Page 29 of The Trouble with Tigers
“Just one moment.” The earl’s voice sliced the air.
She opened her eyes in time to see Garrick’s arm fall to his side.
“Aren’t you curious as to Lady Hasting’s welfare these past months, James?” A crafty smile curved his mouth.
She’d seen that smile before, right before he made a particularly clever chess move.
“Of course.” Garrick drew himself to his full height—which still left him a head shorter than Zeke or the earl.
“She has, of course, resided under this roof for months—no chaperone to speak of,” Lord Claybourne said.
Garrick frowned. “Are you suggesting some sort of impropriety on your part?”
“Yes, Lord Claybourne, what are you suggesting?” Zeke eyed the earl, arms crossed over his chest.
“I am more than suggesting,” the earl said, his eyes locked on Garrick.
Garrick spewed out a hyena’s laugh. “You wish me to believe my cousin and you, the late baron’s so-called closest friend, engaged in an illicit affair? Next you’ll tell me you’re engaged to marry the chit.”
“No.”
Garrick’s shoulders seemed to relax, for all his randy bluster.
“She is, however, betrothed.” The earl sent Garrick a feral smile. “To my grandson, Lord Thurgood.”
Kitty’s mouth hung open. She closed it with a snap. Had the earl gone mad? Claiming she and Zeke were betrothed? Garrick would see right through the hastily devised ruse.
As for Zeke—she slid a sidelong glance his way and felt her heart crack a little. His rigid jaw and smoldering eyes confirmed what she already knew. He practically despised her.
His almost certain unwillingness to play the hero in her personal tragedy had nothing to do with the tears stinging the backs of her eyes, or the monstrous lump in her throat. Nothing whatsoever.
“Impossible,” Garrick sputtered. “Lord Thurgood’s surprise at Kitty’s sex couldn’t be more evident,” he blurted in the crudest of statements. “How do you explain that?”
Rounding his desk, the older man answered. “An act engineered for Lady Hastings’ benefit. We surmised, Lord James, you might offer some resistance to the betrothal.”
A strange sound, like crunching gravel, came from Garrick.
Zeke, conversely, remained mute.
Perspiration trickled down her back and dampened the area between Kitty’s clamped breasts. Strange, considering her frozen fingers and toes.
“While we feel certain any such resistance can and will be easily circumvented, we hope to avoid any such unpleasantness, for the lady’s sake, as well as the sake of the Claybourne title. Ours is an old, very influential bloodline”—he stressed the word influential—“with ties directly to the royal family. As such, we’re reluctant to invite unnecessary scandal.” He narrowed his eyes. “But, if necessary, that is exactly what we will do.”
Garrick’s nostrils flared as he studied the faces of the two Claybourne men. He ignored Kitty. Everyone in the room was ignoring her, she noted, suddenly on the verge of laughter. She bit her lower lip to staunch the inane urge.
“What say you, Lord Thurgood? This afternoon at the club, you expressed no small amount of curiosity concerning the true identity of the earl’s tiger known as—” He paused and allowed his gaze to rake Kitty, head to toe. “—Kit.”
Anger slammed her like a blast from the furnace. Zeke had done this. Zeke, with his need not to be made the fool, as he’d put it only hours ago.
No wonder he’d arrived home in a jolly mood. He’d met Garrick and somehow put it all together. He waltzed in knowing full well Garrick was coming to take her away.
She wouldn’t have thought him capable of such ignoble scheming, or such cruelty.
Her shoulders slumped. What did it matter? What was done was done. Garrick would demand she go with him immediately, of course. To where? A hotel? A boarding house? Or would they head directly to—
“As the Earl of Claybourne testified, Lord James, my purported ignorance was all part of a carefully crafted plot to keep any scandal from attaching to Lady Hastings’ name, as she and I have resided under the same roof. Indeed, her bedchamber is just down the hall from mine.”
Kitty blinked, unable to believe her ears.
