She shrugged and sat to inspect her hem.
“Can I help?”
Temperance lifted her head, expecting to see a maid, but a lady had entered the room. She was tall and pale, her posture as correct as a queen’s, and her hair was a lovely shade of light red. She wore a splendid gown—a muted gray-green, overembroidered in silver thread.
Temperance blinked.
The woman’s face became bland. “I don’t mean to intrude….”
“Oh, no,” Temperance said hastily. “It’s just that I was expecting a maid or… or… well, not a lady in any case. My hem is torn.”
The woman wrinkled her straight nose. “I hate when that happens.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Lady Kitchen is having an attack of hysterics or nerves I believe. No doubt that’s where all the maids have gone to.”
“Oh.” Temperance glanced again at the black ruffle on her hem. It sagged quite sadly.
But the lady was kneeling before her now, her green and silver skirts spread about her like a shining cloud.
“Oh, please don’t,” Temperance said instinctively. This woman was obviously aristocracy. What would she do if she knew Temperance was the daughter of a beer brewer?
“It’s all right,” the lady said quietly. She hadn’t taken offense at Temperance’s outburst. “I’ve got a few pins….”
Deftly she flipped the hem up, pinned the ruffle in place, and flipped it back again. The pins didn’t even show.
“Goodness! You do that so well,” Temperance exclaimed.
The lady rose and smiled shyly. “I’ve had practice. Ladies should stick together at these social events, don’t you think?”
Temperance smiled in return, feeling confident for the first time since receiving Lord Caire’s invitation. “You’re so kind. Thank you. I wonder—”
The door burst open and several ladies entered, maids fluttering about them. Apparently it was Lady Kitchen and her hysterics. In the confusion, Temperance was separated from her new friend, and by the time she made the hall outside the ladies’ retiring room, the other woman was nowhere to be seen.
Still Temperance returned to Lord Caire with a lighter step, having been warmed by the stranger’s kindness. She found him leaning against a wall, surveying the company with a cynical gaze.
He straighten when he saw her. “Better?”
She beamed. “Yes, quite.”
His lips curved in answer. “Then let’s find your prey.”
They strolled to the far end of the room where gilded chairs had been placed in rows facing a beautifully painted piano. No one had yet taken a seat. Lord Caire led her to a trio of gentlemen.
“Caire.” A cadaverously thin gentleman in a white, full-bottomed wig nodded as they neared. “I had not thought this your type of entertainment.”
“Ah, but my tastes are diverse.” Lord Caire’s lips curled. “May I introduce Mrs. Dews? Mrs. Dews, this is Sir Henry Easton.”
“Sir.” Temperance made her best curtsy as the older gentleman bowed.
“And these are Captain Christopher Lambert and Mr. Godric St. John. Gentlemen, Mrs. Dews, along with her brother, Mr. Winter Makepeace, runs the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children in the East End, a most Christian and charitable institution.”
“Indeed?” Sir Henry raised bushy eyebrows, looking at her in interest. Captain Lambert had also turned his gaze to her. In contrast, Mr. St. John, a tall man in a gray wig, had cocked an eyebrow over half-moon spectacles at Lord Caire.
For a moment, Temperance wondered what the connection was between Lord Caire and Mr. St. John.
Then Sir Henry asked, “How many foundlings does your institution house, Mrs. Dews?”
Temperance smiled her most charming smile, intent on catching one of these fine gentlemen for the sake of the home.
“WHAT ARE YOU about, Caire?” St. John hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
Lazarus kept his eyes on his little martyr as she used all of her Christian wiles to seduce Lambert and Easton into supporting her foundling home. “I have no idea to what you refer.”
St. John snorted softly and half turned so as to be heard only by Lazarus. “She’s obviously as respectable as you claim, which means that you’re either using her for some ends of your own or your debauchery has descended to the rape of innocents.”
“You hurt me, sir,” Lazarus drawled, placing his fingertips over his heart. He knew he looked ironic—jaded, even—but oddly, inside his chest, he did feel a twinge of something that might’ve been hurt.
St. John had leaned close to whisper, “What do you want from her?”
Lazarus narrowed his eyes. “Why? Will you play her gallant knight and steal her away from my dastardly arms?”
St. John cocked his head, his normally mild gray eyes sharpened to granite. “If need be.”
“Think you that I’d truly allow you to take from me something I wanted?”
“You talk of Mrs. Dews as if she’s a plaything.” St. John’s expression had turned analytical. “Would you break her in a fit of spoiled temper?”
Lazarus smiled thinly. “If I wanted.”
“Come,” St. John murmured. “You are not so lost to humanity as you sometimes like to play.”
“Aren’t I?”
Lazarus no longer smiled. He glanced at Mrs. Dews, discussing her charity home with earnest enthusiasm. Had she made the slightest sign of acquiescence in the carriage, she might at this moment be accepting his cock into her sweet saintly mouth. Wasn’t the debauchery of a saint the work of a devil? He looked back at St. John, the only man in this world who he might call a friend. The room had grown damnably hot, and his shoulder sent sharp shards of pain down his arm.
“A word to the wise: make no wagers on my humanity.”
St. John arched an eyebrow. “I’ll not sit back and watch you hurt an innocent. I will take her away from you if I think she needs my help.”
The anger shot through him so quickly Lazarus had bared his teeth before he realized.
St. John must’ve seen the murder in his eyes. He actually stepped back. “Caire?”
“Don’t,” Lazarus hissed. “Not even in jest, St. John. Mind your own lady. Mrs. Dews is mine to do with as I please.”
The other man’s glance flicked between him and Mrs. Dews. “And does she have no say in this matter?”
“No,” Lazarus growled, aware that he sounded like a dog standing guard over a bone.
St. John raised his eyebrows. “Does she know your intent?”
“She will.” And Lazarus turned and caught Mrs. Dews’s arm, interrupting her in midspeech. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I wish to find Mrs. Dews the best seat possible.”
“Of course,” Sir Henry murmured, but Lazarus was already steering her away from the others.
“What are you about?” Mrs. Dews looked none too pleased with him. “I had just begun discussing the amount of fresh vegetables we buy every month for the home.”
“A most interesting topic, I have no doubt.” He needed to sit down, to rest a bit. Damn the wound in his shoulder.
Her brows knit. “Was I boring them? Is that why you intervened?”
His mouth twitched in amusement. “No. They seemed more than happy to listen to you lecture them on clothing and feeding urchins for the rest of the night.”
“Humph. Then why did you take me away?”
“Because ’tis always better to leave the buyer wanting,” he whispered into the dark hair over her ear. The silly red ribbon twined in and out of the glossy locks, and for a wild moment, he wanted to tug it free. To watch as her hair came tumbling down about her shoulders.
She turned and looked up, so close he could see the flecks of gold in her light brown eyes. “And have you sold very many things, Lord Caire?”
She was teasing him, this proper Christian woman. Did she have no fear of him? Did she not sense the darkness that bubbled deep within him?
“Not things so much as… ideas,” he drawled.
She cocked her head, those gilded eyes curious. “You’ve sold ideas?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he said as he guided her toward two chairs at the end of a row near the front. “I belong to a number of philosophical and scientific societies.” He seated her and flicked apart the skirts of his coat to sit beside her. “When one argues a point, one is in effect selling it to the opposition, if you understand me.”
He didn’t mention the other type of “selling” he did—the luring of sexual partners into performing actions they would in other circumstances never contemplate.
“I think I comprehend your meaning.” Mrs. Dews’s eyes lit with amusement. “I confess, I’d not seen you in the role of idea merchant, Lord Caire. Is that what you do with your days? Argue with other learned gentlemen?”
“And translate various Greek and Latin manuscripts.”
“Such as?”
“Poetry, mostly.” He glanced at her. Did she really find this interesting?
But her golden eyes sparkled as she cocked her head. “You write poetry?”
“I translate it—quite different.”
“Actually, I would think it somewhat similar.”
“How so?”
She shrugged. “Don’t poets have to worry over meter, rhyme, and the proper words?”
“So I’m told.”
She looked at him and smiled, making him catch his breath. “I would think the translator would have to worry over those things as well.”
He stared. How did she know, this simple woman from another walk of life entirely? How had she with one sentence articulated the passion he found in his translations? “I suppose you have a point.”
“You hide a poet’s soul well,” she said. “I would never have guessed it.”
She was definitely teasing him now.
“Ah.” He stretched his long legs before him. “But then there’s quite a lot you don’t know about me, Mrs. Dews.”
“Is there?” Her gaze skipped over his shoulder, and he knew she looked at his mother in conversation with Lady Beckinhall in the corner. “Such as?”
“I have an unnatural fondness for marzipan sweetmeats.”
He felt more than heard her giggle, and the small, innocent sound sent a frisson of warmth through him. She hid her emotions so well usually, even the joyous ones.
“I haven’t had marzipan sweetmeats in ages,” she murmured.
He had a sudden urge to buy her a boxful just to watch her eat them. Her red lips would become sprinkled with the sugar and she’d have to lick them clean. His groin tightened at just the thought.
“Tell me something else about yourself. Something true.” She watched him, those pale brown eyes mysterious. “Where were you born?”
“Shropshire.” He looked away, watching as his mother made some comment to another lady. The jewels in her white hair sparkled as she tilted her head. “My family’s seat is near Shrewsbury. I was born at Caire House, our ancestral home. I’m told that I was a puling, weakly babe, and my father sent me away to the wet nurse with little hope that I would live out the sennight.”
“It sounds as if your parents were worried for you.”
“No,” he said flatly, the knowledge as old as his bones. “I stayed with my nurse for five years, and in that time, my parents saw me only once a year, on Easter day. I remember because my father used to scare me witless.”
He had no idea why he told her this; it hardly showed him in a heroic light.
“And your mother?” she asked softly.
He glanced at her curiously. “She accompanied my father, of course.”
