Loretta Chase - The Devil's Delilah Read Free Page B

friend.
    "Yes, it's me — at least I think so," said Jack with a grimace as he rubbed the back of his head.
    "What brings you here — up and about at this ungodly hour? And as usual, never looking where you went. Why, I nearly threw you down in my haste."
    "That's quite all right, Tony," said Mr. Langdon. "I'm growing accustomed to falling on my face."
    Lord Berne's innocent countenance immediately became pitying. "Oh, yes, I heard about that. Too bad about Miss Pelliston."
    Mr. Langdon winced. He had not been aware that his failure was common gossip.
    "Still, that's the way of love," the viscount consoled. "Plants you a facer every now and then. The secret is to pick yourself up and march on to the next battle. We civilians must take our lesson from Wellington."
    He threw an arm about his friend's shoulder and led him down the stairs. "First, you want sustenance. We shall breakfast together. Then, you must return with me to the ancestral pile for a long visit. I'm forced to ruralise because I am obliged to court Lady Jane Gathers. Of course she'll make a paragon of a wife. My sire's judgement is infallible, as he incessantly reminds me."
    Since Lord Berne had a tendency to run on wherever his fancy took him, his monologues could continue for hours if not ruthlessly interrupted and hauled back to the point.
    Accordingly, Jack cut in. "You don't usually ruralise at inns — at least not so close to home. What brings you here?"
    "A wench of course. What else? Perhaps you have not yet met the fair and saucy Sarah? No matter. I scarcely saw her either, for I'd no sooner stepped into the coffee room than I spied a high flyer sitting lonely and neglected amid the storm-tossed rabble. What choice had I but to come to the dark-haired damsel's aid?"
    "Lady Jane will hardly appreciate that sort of knight errantry," said Jack as they stepped into the main passage.
    "Lady Jane is determined to know nothing about such matters, which is most becoming in her. I only wish her face were more becoming. But no matter. We'll woo her together, you and I," Tony offered.
    He deftly steered his preoccupied friend into the public dining room. "Perhaps you'll steal her away. Actually, Jack, I wish you would. She's all very well, but I'm not ready — Good God! Where did she come from? With my noble sire, no less. Where in blazes did he come from?"
    Mr. Langdon followed his companion's gaze past the enormous communal table to a quiet corner near the fireplace. There Mr. Desmond and his daughter sat breakfasting with the Earl of Street-ham.
    Though the last thing in this world Jack wanted was interaction with any of the three, he could hardly expect Tony to ignore his own father, particularly when that parent was in the company of a beautiful young woman. There was no escape, because Tony had a firm grip on his friend's arm and was propelling him towards the table.
    Jack employed the next few minutes examining with apparent fascination a small landscape containing several evil-looking sheep which hung upon the wall some inches above Miss Desmond's head. Dimly he heard introductions and a number of what he was certain were falsehoods as the earl and his son respectively accounted for their appearance at the Black Cat.
    Mr. Langdon nudged himself to proper attention when he heard the earl renew his pleas that the Desmonds be his guests at Streetham Close. Since his lordship addressed his requests primarily to the daughter, Jack gathered that she was the more reluctant of the pair. In the next moment, however, Tony added his persuasions, and, as might be expected, Miss Desmond capitulated.
    Having completed their meal, the trio soon left, one of them followed by a look of such languishing adoration from Lord Berne that the waiter knocked over two chairs in his haste to reach the table, so certain was he the young gentleman was about to perish of hunger.
    Mr. Langdon, being inured to his companion's fits of romantic stupefaction, took no notice. Their