Rhyme and Reason Read Free Page A

acquaintance.”
    “I prefer to be honest, and I speak of nothing but what any man with a bit of life in him would notice on a single glance.”
    She started to reply, but turned as approaching footfalls slowed by the door.
    Bollings’s coat always strained across his stomach. Thick, brown hair belied his many years of service to Charles Talcott, but his wrinkled face was lengthened by fatigue and distress. “Mr. Talcott is asleep, Miss Emily,” he said with a wary glance at the viscount.
    “Thank you, Bollings.” When the valet hesitated, she added, “Please let me know when Mr. Talcott wakes on the morrow.”
    He nodded, then backed out of the room. He glanced once more into the room before he hurried along the hall. Emily ignored the small voice that urged her to call him back. Instead, she faced the viscount who was setting himself on his feet.
    “My lord,” she said with the best smile she could affix on her lips, a sorry one she was sure, for every thought was weighed with fatigue, “I thank you again for being sure that my father reached his home and his bed without incident.” Rising, she added, “My family is indebted to you for your kindness.”
    “The debt, as I must remind you, Miss Talcott, remains mine.” He started to reach beneath his coat, but halted with a laugh. “I find it impossible to remit your father’s winning to you.” Clasping his hands behind him, in a motion that tugged at the broad shoulders of his coat, he smiled with the glint of mischief returning to his eyes. “When you are dressed so enticingly in such a flattering shade of silk, Miss Talcott, my mind envisions other scenes in which a man might be placing gold upon a woman’s palm.”
    Emily gasped as his indecorous words created a similar scene in her fertile imagination. Although she had no idea what the inside of a seraglio might look like, she shuddered. How horrifying to think she resembled a natural while she was speaking with a man who had gained a reputation for being as attentive to the ladies, both of quality and not, as he was to cards! Heat seared her cheeks again at that unseemly thought.
    Again happy she did not flush, she answered, “I cannot speak to what you might picture in your mind, my lord.”
    “No?” He brushed a strand of her hair back from her face. “I had thought you a woman of much more imagination, Miss Talcott.”
    “Why?”
    “You did not slap my face for my impertinent words, so I guessed you worldly enough to speak with honesty.”
    “If I were worldly enough to envision what you suggested—”
    He chuckled. “Which you clearly are, if I am a judge of the righteous indignation in your voice. I did not mean to bring you to cuffs with a demure hit, Miss Taloctt. My words were meant as a compliment.” He raised his hands in a pose of surrender when she opened her mouth to retort. “Forgive me, Miss Talcott. When I asked to speak to you here, I meant only to compliment you for being such a devoted daughter and to reassure you that your father has suffered nothing more than too long an acquaintance with a bottle of brandy.”
    “Thank you,” she said, wondering why embarrassment taunted her as if she were the one who had forgotten her manners. “If it discomfits you, my lord, you need have no concerns about me collecting your debts to my father. I shall leave that matter to you and him.”
    “Wise of you.”
    “If you are assured that my father is well …” Emily knew she was being rude, but dawn would be arriving before she could seek her bed.
    The viscount nodded, his dark hair dropping across his forehead. He tossed it aside with an ease that must come from habit. “I am assured of that, and you may assure Mr. Talcott that the accounts between us will be settled to his satisfaction.” When he took her hand and bowed over it, his eyes rose to meet hers.
    She saw amusement in their gray depths, and she gasped when he held her gaze as he pressed his lips to the back of her