What a Lady Needs. Kasey Michaels
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a grand view of anyone loitering up on the hill, obviously. You have sentries posted, sir?”
“No, no, not sir. And not my lord. Val and Simon, Simon and Val. We cried friends months ago, somewhere in Sussex, I believe we’ll say.”
“I met you for five minutes in Perceval’s office, and told you then I’m not happy about this ridiculous playacting.”
“So you did,” Valentine said, draping a companionable arm around Simon’s shoulder and walking him away from the open front door. “I advised you to learn to like it, which you better have done, because Lady Katherine is about to do some playacting of her own, which might put you a little off your game unless you apply yourself.”
Simon stepped away from the man. “Excuse me? She knows about the deception?”
“Not quite. She leaped to an erroneous conclusion this morning and I allowed her to leap, even pointed her more firmly in that direction one might say. Kate’s a stickler for the why of things, so it seemed best to have her think she’d guessed correctly.” Valentine hesitated a moment before continuing. “Oh, about that. She thinks I invited you here so she can ‘practice’ on you. Let me explain. Some would say she didn’t fare well during her first foray into society. You may have heard of it?”
A truly splendidly delivered right cross, Singleton. You should have seen it. “I may have heard a few whispered words at one of my clubs. Should I consider wearing some sort of protection?”
Valentine immediately glanced down at Simon’s crotch, which unnerved the marquis just a little bit. “No, of course not. Look, Simon, it’s simple. I told her you’re my friend, we’re both bored with London, I invited you here for some respite and, hopefully, to let her practice her feminine wiles a tad before we haul her back to the city next season. It was too soon to take her back this year. You, however, have no idea you’re here to act the role of interested parti in between searches for those damn journals and hopefully, a cave or tunnel that hasn’t yet collapsed from age.”
“Have you poked around that statue? It could be the portal to the underworld.” Simon wasn’t feeling particularly cooperative.
Valentine laughed. “Good point, we’ll have to give it a look. Maybe one of the hound’s heads swivels and opens a stairway or some such thing? We call him Henry, by the way. Hades, not the hound. String him with holly at Christmastime. Our grandmother told us, in the old days it served to keep the locals on their best behavior, but now Henry is mostly a family joke.”
“Do you have many such jokes about the place?” Simon asked.
“Well, there’s the ha-ha, but that’s only funny if you’re not sixteen and don’t attempt to climb it after you’ve stayed out past the time the gates are locked, enjoying the company of the extremely accommodating barmaid at the Eagle.” Valentine looked down at his palm. “I can still make out a few of the scars.”
“From the broken glass embedded in the top of the wall, or the extremely accommodating barmaid?”
Valentine threw back his head and laughed. “No, she left her marks on my back, as I recall the thing.”
Damn. Simon was beginning to like the fellow. Probably because that’s what he was supposed to do. “All right,” he said, deliberately turning back toward the open front door. “So I’m playacting as your friend, brought here by you to distract your sister, hiding the fact I’m really here to find the journals—which she doesn’t know. In her turn, Lady Katherine is set on finding the journals, but now she’s also playacting as a—what?”
Valentine sighed. “Much as it pains me to say it, she’ll be playacting as a lady.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t concern yourself. I’ll soon be saying those same words to you, if you aren’t careful. The thing is, it’s imperative she stops searching for those godawful journals on her own. Imperative. One of us has to be with her at all times. She cannot read them, not so much as a single page. Remember, Simon, I’ve read one of them.”
“I haven’t. Your brother didn’t pass it along to us.”
“As Gideon convinced Perceval, there was no need. That journal is only the first small piece of a very large puzzle. But since we can’t stop her, I could be called away at any time, and nothing less than binding her hand and foot and shipping her off to one of Gideon’s other estates will even begin to put a spoke in her wheel—like a pigeon, she’d somehow find her way back here again—we’re doing three things. Distracting her with your handsome face—but carefully, my friend, or I’ll be constrained to hurt you—keeping her on her toes as she attempts to impress me with her ladylike accomplishments and accompanying her on any searches. Those are our goals. She’s really quite acute, Simon, and beyond tenacious. If those journals still exist, she’ll find them better and faster than any dozen hounds we could put on the scent. Gideon will have both our heads on a platter if she finds them without us.”
“I think I might be able to do with a glass of wine before you introduce me to your sister,” Simon said as they neared the wide steps to the mansion. “Perhaps more than one.”
“That’s strange. My interlude with Kate this morning ended much the same way. She can have that effect on people.”
“Well, if nothing else, Val, you’ve certainly piqued my interest.”
Valentine grinned. “Yes, she has that effect on people, as well.”
Simon was impressed with the house the moment he entered it. Massive. Everything about it was massive, from the size of the entrance hall to the height of the dark, polished oak paneling and woodwork in the fashion of another time. The heavy wooden staircase, again massive, began with three steps up to a landing, then turned toward a full flight, currently blocked by a sturdy yet ornate wooden dog gate that told him the Redgraves loved their animals, but they didn’t love them everywhere.
He directed his eyes upward and saw the staircase had another landing, another turn, and then the railing seemed to wrap itself about three sides of the hallway before rising again to the next floor.
“Impressive, isn’t it? All that magnificent oak is from our own lands, when they were cleared to build this pile. Horribly out of the current style, but we like it, although the maids tend to grumble while they’re polishing that staircase.”
“Beauty being in the eye of the beholder, as opposed to the labor of the worker.”
“Oh, we’ve all polished that staircase at one time or another. Our grandmother considered it the perfect punishment. I was given the job for one day each week for six months after I had the happy notion to slide down the entire staircase on a large silver tray. If the dog gate hadn’t been closed, I might have made it all the way to the tiles.”
Simon gave another look to the sheer height and tricky landings. “How did the tray fare?”
Valentine grinned. “That was sent off to the blacksmith, to be hammered back into some semblance of its former self. Now, about that drink...”
But Simon was still looking at the staircase, which meant he was the first to see the exotic vision that had just appeared at the wooden railing to peer down at them, her long black curls hanging slightly over the railing. “My God,” he breathed quietly.
Valentine looked up, as well. “Oh. It’s only Kate.” He waved his arm at her. “Come on down, Kate. Our guest has arrived.”
Lady Katherine turned toward the stairs, keeping her right hand on the railing, using her left to hike up her hem a few inches as she took on the first few steps. Then she stopped, took a breath, let go of her skirt and continued her descent, this time with her head held high, and at a much more sedate pace.
Simon prayed she’d continue to take her time, stretching out the moments he could simply stand and stare at her. And hopefully figure out a way to get his tongue unstuck from the roof of his suddenly dry mouth. Please