Page 44 of Miss Delectable
“Go on,” he said, as if Ann weren’t curled against his chest like an oversized feline. “You were sent away to school, and surely you learned some names there.”
“How did you know?” And how did one conduct a conversation when cuddled up against so much male muscle and warmth?
“Settle, Ann. I harbor no untoward designs on your person.”
“And if I have designs on yours,Orion?”
“With a horde of banshees ready to interrupt at any moment, your designs are doomed to failure, alas for me. My friends call me Rye. Tell me about school.”
They were to be friends, then? Cuddling friends? Ann would ponder that mystery later, when she wasn’t so comfortably ensconced in such a sweet embrace.
“My grandmother died. I was dispatched to the Midlands, where all good girls go to learn how to gossip, flirt, and tipple. The other students were busy making sheep’s eyes at the drawing master, while I spent my free time in the kitchen. My classmates thought me odd, I thought them tedious, and if there’s one thing young ladies do not tolerate, it’s being considered tedious. You will put me to sleep if you keep that up, Colonel.”
He was rubbing her back in slow circles that spread a warmth as insidious as that offered by the toddy.
“Call me Rye. That’s a direct order. We’re drinking companions now, and we’ve made pear sauce together. How did you come to be apprenticed?”
“My father died. My aunt—the only person who might have dissuaded me—had married and was no longer in England. I wrote a letter purporting to be from her informing Headmaster I was to spend the summer with her friends in London. I had enough samples of her penmanship to copy her hand. I applied to every agency that placed apprentices until a situation arose that suited me. By the time my aunt’s next letter reached the headmaster months later, I had signed my articles and was delighting in my new profession.”
The colonel’s caresses moved to Ann’s neck and shoulders, the pleasure of his touch exquisite. “You had made your bed, and you were determined to lie in it as only the young and foolish can be determined.”
“That too. Aunt was a new wife. She and my uncle protested by letter, but they weren’t in a position to undo the damage, and besides, I was happy, after a fashion.”
“Pleased with yourself, you mean. Close your eyes, Ann. Rest. I’ll keep you safe from invading forces.”
He would keep her safe from designs on her person, too, drat the luck.
Ann could feel the colonel’s heartbeat beneath her cheek, while the fire was a steady warmth at her back. She could not in seven eternities have predicted that her call upon Orion Goddard would end up in this cozy embrace by the hearth, nor would she have said she was particularly fatigued if asked.
And yet, she was so very tired, now that he held her like this. As her eyes drifted closed and her breathing slowed, she gave in to an exhaustion of more than the body, and to the very great comfort to be had in Orion Goddard’s arms.
* * *
“So this isthe most notoriously unassuming club in all of London?” Sycamore Dorning asked, glancing about at the Aurora’s wainscoted foyer. “Nobody even knows who the members are.”
“To learn who the members are,” Rye replied, “you’d merely have to lurk across the street and watch who comes and goes. Secret entrances are for those with something to hide.”
Dorning passed his greatcoat to the footman. “You doubtless did not join this august establishment until your scouts had monitored the comings and goings long enough that you knew the company to be had here.”
“My scouts are good,” Rye said, “but they don’t move in exalted circles freely enough to know a viscount from a vintner. I simply asked for a list of the members and gave my word the information would go no further. Here at least, my word is still good. Table for two, Tims, where we won’t be overheard.”
“Very good, Colonel. I’ll tell Lavellais, and he will find you in the lounge. Welcome to the Aurora, Mr. Dorning.”
Tims glided off, moving soundlessly across the parquet marble floor.
“He knew who I was,” Dorning said, frowning. “I like to think I enjoy a certain cachet, but he’s a footman, and I’m nearly certain he’s never seen me before.”
“Why would you think that? You swan about at the Coventry like the king at a royal levee, you bear a resemblance to no less than eight siblings, one of them titled, and you are a stranger to any form of subtlety. Then too, you hold the vowels of half of polite society, and until recently, you also had a bachelor’s welcome.”
Rye led his guest to the Aurora’s lounge, which could have served as the library of any Mayfair town house, right down to the bookshelves along the inside wall and a scattering of the week’s newspapers on end tables and sideboards.
“You make me sound like a cross between a communicable disease and a meddling auntie,” Dorning muttered. “Your dear sister finds me charming.”
So did Rye, in the odd moment. “Jeanette has always enjoyed a challenge. She set out to dam up a stream once, and half the shire was soon complaining of the terrible drought. My father’s steward didn’t want to get her in trouble, so I had to help him unbuild what Jeanette had spent a week constructing.”
“She simply built it up again?”
“I explained the problem to her—sheep will turn up thirsty under all that wool—and she settled for re-creating the Pool of London. She was six years old and intent on joining the Royal Navy.”
