The Handbook to Handling His Lordship

by Suzanne Enoch

  “Favors are for strangers. We are family, yes?”

  This time Emily’s smile was real, and crowded close to rare, genuine tears. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Nonsense. Now go find your gentleman before he begins pawing through your private things.”

  Now that was a thought. As Emily left the common room for her bedchamber, she hoped Westfall was going through her drawers and her wardrobe. Because firstly that would tell her for certain he was after her, and secondly there would be nothing for him to find—which might put him off her trail entirely.

  Her door stood partly open, and she eased up to it, attempting to ignore her speeding heartbeat as she carefully leaned her head in to peer inside. Westfall was indeed there, sitting in her plain wooden chair by the window and reading The Scottish Cousin. Drat. That might have proved him innocent of any spying, she supposed, except that it didn’t. She’d found a very long time ago that absence of proof only made one tricky. Not innocent. Unless he was innocent.

  “There you are,” he said, and she jumped.

  Westfall adjusted his spectacles, standing rather abruptly and setting the book on the windowsill like a guilty schoolboy. He wore a fine dark gray jacket with black well-fitting trousers and a lighter gray waistcoat, and as she took him in, unexpected arousal trailed down her spine. Whatever else he might be, Nathaniel Stokes was a handsome, well-built man.

  “Here I am,” she said aloud, walking the rest of the way into the room and shutting the door behind her—after she placed the scarf on the door handle. Thankfully Lily Banks didn’t mind being ousted from the room on occasion. “I thought you’d forgotten about me. It’s been three days.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to appear overeager. And you did say anytime after noon, did you not?”

  Had she? It wasn’t like her to be so distracted, especially when he was at least partly the cause of it. “I did,” she decided. “You have a good memory, my lord.”

  He smiled. “Not the best compliment I’ve ever received, but woefully accurate.” Light green eyes lowered, taking in her simple gown and lingering at her bosom. “You aren’t working this evening?”

  If she had been, she would have dressed in something of a much richer material, with a more revealing neckline. But he’d noticed the difference. Oh, her brain was beginning to hurt with attempting to decipher at least two meanings to every word he spoke. “No. I’m not.”

  “Ah. Good.” He cleared his throat. “I know you said that you don’t leave the club, but I found a very nice inn at the edge of Town. They serve the best roasted pheasant I have ever tasted. Would you care to accompany me there? I promise to behave myself and return you directly to the Tantalus after dinner.”

  Panic gripped her heart, but she shoved it away. Panic only made things worse and prevented logical thinking. “If you haven’t eaten I can have something brought up here. Perhaps an equally fine roast pheasant.” It would cost her the price of a regular club dinner, because the common room’s fare was never as grand as that. If it could distract him, though, it would be well worth it.

  “I accept your challenge,” he said. He walked up to her and lifted his arms toward her. Gathering the remains of her resolve, Emily took a step back. “I don’t kiss,” she announced, far too late to do any good.

  He lowered his arms again. “We kissed the other day,” he returned, sounding very like a slightly befuddled, bookish fellow.

  For the first time it occurred to her that if he was as he appeared, she might well be leading him on. “You surprised me. As a rule, however, I don’t kiss.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t kiss because this”—and she gestured between them—“is only for fun. And temporary. I hate to think I’ve been leading you on, Westfall. Though it’s happened on rare occasion, Tantalus girls as a rule do not marry members of the peerage. Nor am I after a husband, nor do I wish to be kept like some finch in a cage.”

  Green eyes behind round lenses studied her for a moment. “And kissing is not fun?” he asked, ignoring the rest of her dialogue.

  “Kissing is about emotion. Or so it seems to me.”

  A slight smile curved his mouth. It was a very nice mouth, she had to admit, in a way she couldn’t quite describe. Welcoming, she supposed. And it made her think of being naked, with him touching her.

  “So you have no actual dislike of kissing,” he continued. “Merely its timing and application.”

  “Correct.”

  He took a half step closer, so that she had to lift her chin to continue to meet his gaze. “Might I beg your indulgence then, for one moment? I have a theory I wish to prove. About kissing and fun.”

  If this was about him attempting to track her—or someone—down for Ebberling, he had a very odd way of going about it. Of course if he was innocent of subterfuge, this would merely have been a very intriguing way of beginning the evening. And his previous kisses still felt half seared into her. Had that just been surprise, though? She nodded. “Very well.”

  Westfall moved still closer, so that her breasts brushed against his chest. He slowly moved his left hand up to cup the back of her neck, while the fingers of his right hand brushed her cheek. Then he bent his head, brushing his mouth featherlight against hers. It was so different from the deep, passion-filled kiss of the other day that it surprised her. Before she could classify it at all, he caught her lower lip between his teeth and tugged ever so gently. Releasing her, he brought his mouth down over hers for an openmouthed embrace that found her tangling her tongue with his. Down between her legs she went wet and hot.

  “There,” he said, straightening, lowering his hands again. “Would you say that was about an emotional connection, or about having fun?”

  She just barely resisted the urge to touch her mouth with her fingers. “I would say that that was about sex,” she managed, her voice not nearly as steady as she’d intended.

  He lifted an eyebrow, the arch rising above the rim of his spectacles. “Is that good or bad?”

  Emily grabbed his hair in both hands and yanked him down over her mouth again. “Good,” she muttered, the word muffled.

  She seemed to have forgotten about her offer of roast pheasant, but as she pulled him down to the bed on top of her, Nathaniel decided that was both understandable and inconsequential. For a chit who avoided kissing she did it well enough, and he stifled a moan as her hands wandered down to cup his crotch.

  When she pushed him onto his back and then crawled down the length of him to unfasten his trousers and take his cock in her mouth, the bits of his brain still working wondered how he could even imagine that Emily Portsman was the high-in-the-instep Rachel Newbury. A stiff-backed governess would not be comfortable with doing what she was presently doing between his legs.

  She laughed as he pulled pins from her hair, tossing them aside to tangle his fingers through the straight chestnut mass that curtained her face from view. For God’s sake, that felt good.

  When he felt an inch from bursting he tugged her up his body again. “If you don’t stop that at once, Portsman, you’ll ruin what I’d intended to be a very lengthy and satisfying performance.”

  With a chuckle she lifted her skirts and sank down on him. “There’s always the encore, Westfall.”

  As she bounced up and down on him he worked at yanking her arms from her sleeves and then pulling her gown down to her waist. That done, he sat up and kissed her again before he turned his attention and his tongue to her breasts.

  “Oh, oh,” she panted, then practically leaped from the bed. “Wait!” Fumbling into her bedstand, she removed another of the French condoms she seemed to store in ample supply and fitted it over his engorged member.

  His spectacles began to fog, and he pulled them off to stuff the damned things under a pillow where he wouldn’t lose track of them. She was absolutely delicious, and he twisted to swiftly undo enough of her buttons and ribbons to pull her gown down her legs. She kicked out of it and straddled his hips again. “No
w you may proceed,” she murmured breathlessly, closing her eyes and groaning as she lowered herself around him.

  At that he left off thinking altogether and surged up into her, matching her pace until she found her release. With a rumble he came, as well, holding her down across his hips until he’d finished. Then he sank back flat on the bed as she folded herself over him.

  “That performance definitely calls for an encore,” she breathed, kissing him, nipping his lower lip as he’d done to her. “Meraviglioso.”

  He felt her hesitate for an instant, then resume kissing him. She spoke Italian. For a Tantalus girl that might not have been so remarkable, but the fact that she’d evidently regretted saying marvelous in perfectly accented Italian spoke volumes. With every passing moment he wanted less and less to discover that she was other than what she claimed, and yet …

  “Grazie,” he returned, keeping his own eyes closed as he felt her lashes flutter against his cheek. It still might not mean anything, but every ounce of his being thought otherwise. Emily Portsman was hiding something. And now he could only hope that he’d somehow stumbled across a young lady who’d fled from a poor wedding match or an unloving husband. Or that she’d stolen a ring from her former employer. Or anything but a necklace. A necklace and a murder.

  In the few minutes he’d had before he’d heard her approaching down the hallway, he had managed to look through her bedstand and flip through the pages of two of the books sitting on the narrow bookshelf across the room. Other than a generous supply of French condoms—evidently Miss Portsman was very cautious, indeed, when it came to lovers—he’d found absolutely nothing that pointed to her as a culprit in any crime at all.

  So other than her immediate interest in him after Laurie’s blunder and that one word of Italian, why did he continue to suspect that she wasn’t who or what she claimed? What other than the prickle of something unsettling that touched him whenever he looked at her? Of course that was in addition to the something lustful prickling him at the same time.

  Yes, she was intelligent, but so were the majority of The Tantalus Club’s employees. Yes, she seemed to have an aversion to leaving the club’s grounds—but he had no idea of her background, so her reluctance might have been due to something other than a wish to avoid Lord Ebberling and anyone who might know the marquis.

  One thing at a time, then. Eliminate all possible trails, and follow what remained. He’d learned to do that well over the past ten years; anyone who didn’t learn that lesson didn’t live long enough to regret it.

  With her nipping at his ear the blood seemed reluctant to return to his brain, but he could think well enough to remember that she’d been the one to bring up her refusal to leave the Tantalus grounds. He could therefore ask her why.

  “I met your cousin, you know,” she said before he could decide how to phrase his question. “Gerard, yes?”

  “Yes.” He sent her a sideways glance. “When you say you ‘met,’ does—”

  “I mean he sat for dinner and faro downstairs on several occasions,” she interrupted. “And he seemed a true gentleman.”

  That was an interesting choice of words. “As opposed to an untrue gentleman?”

  “As opposed to someone who is called a gentleman simply because that is the custom. The way a Thoroughbred is a horse and a rag-and-bones man’s cart dray is a horse.” She flopped down beside him to run the palm of her hand up beneath his shirt. “I don’t think anyone would mistake one for the other.”

  “A very good analogy, Portsman. So why d—”

  “Before you became Westfall,” she broke in again, her finger idly brushing his nipples, “what did you do? Were you in the army, or a pastor, or an idle gentleman?”

  She’s interrogating me, he thought, and attempting to distract me at the same time. And she was tolerably good at it. Was it casual interest, though, or something more? Hm. The fact that he still couldn’t decide was in itself telling. Perhaps “tolerably good” was an understatement. “Can you imagine me in the army?” he countered, rather than outright answering. She could draw her own conclusions from that. “And I think being a clergyman would be excessively dull. I did have considerably more time for mathematics and reading previous to my cousin’s unfortunate death, though. I miss that.”

  “You seem in reasonably good physical shape for a dabbler in mathematics and a reader,” she insisted, leaning over him to run her lips across his abdomen.

  “Well, thank you for saying that. I attempt to go riding daily, and of course walking through London’s parks is very invigorating.” Good God. He sounded like an old man. Time to counterattack. “But I’m not the only one whose life has been altered over the past few years, surely. What did you do before the Tantalus opened?” It was more direct than he cared to be, but she’d left the door open. If he hadn’t stepped through, he wouldn’t have been able to call himself a spy any longer.

  She sat up. “Me? It’s a very dull tale, Westfall. A chit with a yen for a better life who blundered. And I completely forgot that I challenged you not to enjoy Miss Green’s roast pheasant.” Sliding to the edge of the bed, she donned a dressing gown and stepped for the door. “I’ll be back in just a moment. And I think you should remove the remainder of your clothes while I’m gone.”

  Nate took a breath as she reached the door. “You know, we’ve all blundered in the past,” he said slowly, mentally crossing his fingers. “We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”

  Emily faced him, one hand on the door handle. “Simply because we’ve been in bed together doesn’t mean I trust you, Westfall. In here we’re a man and a woman. Out there”—and she indicated the world beyond her window—“you’re a lord and I’m a nobody. The balance shifts, loyalties and trust don’t signify. If you want a lady with no secrets, Lucille Hampton’s bedchamber is two doors down the hallway. She’ll blather until your ears bleed.”

  “Portsman, I—”

  “Whatever you think you know, you don’t. And I think you should leave.”

  He sat up, swinging his still-booted feet over the side of the bed. “And what is it you think I know?” he asked, studying her face intently for any sign of … anything.

  For a long moment she met his gaze, her pretty brown eyes serious and searching just as closely. “Don’t forget your spectacles,” she finally said, and slipped out the door.

  Damnation. He’d blundered. And in this instance he didn’t feel relieved to have escaped alive, or thankful he would now have a chance to learn from his mistake. No, this time he was angry. He wasn’t finished with Emily Portsman. Not finished with his questions, and not finished with sex. Time, then, to step up this game and see if she could still play.

  Chapter Seven

  “Jenny?”

  Emily knocked on the door to the small suite of rooms Genevieve Martine had at the back part of Adam House. Jenny had volunteered to room with the rest of the club’s employees, Emily knew, but Diane had instead given her the five rooms at the east corner of the main house.

  Behind her, even through the thick walls dividing Adam House from the club, she thought she could hear the high-pitched titter of female voices. All the club’s employees looked forward to the two Wednesdays every month that had been designated as ladies’ days—none of them were allowed to work, and every eligible croupier, footman, and waiter for the rest of London’s clubs flocked to the Tantalus to offer their services.

  Only women—not members, but those invited by a select group of ladies designated by Diane—were permitted through the doors. They dined and wagered and chatted without having to be exposed to the scandalous flock of Tantalus girls, while those same girls tended to leave en masse for Vauxhall Gardens or wherever chits such as they were could go. Throughout London the aristocrats complained of the poor service they received at their other clubs on those Wednesdays, since all the young lads deserted to serve at the Tantalus.

  For tonight all it meant for Emily was that Westfall wouldn’t be calling on her. She tho
ught she’d made it clear that he wasn’t to do so at any time, but after two days she remained uncertain over whether he would keep away. She knocked at the door again. Mr. Smith of the Helpful Men had said Jenny remained at home this evening, but that had been an hour or more ago.

  Finally the door opened, and light blue eyes beneath tightly coiffed blond hair looked out at her. “What’s amiss?” Jenny asked.

  “Oh. Nothing. I only wanted … you’re not occupied, are you?” None of the Tantalus girls had ever seen Jenny ask a man upstairs, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t done so. Jenny very nearly seemed able to disappear at will, after all.

  “Only with some reading.” Miss Martine backed away from the door. “Come in, my dear.”

  Emily entered the short hallway and closed the door behind her as Jenny vanished ahead of her into the small sitting room. “I truly didn’t mean to disturb you. I only wondered if you’d learned anything about Lord Westfall.”

  “You don’t give a lady much time, do you?” Jenny had seated herself before the hearth, a stack of newspapers three feet high on the floor beside her. As far as anyone knew, she had newspapers dating back ten years or more, all neatly organized in a small storage room together with maps and books and other bits and bobs that no one else could make any sense of.

  “I know. It’s just that I can’t shake the feeling that he’s not what he says he is. And that he’s after something.” He’s after me, she thought, but she still couldn’t be entirely certain that he was anything more than a liar about his poor vision. Feelings might point her in the correct direction, but she needed facts. And the sooner the better.

  “And yet you entertained him in your room a second time, did you not?” Jenny queried as she picked up a newspaper, opened it, and handed it up to Emily.

  “I did. And then after he began asking about my life and saying I could trust him, I told him to leave.”

  “That was a mistake, you know. Especially if you had suspicions about him.”