Page 2 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
“Why, by Jove, it’s Gregory Carvelle.” Charley wiped his mouth and managed a belch. “Penderbrook, let me introduce you. I have not seen you since Brussels. Lady Devonshire’s ball, wasn’t it. Whathaveyou been up to all these many years, old man?”
“You are drunk.”
“Drunk?” Penderbrook said. “No one could be drunk on Kingsley’s lemonade. Not even Everly here, who we know cannot hold his liquor. I say, Everly, why not let your man here have one of those excellent Spanish cigars? Join us, Carvelle.”
“I will not. I am looking for a young lady. Has anyone else come out?”
Charley laughed, and threw back his head, projecting his voice to the garden. “Ah, April, dressed in all his trim, hath put a spirit of youth in everything.”
“Shakespeare,” Penderbrook explained. “The sonnets.”
“Indeed,” Charley laughed again. “Is the young lady pretty?”
Penderbrook joined in with the laughter and snatched the flask. “If a girl had come out here, Everly would have pushed me back inside. Now that you have someone else to entertain you, Everly, I shall find some lemonade and doctor it up.”
“Don’t let my sister catch you at it. She’ll roast you for a week.”
Penderbrook laughed as if he hadn’t a care in the world, as if he wasn't leaving Charley alone with a disreputable thug.
As if there wasn’t a beautiful woman hiding in the wild scrub below them.
His friend had made it known he was angling for a spot in the Earl of Shaldon’s service, desperately, from what Charley could surmise. If only Pender knew how dreadfully tedious it could be, working for Father. Chasing down a Spanish woman who was the key to a spy had proved to be less than heroic.
Though perhaps, this wouldn’t be one of those times.
Charley pulled a case from another pocket his clever tailor had managed to craft for him. “Will you have one of these tiny cigars?”
Carvelle waved him away. “I’m surprised you are here tonight, and not off at Mivart’s swinging your way down from the Duquesa’s hotel window. But, oh yes—the Duque has arrived in town, hasn’t he.”
Charley laughed. “Has he? I’m not keeping track, Carvelle, but I see you are.”
“I make it my business to keep track of many things. How is your father, the great Lord Shaldon?”
“Father? I imagine you must know.”
“He is in Bath.”
“Quite. Ill enough to take the waters.”
The other man’s lips turned up unpleasantly. “Your brother must be counting the hours until his succession.”
Heat spiked within him. “Perhaps.” He made himself drawl lazily. “Bakeley and I do not speak much.” It was not entirely a lie. Since his recent marriage, his elder brother, Viscount Bakeley, was busy with affairs of the heart.
That marriage, however, had restored the relationship between father and son. One thing Charley knew for sure, Bakeley did not wish his father dead.
“And what will become of you, eh, once the greatdiplomat,Lord Shaldon, is not around to pull his strings for you?”
“Have you not heard, Carvelle? I’ve entered Parliament. A politician never starves.”
“A smart politician. Not a drunken gambler who spends his time jumping through the beds of married women. You will need to marry money.”
Well, and wasn’t that interesting—the man was feeling very confident to speak so bluntly, the ignorant ass. Drunk or sober, another man might have called Carvelle out.
Charley managed a hiccup. “Have you got someone in mind for me?”
Again, that sneer.
He hiccupped again and tapped a finger against his cheek. “I hear Kingsley’s ward is very rich.”
