Page 3 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
Carvelle’s hand locked around Charley’s wrist. “You are not to touch her.”
His blood rose as he studied the hand grasping his. He counted to three, silently, forced it down. Made himself laugh.
Duty required him to let it be. This time.
The door rattled and a cloud of emerald silk filled the doorway.
“Gregory.” Lady Kingsley advanced on them bringing with her a gagging cloud of lavender. “Sir.” She curtsied her deference to the son of a powerful and very rich earl. “Gregory, you’ve not found her?”
“No.”
Her plump little hands clenched as tightly as the bodice displaying her generous wares, as tightly as her scowl. She was a handsome enough woman, even now, if one could stomach a social-climbing harpy.
“This is the want of a rod,” she said.
Charley’s ears pricked up, aware that the wildlife in the untamed garden had gone silent.
“Which I have not, nor will not spare, nor should you, Gregory, when...”
She must have remembered his aristocratic presence, and with her pause he staggered again, bracing himself on the balustrade.
Her back stiffened. “Perhaps we should check again in the nursery. I will go myself. Carvelle, you are wanted inside by my husband.”
Charley let the door shut on them and waited. The night time noises rose again—the clattering of wheels on a nearby street, a watchman’s call, a breeze fluttering the new leaves of the untamed foliage.
“I hear there is a packet running daily from Portsmouth to Calais,” he said.
The bushes below rustled. He hurried down the terrace stairs.
