Eloquence and Espionage Read Free

black hair and a confident
walk, and he’d fall into step beside her. She’d imagined a dozen
places they might meet again and twenty ways she might tell him she
wished him to call upon her. She’d never considered simply
consulting the guest list.
    As it was, that proved more difficult than
expected. Priscilla was happy to oblige. She’d seen the centurion,
after all. She knew the effect of his sartorial splendor. And,
deliriously happy in her betrothed state, she was delighted to
further another possible romance.
    “But I cannot trouble Nathan just now,” she
explained to Ariadne and Emily from the mismatched furniture of the
drawing room in the tiny house Priscilla’s father had rented for
the Season. Her golden hair was not yet dressed for the day, and
she wore a dressing gown with a profusion of cream-colored lace.
“His Grace is determined to find a bride, so Nathan has his hands
full fending off fortune hunters and title nabbers.” Though
Priscilla had been both until recently, she showed considerable
disdain for the breed now, pink lips curled and head high. “And my
father certainly isn’t helping.”
    The Tates, Priscilla’s parents, who were
pockets to let, had been devastated to learn their daughter was
planning to throw over the wealthy duke they had seen as their
salvation for his cousin and personal secretary. Nathan’s solution
had been for His Grace the Duke of Rottenford to fund Priscilla’s
father as a social advisor. So far, Mr. Tate’s advice had only
managed to run up the duke’s bill to his tailor and lengthen the
list of sycophants knocking at his door.
    “Do what you can,” Emily replied, and
Ariadne swallowed her disappointment and nodded in agreement.
    “Would you like me to drive you home?” she
asked Emily as they descended to the pavement where her family’s
coach waited. “I’m to meet Daphne in Hyde Park in a quarter
hour.”
    Emily glanced at the coach as if weighing
its advantages. It was a fine landau, lacquered in crimson, the
bold color one of the few concessions Lord Rollings had managed to
secure from his stern wife. Emily had her own carriage, Ariadne
knew, with driver and groom. She was also on tremendously good
terms with her father’s staff, who she saw more often than her busy
father. Ariadne could not make the same statement. Though her
father was a well-respected viscount, their staff only listened to
one person: her iron-willed mother.
    “I’ll come with you,” Emily offered. “It
will keep Lady Minerva off the scent.”
    Lady Minerva was Emily’s eagle-eyed aunt who
served as her chaperone for the Season. She had been a thorn in
their sides at first, forever demanding certain types of behavior,
but she and Emily had come to an uneasy truce, until Emily had
declared her preference for an unsuitable suitor, Jamie Cropper, a
Bow Street Runner. Now Lady Minerva spied out Emily’s every move
and threatened to tell her father of any alleged impropriety.
    With their tendency to uncover murder and
other misdeeds, there were entirely too many things to give the
older lady pause.
    Of course, Ariadne had her own watchdogs to
consider. She’d had to work extra hard the last few days to follow
the trail of her centurion without raising suspicions. She could
feel Mr. Crease watching her now as their footman Oscar handed her
and Lady Emily into the landau. The coachman’s feathery gray brows
were down in censure. Really, what unconscionable sin had she
committed? She’d gone to Gunter’s and Priscilla’s, neither of which
was unusual for her. The only thing unusual about it all was that
she hadn’t eaten a single thing in either location.
    How could she eat when all she could think
about was finding him?
    *
    It wasn’t easy seeking his quarry knowing
Ariadne Courdebas was intent on finding him. He’d followed her as
far as the Tate house and figured she’d likely visit her friend
Priscilla for a time. By her conversation at the Duke of
Rottenford’s