The Elusive Lord Everhart: The Rakes of Fallow Hall Series (17 page)

Obligated to look at him, Calliope offered a curt nod. “I defer every accomplishment to Mrs. Swan and her kitchen.”

“Well said. My grandmother would be pleased by such a remark,” he offered mysteriously, saluting her with his freshly poured wine as he took his seat. “Which brings about an announcement—apparently, my father and grandmother will arrive tomorrow and stay for a short duration.”

“The dowager duchess, here?” Pamela lifted a frail hand to her brow as if she might faint at any moment. “This leaves me no time to set my maid to creating a new gown, and barely enough to time to alter the ones I have. She will have to work all through the night.”

Calliope gave her cousin a stern look. “Your maid took ill this afternoon, if you’ll recall. Perhaps I can help you find something suitable.”

“Oh, yes, that would be—”

“No,” Everhart interjected, fighting a sudden rise of irritation at the thought of Calliope’s feeling obligated to work endlessly for her cousin’s sake. “That will not be necessary. It would pain my grandmother to know that she inconvenienced anyone.”

Danvers coughed violently into his napkin. Soon enough, however, Gabriel noted his shoulders quaking in an unmistakable display of laughter. The truth was, Grandmama was infamous for being rather . . . particular. Thankfully, throughout Danvers’s amusement, Pamela appeared to take Gabriel’s response to heart and nodded in delicate acquiescence.

Begrudgingly, or so it seemed, Calliope offered him a gesture of thanks by lifting her own her glass but without saying a word. He held her gaze, stating quite clearly that he’d only made the remark to spare her. Though why he wanted her to know such a thing was a puzzle.

He’d told her last night that he had no interest in either marrying her or embarking on a friendship. And it was the truth. Last night’s kiss had left his willpower in tatters. That was the reason he joined the dinner party—to be near her without any risk involved.

Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if he was fooling himself.

Throughout the meal, his gaze strayed to her dozens of times. While she seemed intent on keeping all her exchanges with those closest her, it pleased Gabriel immensely that her gaze collided with his just as often. And each time, she blushed.

For the most part, the dinner fare was relatively unremarkable, which—when it came to Mrs. Swan’s food—was an improvement. He gave all the credit to Calliope. Having kept track of her occupations during her stay, he found himself more and more impressed by her. She wasn’t one to get overwhelmed easily, not even when faced with the abominable kitchens at Fallow Hall. Gabriel had not been able to accomplish so much in ten times the amount of time. She would have made Brightwell a very fine wife indeed.

Usually, the reminder of his own culpability at ruining a friend’s happiness sobered Gabriel immediately. A swift shot of guilt had always followed. This was the first time, however, that he felt at peace with what he’d done. Happy, even. In fact, he was genuinely glad Calliope had not married Brightwell. And even gladder that Brightwell was no longer a bachelor.

After the last course, Montwood slid his chair back from the table and stood, gaining everyone’s attention. “Miss Croft, I wonder if I could persuade you to postpone our game for one evening,” Montwood said, all charm and politeness. “Now that Everhart has returned to the party, I believe a celebration is in order. With your permission, I would like to adjourn to the music room for our entertainment.”

Gabriel watched as Calliope’s shoulders stiffened ever so slightly. He wondered what game she’d hoped to play and found himself ready to come to her defense. “Surely we could enjoy both amusements this evening.” The longer in her company, the better.

Calliope’s gaze met his once again. “Thank you, Everhart, but that won’t be necessary. We can play Anagrams some other night.”

Yet Gabriel could have sworn he saw disappointment in the downward tilt of her eyes.

“Everhart will need the additional time to think of something clever,” Montwood joked.

Gabriel rose from his seat, along with the others. He’d always been rather quick with anagrams. “Since I would hate to be accused of needing more time than Montwood, I shall fill out my card straightaway. I already have an idea in mind.”

Although writing an anagram that transformed
Miss Calliope
into
camisole slip
might not be the best idea
, he thought wryly.

To
slip
a
camisole
from her skin/the wager I would never win . . .
There was never a truer anagram; he was certain.

Skipping the custom of men with their port while women sat in the parlor, they journeyed en masse to the music room, though Gabriel detoured to the parlor to fill out his card for the game.

Brightwell broke apart from the others and joined him down the hall, extending a scrap of foolscap. “I filled out a second anagram, Everhart. Earlier, I couldn’t decide which I preferred. Now, I have this extra marvel. If you like, you can use this one.”

The letters were printed with painstaking exactitude. Writing it must have caused Brightwell pain, due to an accident from his youth that had forced him to use his nondominant hand for correspondence. When they’d traveled together, he’d usually dictated his letters to his valet.

Knowing that made Gabriel appreciate the gesture all the more. “Thank you, my friend. That saves me from trying to be clever.”

The truth was, he was far too eager to join Calliope in the music room to think of anything else. He took the token and summarily handed it off to Valentine, with a request that it be added to the others.

Turning back to Brightwell, Gabriel patted him on the shoulder as they walked the hall together. “You are a good friend, far better than I deserve.” The statement was truer than he cared to admit. “Though I am glad to see you well situated in your life. You are content, are you not?”

“Of course,” Brightwell said, keeping his gaze on the path before him. “It is an easy exercise to move away from the past when one has the proper incentive.”

“N
ow, you each must gather round that pedestal across the room and choose your medium of entertainment,” Montwood announced when they entered the music room. “The game is to showcase that which you do best.”

Calliope couldn’t help but laugh. “What I do best is read, though I doubt the sight of me sitting in a chair, ensconced in a book brings much entertainment to others.”

“Come now, Miss Croft. I have it under excellent authority that you sing,” Montwood added with a waggle of his thick brows, his amber eyes gleaming as he looked from her to the door, which drew her attention to Everhart, who stepped across the threshold after Brightwell. “Perhaps a duet, if you are shy.”

With little ceremony, Montwood began to play a jaunty tune.

“I believe I have found my perfect melody.” Danvers plucked the music from the stack, whistling as he moved away from the pedestal. “Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for auditory delight.”

“I do believe I would tire too easily.” Pamela flipped through a few pages with disinterest and then elevated her bent wrist for Brightwell to take. “Can I be forgiven if I remain but an avid admirer in the audience?”

“Of course.” They all agreed—rather convincingly too—that her health was most important.

Brightwell escorted his bride to the settee and then made his own announcement, holding up a gloved hand. “I daresay this game sounds like fun. Unfortunately, I lack the dexterity to move my hand freely. A horse stepped on it when I was a boy, and the bones never set properly.”

With Brightwell and her cousin out, and with Danvers and Montwood across the room, that left Calliope alone at the ornate pedestal. Until Everhart came near.

She was all too aware of him. Even with a leg splint, he moved gracefully. She noted how he put more weight on it and relied less on his cane. A natural compulsion begged her to ask if it pained him, but after last night, she’d vowed to avoid intimacies with him as much as possible.

They hadn’t parted as friends, after all.

“How is it that Montwood knows you sing, yet I have never heard you?” Everhart kept his voice low enough that his comment could not be overheard by the others. The lighthearted trill of the piano keys helped in that regard as well. Yet by all appearances, he looked more interested in leafing through the assortment of music laid out on the pedestal than in her answer.

Her sleeve brushed his, the barest contact, nothing more than a scrape of silk against wool, yet it rushed over her like a caress of his hands. “Not to worry,” she said, her voice equally quiet, her throat inexplicably dry. “I do not plan to sing a duet with you. Your skill will not be tainted by my lack of one.”

“I have no doubt that a . . .
duet
with you would be abundantly satisfying.” His thumb stroked the corner of the page in a potent reminder of the night before. “A crescendo of exaltations mutually intertwined.”

At a glance, she saw his lips curve into a wicked grin. The music room had suddenly grown far too hot for her tastes. Looking at the hearth to cast blame, she only saw a single log on the grate, the rest having burned to ash. The other logs must have gone up in a fiery blast simultaneously with Everhart’s idea of a . . . duet. She resisted the urge to fan herself.

“Although that isn’t why I asked,” he continued. “When you are not in the map room, do you frequently find yourself in conversation with Montwood?”

His question struck an odd chord in her. Why should he care how she spent her time? He’d made his intentions, or lack thereof, perfectly clear.

And then it occurred to her. “Is this about the wager? If you are suggesting that I am able to give you a reason to win, thereby forcing Montwood into a marriage with me, then I gladly disappoint you. Your victory will not be an easy one.”

“I am inclined to agree,” he said, elusive in his lack of exposition.

Calliope had thumbed through more than a dozen scores but hadn’t seen a one thus far. She was far too preoccupied. Everhart’s nearness
and
her plan for discovering the identity of Casanova kept her head spinning. As soon as they were finished here, she would steal into the parlor and find out if
he
was truly here. “Do you play, Everhart?”

He drummed his remarkably talented fingers over the pedestal, his forearm propped over the surface as if to reduce the weight on his leg. “Not a note. You?”

“I know where all the notes are,” she said, offering him the same type of ambiguity in her response. “It’s putting them together that isn’t my
forte
.”

“I see your wit has not abandoned you after last evening.”

She could hear him smile but refused to look up at him. They were supposed to be searching for this evening’s entertainment. They were supposed to be avoiding each other. She’d been furious when he’d arrived at dinner, making a spectacle of both of them by sitting directly across from her. Yet now . . . she had to admit that she was enjoying this exchange, along with the intimacy provided by their secluded corner of the room. Far too much.

Since the other barriers she’d constructed continued to dissolve like sandcastles at high tide, she attempted to build a fresh one. “You have little influence over my wit or anything else about me, so I should not worry if I were you.”

“I do so enjoy the bite of your tongue”—he paused, angling his head closer to her ear—“and your teeth, Miss Croft.”

Calliope tried to ignore the tingles that tickled her spine, spreading over her like sea foam along the shore.

“You make me curious, Everhart . . . ” She paused, allowing her words to hang suggestively between them and was rewarded by his quick intake of breath. “Curious as to why you would make such a wager with your friends. There would have to be a degree of certainty involved.”

He exhaled slowly. “A great deal of certainty, indeed,” he said, more to the sheet of music he lifted to study than to her. “I would never marry, if I could help it.”

“
If you could help it?
Those words speak of an obligation under duress.” She hid a laugh by pretending to cough. She glanced around the room; no one seemed to have noticed. Brightwell and Pamela were engrossed in conversation. And Montwood and Danvers appeared to be engaged in a pianist versus whistler battle, each one trying to outperform the other. “Though perhaps you are not yet at an age to make such a consideration by your own will. Some men stay young for a very long time.”

“Why, Miss Croft, are you suggesting that I haven’t grown into manhood yet? It would be my pleasure to prove otherwise,” he promised. “We can take up where we left off.”

It was becoming more and more difficult to ignore those tingles he caused. “Splendid. I’ll simply step behind that curtain across the room so you can ravage me against the window seat.” Unfortunately, the words came out with more sincerity than sarcasm. Worse, she was even imagining it.

“Be careful. You are frightening away the boy inside me and leaving your challenge in a man’s hands. Or mouth, as the circumstance warrants.”

Upon pain of death, she would never admit how much she enjoyed the way his rakish threats turned her brain to mush and left her body warm, malleable, and longing to be sculpted by his hands. “Is this what it is like to be your friend, then?”

“I told you before that I do not have women
friends
.”

She thought about those women who were
not
his friends. Women who did not have any expectations from him other than the pleasure of his company—or pleasure
while in
his company, rather.

What would it be like to abandon the dream of a happy ending and simply live page to page?

Unable to help herself a moment longer, Calliope cast a sideways glance to his mouth.
Mmm
. . . “I suppose, then, that I am your first
friend
, for we are nothing more.” What was meant to be a reminder to herself instead came out as if she were taunting him.