His lips twitched. “You and which army?”
“Is there something else? Or are you simply being a pillock?”
Cross grinned. “The latter. I’m curious about that package. Temple says you’re after him.”
“Temple is married. Of course I’m not after him.”
He laughed. “You think you’re very clever.”
“I am very clever.”
“Temple says that you made a fool of yourself last night. When was the last time you drank champagne?”
“Last night,” she said, crossing one buckskin-covered leg over the other and reaching for the package, pretending not to think on the evening that loomed ahead. Pretending not to seriously consider calling for a case of champagne to prepare for it.
She opened the package, knowing Cross would not leave until she’d done so.
He’d sent her the paper. If one could refer to Duncan West’s gossip rag as “the paper.”
The week’s edition of The Scandal Sheet had arrived at The Fallen Angel two days before it would land on breakfast tables across London. Except it wasn’t for her. It was a gift to the man known only as Chase.
No, not gift. Service. As requested.
“Scandal Becomes Salvation,” the headline on the front page read, followed in smaller text with “Lady G— Rides Through Ton, Wins Aristocratic Hearts.”
Cross laughed, craning his head to read the page. “Clever. I shall tell you – I know you did not like that cartoon, but the reference to Lady Godiva makes for excellent reading.” He took the paper from the desk to read more carefully.
She pretended not to care, opening the note that accompanied Chase’s package. “Lady Godiva was protesting outrageous taxation.”
Cross looked up. “No one remembers that bit. They just remember the nudity.”
“How is that to help me land a husband?”
He grew serious. “Trust me. Nudity helps.”
“You used to be the one I liked best.”
“I am still the one you like best.” He leaned forward. “The important thing is when West makes an arrangement, he delivers. Look at the amount of attention he’s devoted to you.” He turned back to the page and read. “Lauding your grace and charm.”
The lauding was not free, however. He’d sent Chase a note with the paper. A request for payment.
The girl receives her attention.
You owe me the earl.
The missive was written in thick black scrawl, so confident that there had been no need for Duncan to sign the note.
Her gaze flickered from the note to Tremley’s file on the edge of her desk, waiting for delivery, to Cross, still reading, “He regales the reader with the number of titled men and women who have accepted Lady G— into their hearts and minds and world!” He looked up. “It’s a pity it’s not true.”
“It does not need to be true. I am only interested in one suitor.”
And she should thank her maker that Lord Langley was willing to at least consider her as an option. The lack of invitations and notes indicated that Georgiana remained too scandalous for the men of London.
“Langley.” Cross did not hide his disdain for her plan.
“You take issue in Langley choosing me for his lady?”
“Not at all. Except he’s not interested in choosing a lady.”
She met his gaze. “We don’t discuss his file. Ever. This will be the last I say on the subject: His interests are not a concern, as I’ve no need of being courted.”
“Then what’s the hope for West?”
She wouldn’t allow herself a hope for West. Nothing beyond their simple arrangement. Pleasure. Carefully. Until he made good on his promise and she was matched. “You cannot imagine that I’m angling for West’s attention.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know what to imagine. But Temple seems to think —”
“Temple is addled from too many rounds in the ring.”
Cross raised a brow, but did not reply.
She took a breath. Released it.
“West is —” She stopped, searching for something to say that would make sense of the moment. Of the way her entire, carefully constructed world seemed to come unraveled every time the man appeared. Of the fact that that his impact on her world did not make her wish he was far from her.
Of the fact that it somehow made her wish he was nearer.
There was an irony in that, she supposed, that he remained such a gentleman around her despite knowing her secrets. The evening before could have been full of scandal. Of more.
And he’d resisted her.
As though it had been the easiest thing in the world.
As though the kisses they’d shared hadn’t moved him at all.
As though they hadn’t been thoroughly earth-shattering.
She felt her cheeks warming again.
“West is complicated,” she said.
“Well, then he’s a terrible match for you, as you are so very simple.” She smiled at the teasing in the words, grateful that Cross, somehow, blessedly, had not pushed her to elaborate. Instead, he brushed a speck from his trouser leg and said, “The men have not found anything on him.”
A whisper of guilt came with the reminder of her earlier demands for information on Duncan. Before she’d met his sister. Before she’d propositioned him. Before she’d desired him quite so much. She pushed the unwelcome emotion aside. She’d made the mistake of trusting another so long ago and been left destroyed. She would not make that mistake again.