explain.” She grabbed the bottle of wine from him and refilled her glass, promptly drained it, and refilled it again. Perhaps she would be more logical when she was drunk, Elias thought, because she certainly could spew nonsense when she was sober. “I have narrowed it down to two possibilities: you have gambling debts and she is wealthy or she was your governess and you never truly grew up.”

He put his head in his hands to stifle his amusement, but his shoulders still shook.

“Are you… laughing at me?” she demanded.

“Josephine,” he said, muffled into his hands, unable to stop the peals from escaping, “that is my mother.”

Well, he was not quite as depraved as she thought. That was unfortunate, as it had been easier to resist his kindness and good looks when she had the accusation of cheating husband to level. Elias took his hands away from his face, but he was still grinning. His profile, already striking when aloof, was absolutely blinding when amused.

“I am glad I could entertain you,” she muttered. She had drunk too much wine too quickly and wanted him to go away. She never should have come in the first place. He was too complicated.

BOOK: A Man Above Reproach
9.45Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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