Chapter 69

"Beautiful, bewitching, beguiling, bewildering ... " Kendall Winterborne, the third Earl of Stillmore, muttered another word that began with B under his breath and flung the entire contents of the brandy snifter down his throat in one gulp. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at Chasens in the tarnished, fly-specked mirror.
"Are you serious?"
"Yes, sah, there's a lady to see you."
Babs. Barbara Langley, Lady Barbara Langley. Well, well, well. He had to hand it to the conniving jade. She had chosen her moment earlier with the skill of a conquering field-marshal.
Then again, it was the reason she'd made such an impact on his heart. It was what gave her the right to laugh in his face as she returned the box containing that bracelet he'd paid a king's ransom for at Ringsell's earlier.
It was what had driven him to give her the blasted, damned trinket in the first place.
Despite the fact that not five minutes ago he'd had the urge to shatter the pear- shaped snifter against the wall, grind the shards beneath the sole of his boot, where he'd wished to God her face was, he set the glass down without so much as a clink on the cold veins of the Italian marble mantel.
He held his palm to his mouth and blew out a long, slow breath. The noxious smell of brandy fumes was enough to bowl him over. Did he want her getting wind of the fact he was remotely troubled by this Baxby story? This was his move. If he could stir his cold blood.
"Cologne." Whether he could stir his blood or not, the first step was not letting her know how hard he'd fallen and how deeply she'd cut him on the matter of losing her.
"And here, take this." He tore off his dressing gown-charcoal, his favorite color. "I don't want her thinking I'm indisposed. My reputation's probably suffered enough for one damnable day."
Why remind himself? Despite what had happened with that damned whippersnapper at the tournament earlier, he prided himself on his self-control, largely because there was nothing he cared about sufficiently to lose it. In this instance, to which the half-empty brandy decanter on the scratched walnut side table testified, he was ashamed to say he'd lost it. Completely.
"Sah, I am afraid-"
"Christ on a donkey entering Jerusalem, let us not be our usual contumacious self here, Chasens, if you do not mind." He glanced at his wavering reflection in the smudged glass. His eyes were bleary, but apart from that, he should pass muster. "Just take the robe and bring the cologne. I have been drinking ... as you have not."
"I do not deny it, sah."
"Deny what? That more ale and whiskey has unaccountably vanished from the pantry? So you're as foxed as me? I wondered why the household bills have rocketed lately. Don't think I don't keep tabs. And stop calling me sah."
"I mean, I do not deny you have been drinking, sir."
"Well, then. What are you standing there for like an overstuffed seal?"
"I sense strongly that when you see this lady, you will understand the reason for my hesitation."
Damn it, did the man never smile? Or recite anything other than in a boomingly exaggerated monotone? No. Of course not. It was why Kendall had hired him on the spot, although others might find his continuous balling of the word sir hair-tearing.
"See her? Good God, what do you mean? Unless ... Hang it all, is she here with Baxby? That son-of-a-circus clown?"
"Not that I know of."
"Then-"
"She is not Lady Langley, sir."
Kendall drew his brows together. "Not Lady Langley? Not Lady Langley? What do you mean not Lady Langley?"
"What I say. She is not Lady Langley ... sir."
"Then who the blazes is-"
Something rustled in the glass behind him, scudding across his vision like a skiff over the smooth surface of a lake. The voice was soft as a May breeze. "Lady Malachi. Lady Splendor Malachi, Your Grace."
What the devil?
A woman, covered as monumentally as a tomb in some gauzy green thing-a color he loathed, too reminiscent of spring-stood framed like a portrait in his doorway. What was she doing there? God in the firmament above, he was foxed, but surely he hadn't sent for her from Madam Frou-Frou's brothel, had he?
She swept forward, her velvet-gloved hand extended, trailing no doubts in her wake. Had he sent for her to fill the long and otherwise dreary reaches of the night before he shot that damned boy? Christ in a curricle driving up Ludgate Hill, how could he have done that?
"Yes, indeed. Do forgive me. Your man here asked me to wait, but I was in too much of a hurry."
This was a first. A woman in a hurry? For him? How novel. He should write it down. It would be good to know in years to come such a thing had once befallen him.
He shook his head to clear it. All right. Perhaps he was foxed, but what the blazes was her excuse? Barging in here like this? Sweeping dusty tumbleweeds across his carpet on the hem of that thing, that gauzy concoction she was wearing? How many clients did she have today that she couldn't wait? What was Madame Frou-Frou thinking about letting so mercenary a hussy loose on the unsuspecting public? Unrequested fraternization with clients was not allowed.
Unless ...Was it one of Madam Frou-Frou's sinful little jewels that he'd dallied with before Babs come to spring a bastard upon him? If so, it would most certainly show by now. It didn't show. Unless, in addition to that hideous dress that had trailed all that dust from his hallway into here, she was wearing a steel corset? Who, what, was she? A woman who stood almost as tall as he was one he'd be bound to remember. He didn't. And yet there was something, something vaguely familiar about her stance.
"Pardon me." He felt duty-bound to narrow his eyes. "Have we met before?"