How to Tame a Wild Rogue: The Palace of Rogues

Delilah slowly turned her head toward her husband.

Who had eyes only for Lorcan St. Leger.

Mr. St. Leger was also engaged in not blinking.

Daphne gave a nervous little laugh. “Oh, yes. Mr. and Mrs. Blackguard! That’s us.” Some wayward impulse prompted her to pat her fake husband on the knee.

The collision of her hand and his thigh reverberated through her bones clear to her teeth.

She might as well have struck a rock.

Her hand lay still, momentarily stunned like a bird that had slammed into a window.

Long enough for the wily opportunist to cover it with his own.

Her lungs seized. She could hardly snatch the hand away in front of the tribunal deciding their fate.

They both looked down.

Her hand had all but disappeared beneath his.

The entirety of her being seemed to congregate to where their skin met.

Never mind that for the first time in her life her hand was a mere shocking few inches away from the clothed penis of a man she’d met in an alley.

It was pantomime affection and a liberty taken. By rights she ought to be infuriated, but in her exhaustion, she could not sort out the proper indignation from the clamor of things she felt. She felt two things: a gruesome remnant of bitter regret that it was not Henry’s hand; and, despite that—despite everything—strangely, obscurely comforted.

To her horror, her eyes began to burn with tears.

She looked up to see that the eyes of both women had gone meltingly soft.

A little puzzled shadow had appeared between Lord Bolt’s brows.

The cool steel of Captain Hardy’s regard was now not reserved only for her fake husband. He was watching her, too.

Captain Hardy struck her as the sort who missed nothing and never softened.

She was increasingly certain he had a very good reason not to, when it came to Lorcan St. Leger.

Who finally, gently, lifted his hand.

She withdrew her own gingerly from his thigh and tucked it away at her side.

“Daphne—the former Lady Worth—and I knew each other as girls,” Delilah explained to Bolt and Hardy.

“A pleasure, Mrs. St. Leger,” Captain Hardy said.

Daphne nodded. “The pleasure is mine, Captain Hardy.”

“I suspect you are all amazed that such a fine lady as Daphne agreed to wed a great ugly brute like me. But I am no coward so I made free to ask her. I every day endeavor to be worthy of her favor.”

Such a humble, courtly speech. So nearly archaic in its cadences. As she watched that particular fairy dust known as charm settle over nearly every person in the room, she was reminded of why she distrusted it. It was so often employed to obscure a real truth, or to . . . maneuver someone.

Or maybe she just envied it. She’d more than once worried she possessed no charm. Ceaseless responsibility had made her habitually briskly efficient. A shyness that no one suspected in her sometimes made her seem too stiffly formal or too earnest. And feelings of all kinds visited her with such force she sometimes went mute from them, which had always seemed to her a weakness to be disguised and managed. For if she had ever been valued for anything, it was for her steadiness.

And while her intelligence was fierce, like her father’s, her wit often had bite.

None of these qualities seemed to add up to winsomeness.

Her cheeks had gone warm.

Everyone had turned to her for her reaction and she had yet to say a word.

Somehow, she found the right ones. “You can see how he won me.”

Most of the people in the room smiled warmly.

Too late she thought she ought to have protested, with perhaps a playful little arm swat, something to the effect of “Nonsense. You are neither ugly nor a brute.”

She was no longer certain of the definition of either of those words. Her imagination had somehow not extended to the existence of a man like Lorcan St. Leger.

“And we’re so grateful to know you’ve a list of sensible rules. The missus loves rules,” he assured Delilah and Angelique.

Well. It wasn’t untrue.

“Opposites do tend to attract,” Captain Hardy said pleasantly.

Daphne went warily still.

“Indeed. I imagine that’s what attracted a countess to a blockade captain from St. Giles,” St. Leger countered just as pleasantly.

Both of them were smiling.

Neither of them were blinking.

Daphne’s stomach contracted as another infinitesimal silence formed and settled in.

It was like watching two people fence with silk rapiers. It seemed only a matter of time before someone was hurt.

Delilah turned to her husband again. She seemed as unsettled as Daphne was, which was proof that something was awry.

But Captain Hardy’s gaze remained fixed on Mr. St. Leger like a hound pointing at a hare.

Did Captain Hardy know how dangerous Mr. St. Leger could be?

He must know. Perhaps that was why he was watching him.

Daphne’s heart clogged her throat.

“My husband was indeed a blockade captain,” Mrs. Hardy told Daphne, proudly. Carefully. “And now he and Lord Bolt and our guest Mr. Delacorte are partners in an import endeavor called the Triton Group. They own their own ship.”

“Isn’t that a coincidence,” Lorcan said. “Twelve frightening and competent men call me captain now.”

There was a silence.

“You’re a privateer,” Captain Hardy said flatly.

He didn’t bother to disguise the emphasis on “you’re.”

“For the past three years. Quite a successful one.”

“For whom do you sail now that the war is over?”

“For England during the war. Now I’ve a commission from Argentina. I’m back in England to pay off the rest of my ship. She’ll be all mine.” He paused, and smiled. “She’s called The Rogue. A converted merchant ship outfitted with guns.”

“That’s how I met St. Leger. His crew helped us fight off pirates off the coast of Spain some years back,” Lord Bolt told everyone gathered.

Angelique gave a subtle little shudder at the notion of her husband fighting off pirates, while Delilah ventured to her husband, “Tristan . . . can we assume that you and Mr. St. Leger have also already met?”

Captain Hardy didn’t reply.

So Lorcan did. “Hardy and I first knew each other when we were mere boys. Last time we met we shared a drink or two. Discussed the problems of the world. Seems a thousand years ago now, doesn’t it, Hardy?” Lorcan said pleasantly. Ironically.

“And somehow like only yesterday, too,” Captain Hardy replied.

Another odd little silent interval ensued.

Daphne cleared her throat. “Your rules are so elegantly printed.” She gestured with the little card she’d been given to read. “One just wants to sit and admire them.” This was a patently inane thing to say, but it did the trick of changing the subject.

One quick glance at their rules had, in fact, brought home to her how deep in she and her fake husband Lorcan were.

“We’ve thought about framing them and hanging them in all the rooms,” Angelique told her.

“What a clever idea. Perhaps one or two done in needlepoint?”

“Or in elegant calligraphy!” Delilah suggested.

Suddenly every man present tensed with wariness as all the women seemed poised for a lively discussion about the domestic arts.

Delilah noticed and, with some apparent regret, decided against such a digression. “Daphne . . . if I may I ask . . . how fares your family?”

She hesitated. “My father is well.” She was pleased with her choice of word. It wasn’t untrue, and revealed nothing, really. “My brothers are touring the continent.” She had no idea where her brothers were currently, though her best guess was Paris. Their last letter had been sent from there, nearly a month ago. They’d been gone nigh on half a year.

“It’s lovely to know your father is well. I confess I often thought of how you managed your father’s home so brilliantly for so many years, when you were so young. My mother aways held you out as an example.”

“Oh, what a joy that must have been for you,” Daphne said dryly.

Delilah laughed. “Truthfully, I always considered you the very model of graciousness. Everything in your house seemed to me so beautiful and so harmonious. When I inherited this building from my first husband, it was quite the proverbial sow’s ear. But I confess I thought about you a time or two, Daphne. I told myself if Lady Worth could manage that grand house as a little girl, Angelique and I could certainly create a silk purse from a tumbledown building. It has all turned out better than we dreamed.”

Daphne was motionless as the words sent grief and gratitude washing through her.

She could at least still see the house that Delilah had so admired from the caretaker’s cottage, where she now lived with her father.

“Thank you,” she said finally. “I am touched. And I am so pleased for you, Delilah. It’s a beautiful place. It very much seems like a home.”

Both Angelique and Delilah glowed.

“You’re the first person I’ve seen from our village in a very long time,” Delilah admitted. “I confess we’ve been very happy here in London at The Grand Palace on the Thames, with our friends and loved ones.”

She cast a fleeting, searching look up at her stern, handsome husband, who returned it with a swift inscrutable one.

“Well,” Angelique said, cheerfully. “Dot no doubt informed the two of you that The Grand Palace on the Thames is an exclusive establishment. And it is, in that we care so much for the happiness and comfort of all of our tenants that we like to have a little discussion first regarding whether we think a new guest would be a happy fit for all concerned. But I think under the circumstances we can forego our usual—”

“Delilah, I should like a private word with you and Angelique.”

Captain Hardy didn’t apologize for the interruption.

Daphne’s heart clenched again. Both Angelique and Delilah slowly turned to Captain Hardy, their faces carefully expressionless.

Lord Bolt was staring at him, too, one brow upraised.

Next to her, she could feel Lorcan St. Leger’s great, hard thigh tensing.

Oh God. Daphne silently prayed.

“We should be grateful to stay with you for the duration of the storm,” Lorcan said pleasantly. “I think this will pay for a suite and any other conveniences.”

And Lorcan slowly, with great ceremony freed the gold earring from his ear and placed it on the table.

It twinkled next to the teacups.

In silence, the four of them crossed the foyer to the sitting room, home of the Epithet Jar and a pianoforte, and scene of merriment, spirited discussion, cutthroat chess matches, innuendo, mock pirate battles, and lovemaking.

They stopped in the center of the room.

“Absolutely not. He is not staying here.”

They spun to stare at Captain Hardy. The only other time Delilah had heard her husband use that voice was when he was addressing soldiers.

Neither she nor Angelique wished to encourage him to ever use it on them.

Only one of them was married to him.

And so Delilah pulled in a breath. “It’s clear you’ve some history with Mr. St. Leger, Tristan. And while he admittedly cuts the sort of figure that can give a person pause—”

“You don’t think he’s handsome?” Angelique said.

She froze and her eyes flared in amazement, as though a ventriloquist had suddenly commandeered her mouth.

Everyone at once transferred their astonishment from Captain Hardy to her.

“Do . . . you think he’s handsome?” Lord Bolt ventured. He seemed to be holding his features carefully still.

Angelique laughed lightly, gave herself a little shake, and waved her hand dismissively. “I honestly have no idea why I said that. I suppose I’m a little flustered, as Delilah and I are usually the only two participants in discussions about whether to admit guests. We’re unaccustomed to being escorted across the foyer by two stern men like prisoners being marched to the gallows.”

It was a jest.

And yet it was not.

Neither Captain Hardy nor Lucien took this subtle but unmissable hint. They remained rooted to their places.

Lucien’s eyes remained fixed wonderingly on his wife.

Captain Hardy returned to staring almost accusingly at his.

Delilah interjected soothingly. “More to the point, present exceptionally attractive male company notwithstanding, we do not make a practice of admitting guests based on their physical appeal, nor do we stand about and rank it before we make a decision about who we allow to stay with us. And by we, I mean me and Angelique.”

Thusly Delilah and Angelique reestablished that they were the voting bloc. This had been accepted without controversy or comment by both Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt from the moment they took up permanent residence at The Grand Palace on the Thames.

The silence this caused was a delicate and somewhat wary sort.

“Please listen to me,” Captain Hardy said in a voice so insufferably reasonable Delilah clamped her teeth together. “I can tell you definitively that St. Leger looks like what he is, and that’s a damned scoundrel.”

It was a startling accusation from a man who never made them lightly.

“Tristan. The Epithet Jar is right there,” Delilah said weakly.

But Captain Hardy’s current mood was clearly impenetrable to jests.

“I felt the word would help press my point home. And did you note the theater with the earring? I think he was trying to goad me. That thing is worth several hundred pounds.”

“Is it the earring? It’s his earring, isn’t it?” murmured Lucien to his wife.

Angelique sighed and gave his arm a squeeze.

“If you’ll recall, Angelique and I pawned our jewelry to create The Grand Palace on the Thames. Buying things with jewelry is rather a tradition here. Though of course we can’t accept it. The earring.”

“Can’t we?” Angelique murmured regretfully.

It was worth about a dozen times what Mr. St. Leger would owe them for even a fortnight’s stay.

“Hopefully Mr. St. Leger has some English currency at the ready,” Delilah said.

“Do you know what kinds of men wear earrings?” Captain Hardy persisted. “Pirates and blackguards. Do you know why? So if their dead bodies wash up on a foreign shore, whoever finds them can pay for a funeral with the gold in their ears. And do you know why they’re liable to wind up dead on foreign shores? They are far more likely to murder and be murdered.”

“It’s a practical way of storing one’s wealth, when you think about it,” Lucien contributed. In a devil’s advocate way.

“While I remain grateful for the many exciting ways in which you’ve expanded my horizons, Tristan,” Delilah said so dryly Captain Hardy’s lips finally twitched toward a smile, “here is the conundrum. Though I haven’t seen Delilah in nigh on a decade, I am personally acquainted with her. I’ve been to her home. Furthermore, I know her family, and they are quality.”

“What sort of quality? The Lucien’s father sort, the Duke of Brexford, who is a right bastard, or the ‘you’ sort, quality to the bone?” Captain Hardy said to Delilah.

“Aww,” Angelique teased him softly.

Captain Hardy cast his eyes sharply at her. He was never going to be comfortable exposing the tenderest contents of his heart to anyone but his wife.

And even then, he still struggled.

No one objected to his assessment of the Duke of Brexford, because it was simply true that he was a right bastard.

“I’m talking about character, Tristan,” Delilah said. “That’s what we mean when we discuss ‘quality’ here at The Grand Palace on the Thames. For instance, we think Mr. Delacorte’s character is of the highest quality.”

Mr. Delacorte was one of their very first guests. He was a salesman of remedies from the Orient, which he sold to surgeons and apothecaries up and down England, a lover of donkey races and festivals involving the pursuit of greased pigs, and he mostly confined his flatulence to the smoking room, for which they remained grateful. And while he was also a partner in the Triton Group, he coped with his worries rather differently than Captain Hardy and Bolt did. For instance, tonight he’d gone to a pub to sing bawdy songs and he hadn’t yet returned. Which was unlike him. He was very close to missing curfew, and he’d never before missed it.

“And here is the thing, and why I’m concerned about Daphne,” Delilah continued. “The last time I saw her—just before I married the Earl of Derring—she was engaged to the son of the Earl of Havelstock. Henry, his name was. And in truth, I cannot say we were close—she was always my social better, and her family was so much grander than mine. But I do think we liked each other. She seemed very happy last I saw her. Absolutely radiant. I wonder what happened?”

“Havelstock?” Lucien mused. “I’ve spoken to him at White’s. He’s besotted with his beautiful wife. Word has it that she was his younger brother’s governess.”

There was a moment of total silence honoring the potential crushing of a heart.

“Oof,” Hardy said quietly.

Delilah glanced with concern at Angelique. She’d been a governess once. While her circumstances had been similar, things had gone rather more badly for her.

Angelique’s expression had gone unreadable.

“Well,” Delilah said carefully. “We don’t actually know what took place. Perhaps she broke the engagement herself. I feel it isn’t my place to pry. We should not assume. But Angelique and I know full well—too well—what it’s like for life to crash down around our ears, and how it feels when you finally find the person who feels like home. She seems to have chosen the husband of her heart. Which takes courage. Sometimes even fortitude,” she added dryly. Pointedly.

“While that may, in fact, be true,” Captain Hardy said with irony, not wholly unamused, “I believe ‘the husband of her heart’ coordinated a smuggling operation between France and London so sophisticated and efficient that we were never quite able to prove it. Primarily silks and liquor. It seems to have ceased operations about three years ago. Coincidentally when he allegedly became a privateer. His nickname on the streets is ‘your Lordship.’”

This time silence fell like an anvil.

“You believe he headed a smuggling operation.”

Delilah said it gingerly. After all, her husband, and the men in his command, had been legendarily ruthless about breaking the chokehold the many and often violent smuggling gangs had on English towns. He’d been so very good at his job he’d bartered his heroism to the king in exchange for a visit to The Grand Palace on the Thames. His Majesty had briefly parked his majestic behind on the settee in the sitting room of The Grand Palace on the Thames.

One of the thousands of ways, large and small, that Captain Hardy had proved his love for Delilah since he’d met her.

“Am I certain of this?” Hardy said. “Yes. Could I ultimately prove it?”

But it seemed Captain Hardy couldn’t bring himself to say the word “no.”

Lucien said thoughtfully, “I only knew St. Leger to be incredibly skilled with a sword, for which I had cause to be grateful at the time. But if Hardy says it’s true . . .”

The unspoken part of that sentence was, “it must be true.”

And it probably was.

Both Delilah and Angelique desperately wanted it to be untrue.

“But what is he like?” Delilah asked on a near hush. “Was he violent or unpredictable when you knew him?”

“All men are capable of violence,” Captain Hardy said shortly. “You ought to know this by now.”

Yes. She knew this. And Delilah had witnessed firsthand what Captain Hardy would do to a man who threatened her.

“But he isn’t likely to go door-to-door in the building robbing our guests at pistol point.”

This time his pause was lengthy. “No.”

“What is he like, Tristan?”

“He’s intelligent and shrewd. Charming and well-connected. Efficient, organized . . .” Captain Hardy sighed. “. . . probably even brilliant. And we considered him dangerous, because the men who reported to him would do anything for him.” Captain Hardy recited this flatly, as though he’d said it before. “And we couldn’t get a single one to betray him, through any means.”

“Interesting,” Delilah said. “It sounds like the two of you are more alike than you are different.”

Lucien gave a short, astounded laugh and closed his eyes and shook his head to and fro slowly. He knew exactly how Captain Hardy would hear that.

But Delilah had learned the language of her husband’s body, the shift of light across his eyes, the twitch of a brow. She’d memorized them over every precious moment they’d so far spent together. And though they had all been understandably under considerable strain for a fortnight, something unfamiliar lurked beneath the tension of his mood. It might even be pain, which puzzled her.

Delilah knew she was her husband’s weakness. So while it wasn’t easy, she returned his now icy, incredulous stare with a melting one.

“Tristan . . . He’s currently a free man, convicted of nothing, apparently, who seems to have a reasonably respectable trade, charming manners, and is protective of his wife, who appears very fond of him. I should think these are qualities with which you can identify. And surely you aren’t suggesting the daughter of an earl married beneath her?”

This was a startling and skilled feint. Of the four people standing in the sitting room, two of them had, by societal standards anyhow, married beneath them: Delilah had been a countess when she’d married a blockade commander. Lucien was a viscount and the bastard son of a duke, who’d acquired his own wealth and had married a former governess who was also the former mistress of an earl. Viewed through the eyes of society, they were unlikely matches, indeed.

But all of them believed they’d made the right and only choices of spouse for themselves.

A flicker of rueful appreciation for Delilah’s tactics briefly interrupted Captain Hardy’s determined stoniness.

“Perhaps he’s like Lucien, and all it took was the right woman to inspire him to change his wicked ways,” Angelique suggested into the breach.

Lucien snorted good-humoredly.

“And if he is a privateer,” Delilah added, “it means St. Leger now works for the crown, as you did.”

Captain Hardy stared at his wife in stunned silence for a full three seconds.

“I . . . what on . . . not at all like I did.” His voice was practically arid with disbelief.

Delilah laid her a hand on her husband’s arm. “Tristan,” she said softly.

After a moment, he took a breath.

His tension eased; he simply couldn’t help it when she touched him.

But only a little. Not entirely.

“Tristan . . . people do change. Look at Lucien, for instance. All of the ton hated him at one time.”

“Hated?” Lucien was startled.

“Passionately disapproved of, more precisely,” Angelique amended diplomatically.

This was true. When Lucien had been captured and thrown in the Thames to drown one midnight a decade ago, no bastard son of a duke had ever been more notorious or more beloved of the broadsheets. Tempered by battle and struggle, he’d returned, with a fortune of his own, and was now generally considered quite reformed and civilized by all the members of White’s.

“We appreciate and respect your concern. Truly. But as we’ve all discussed before, the decision about whom to admit into The Grand Palace on the Thames has always belonged to me and Angelique. And I simply can’t countenance sending either of them back out into the storm. Especially Daphne. He strikes me as a man who can take care of himself, regardless. Whether the two of you would like a say in who is admitted to The Grand Palace on the Thames is a conversation we can have another day.”

The unspoken words were, “and we can tell you right now how that conversation will go.”

“I agree with Delilah,” Angelique said gently.

And just like that, all four were in uncharted waters. It was truly the last place any of them wanted to be after a fortnight of relentlessly increasing tension, filled with sleeplessness, uncertainty, eerie drafts, worry, rambunctiously cheerful Germans, and on the threshold of what might well be the storm of the decade, which would seal all of them up together for at least a week.

“Delilah . . . Pike came to get us when he got one look at the man. He did the right thing.”

Captain Hardy had clearly been saving this for last.

Perhaps he hadn’t meant to say it at all. But he was accustomed to winning and he knew how to do it.

Delilah and Angelique froze.

They were both careful not to look at each other. But the news was frustrating and infuriating.

It certainly answered the question regarding why Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt had suddenly appeared in the little reception room uninvited.

But Mr. Pike, their footman, was meant to report to them. He ought to have brought his concern straight up the stairs to the little sitting room.

Granted, he might have been worried about being stampeded by Dot.

It was one more controversy in a week characterized by them.

“Are you questioning our judgment?” Delilah asked evenly.

“Yes,” Captain Hardy said, with infuriating patience. As if this should have been self-evident.

A fraught, taut little silence ensued.

“So you and Bolt are saying our new footman has better judgment than either I or Angelique do.”

Delilah said this deceptively pleasantly. As if giving him one final opportunity to scramble to take it back.

Angelique drew in a surreptitious breath. Very few people ever guessed that Delilah, who was almost unfailingly kind, gentle, sensible, and good-humored, possessed a temper. Angelique knew it.

So did Captain Hardy. He’d once—it seemed so long ago now—been coolly evicted from The Grand Palace on the Thames at Delilah’s behest. And at the time, he’d deserved it.

Lord Bolt’s eyes widened in a warning to Captain Hardy.

He was no fool, Captain Hardy. Damned if he replied, damned if he didn’t, and he knew it.

He chose wisely.

He took a half step toward his wife. “Delilah . . .” He’d lowered his voice.

Everything he knew and felt about her was in the way he said her name. Unshakeable love, humor, a peace and passion and understanding neither had dreamed they would know in this lifetime.

But it was shot through with an ache, and something like an exasperated plea.

They seldom argued. They were both so reasonable. They both had muscular senses of fairness and a healthy respect for rules.

He was a private man. There was more he wanted to say, and he was telling her he would not say it in front of Angelique or Bolt, as much as he liked them.

And just like that, she wanted to protect him from making himself vulnerable. She couldn’t help it.

But Delilah was suddenly unnervingly certain she would never again win an argument if he was really determined to win. He was a man for whom ruthless vanquishing of foes had been a way of life.

“Tristan . . .” she said hurriedly. “I know what you’re about to say. I know in the past I’ve erred on the side of giving someone—well, two someones—the benefit of the doubt and it turned out rather badly. It was how we met, in fact. But I am not as naive about people as I once was, in large part thanks to you. And I so want it to be true that Daphne is happy and safe. And . . . and . . . loved.”

Her voice dropped on the potent little word.

No one spoke. Tension and unspoken things held all of them fast.

A long, four-way stare concluded when Captain Hardy’s head fell back on a sigh.

Then he swiped his hands down his face in frustration.

It was capitulation. For now.

But they all knew this conversation, and all the silent things that simmered throughout it, was far from over.

“Even if the temptation to go on a murderous rampage overtakes him, with you and Lucien and Ben Pike here, we have naught to fear from him. Even Dot knows how to shoot,” Delilah reminded him.

“She still hasn’t quite mastered the aiming part of shooting,” he said grimly.

“She can be surprisingly valiant. She was once prepared to defend my possessions with a hatpin. Before all of this. Before I met you.”

Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt exchanged an unreadable look.

As friends and business partners, they had their own silent language now, too. As did Delilah and Angelique.

“Did any of you notice how Lady Worth looked at her husband?” Angelique said softly to Delilah, who nodded. “Don’t they seem oddly suited?”

The four of them gazed across at the pair sitting on the settee. They appeared to be murmuring to each other.

“I have a feeling Delacorte will love him,” Captain Hardy said finally, grimly.

This seemed probable. Delacorte loved nearly everybody.

During the few minutes the four residents of The Grand Palace on the Thames debated their fate, Lorcan and Daphne had, in fact, remained silent, siloed in entirely separate thoughts. Mere inches separated them on the settee; she hadn’t shifted away from him, nor had he shifted away from her. She was afraid the four people across the foyer would take note of it and become suspicious if she did. And she was still so weary and chilled, despite the proximity to the fire. His big body gave off heat, and at the moment, she was nearly as impartial to the source of it as a turtle basking on a rock. He smelled like woodsmoke, cheroot smoke, and night air, mingled with what she recognized as wet man. Distinctive, not unpleasant.

Three possibilities bound her in a sort of Gordian knot: they would both be asked to leave, thanks to whatever it was that bothered Captain Hardy about Lorcan St. Leger; St. Leger would be asked to leave, and she would be obliged to tell Delilah that she couldn’t afford a suite; or they would be invited to stay, and she would find herself in a suite alone with Mr. St. Leger.

She’d once scrupulously planned household budgets down to the ha’penny, made sure the minutest details of the family home, from curtain pulls to hinges on the doors to locks, were in perfect working order. She had hired and fired servants; she had arranged seating charts and menus for dinner parties and more. All of this and more had mostly been her responsibility since she was eleven years old.

But she hadn’t the faintest idea how she would endure or respond to any of the possibilities at this moment facing her. Her mind felt blank as a tundra.

He finally murmured, “Mr. and Mrs. Blackguard?”

She didn’t reply. Her nerves were so raw she could feel the entire path of her own breath as it traveled into and out of her body.

“What did you do to upset Captain Hardy?” she finally said.

For a moment she thought he was so lost in thought he hadn’t heard her.

“‘Upset,’” he repeated thoughtfully, finally, with great amused irony. As if he’d never heard a quainter word.