Rhyme and Reason Read Free

stern façade. Although she had seen it on the stairs, his metamorphosis startled her anew, for she saw glints of mirth in his eyes that had been steel cold. “Forgive me, Miss Talcott, for being such a confirmed chucklehead that I failed to introduce myself. May I blame it on the hour? Allow me to redeem my tarnished honor.” He stood and, lifting her hand, bowed smoothly over her fingers. “I am Damon Wentworth.”
    “Wentworth?” She almost choked on the name, but restrained herself enough to ask, “The viscount?”
    “One and the same.”
    Emily was sure her heart had plummeted into her slippers. What a perfect widgeon she was! She should have guessed Papa was fated to meet this rogue sooner or later, for Lord Wentworth’s reputation was well known throughout the Polite World. Even she, who disdained the whisper of gossip, could not be unaware of the viscount’s hunt for adversaries who were as skilled at cards as he and who had pockets plump enough to keep the stakes high.
    Charles Talcott was neither.
    “Dare I believe we have met before, Miss Talcott?” he continued when she remained silent. He gave her a warm smile, a smile which she might have deemed charming under other circumstances.
    “No, my lord,” she managed to say.
    “For that, I’m glad.”
    “Glad?”
    He sat again and folded his arms on one knee. “I would consider myself quite the gawney for failing to remember making the acquaintance of such a lovely lady.”
    Emily ignored his compliment and the peculiar mixture of pleasure and disquiet it sent reeling as wildly as Papa’s drunken steps through her. Locking her fingers together in her lap, she said, “My lord, I know you must have much to do elsewhere. I have no wish to delay you, so if you will tell me the amount of my father’s losses to you, I shall tend the matter posthaste.”
    “His debts to me?” He laughed and relaxed back against the settee. “Now I understand why you are wearing such a dreary face. Do not fret, Miss Talcott. There is no need for you to worry about your father’s debts, for he often proved the victor at our table.”
    “Papa won the night?”
    “Lady Luck is, at best, a fickle companion and chose this evening to make your father her favorite. You appear astonished, Miss Talcott.”
    Not wanting to own that she was exactly that, for she could not imagine her father trouncing this glib lord at the board of green cloth, she demurred, “I fear my thoughts are quite unsteady with fatigue.”
    “I would think so at this hour. You prove your devotion to your father by waiting up for him as if he were a young sprig.”
    She was able to smile more easily. “My sister and I arrived home not long ago.”
    “From Miss Prine’s coming-out?”
    “Yes, but how—?”
    He smiled, his eyes crinkling to accent his deep tan. She wondered how he spent much time in the sun if he played cards all night every night. “It was the most heralded event of the evening, if I am to believe her brother who joined us at the table tonight. You must be exhausted from the dancing and conversation.”
    “Mostly from playing the watch-dog. I find launching my sister on the Season more tiring than I had anticipated.”
    “ You are launching your sister?” His gaze swept along her again, and she knew she had been want-witted not to think before she spoke. She fought the urge to chide him for being presumptuous. Whispered rumor warned her words would be wasted on this man who set mamas to quivering with trepidation any time he looked at their daughters. “I must be mistaken. I thought you said you were Miss Talcott.”
    “I am.”
    “Then, if I may be so bold, may I say you are doing the young misses enjoying the Season a great service by not competing with them for the Tom-a-doodles who wish to buckle themselves to a bride?” He folded his arms across the front of his pristine waistcoat and smiled.
    “You are as bold as brass, my lord, to speak of such things on our short