Page 25 of The Trouble with True Love

“One of my best friends, a man who has known me since we were boys at school, has questioned my discretion, accused me of betraying his trust, and struck me in the face. The latter action not only gave me a black eye, knocked me unconscious, and gave me a concussion, it also seems to have appalled my great-aunt, who has been chomping at the bit the past two days for the chance to give me a sound lecture on the subject.”

“The desire to lecture you is one your aunt no doubt experiences with tiresome regularity.”

“Either way, Miss Deverill, I’m finding it hard to care about how your decision to meddle affects you.”

“You meddled as well.”

“I was asked by my friend for my advice. I gave it. You can claim no such high ground. As Lady Truelove, I’m sure you adore offering your advice to all and sundry, but in this case, your advice was catastrophic for all concerned.”

She grimaced, fearing this episode might very well be a metaphor for her future as the famous advice columnist. Unless—

“Lord Galbraith,” she said abruptly, “do your friends often ask you for advice?”

He blinked, startled by the abrupt question. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “I suppose they do.”

“Why?”

He laughed a little, as if bemused. “I suppose because I’m a good listener? Or perhaps it’s because I have a knack for finding solutions to problems? I don’t know, really.”

He might not know, but she did, and suddenly, she also knew how she could persuade him to keep Lady Truelove’s identity a secret. The idea in her head was wild, downright mad, in fact. On the other hand, she seemed to be developing quite a talent of late for wild, mad ideas.

Her gaze slid to the stack of newspapers on her desk. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t have leverage—

“Miss Deverill?”

The prompt brought her attention back to him, and she lifted her hands in a gesture of seeming capitulation. “You’ve uncovered my secret, but I’m still not quite sure what you want from me.”

“What makes you think I want anything?” But even as he asked the question, she knew she was about to be offered a bargain. That boded well for her own crazy plan.

“Because you wouldn’t have come here otherwise,” she answered. “If your intent was to reveal Lady Truelove’s identity to the world, you’d simply have begun doing so. Warning me of what you are at present only thinking to do seems to serve no purpose. I can only conclude that you want something from me, in exchange for which you will keep my secret.”

“I applaud your perspicacity, Miss Deverill.”

She gestured to the chair opposite her own. “Perhaps we should sit down and discuss it, then?”

He frowned, looking understandably skeptical of this sudden show of amiability on her part, but when she sat down behind her desk, he took the offered chair opposite her. “There is very little to discuss. There is only what I require you to do.”

“And what is that?”

“Lionel is no longer speaking to me because of you. When I paid a call on him today, he refused to see me. I want you to go to him and tell him the truth. You will explain who you really are, what you did, and why you did it, and you will assure him that I did not betray his confidence in any way.”

It was bad enough that circumstances required her to trust Galbraith with her secret, but Clara knew she could not afford to trust the discretion of his friend. Nonetheless, she pretended to consider his demand. “If I tell your friend the truth,” she said, straightening the stack of newspapers on her desk as her mind raced to consider the ramifications of the idea rattling around in her head, “he’ll never be convinced.”

“He might, if you underscore the fact that you are sharing a piece of information that would damage your column’s success if it came out publicly. Lionel, you see, is rather susceptible to women in distress, especially those with big brown eyes, and he might soften enough that he’ll let me talk to him.”

“If I tell him the truth, I have no guarantee he will keep my secret.”

“True, but if you don’t tell him the truth, I definitely won’t keep your secret. What he does with the information,” Galbraith went on before she could reply, “I cannot predict. Nor do I care. Your choice is simple: you have a slim chance of keeping your columnist’s identity unknown, or you have no chance. You must decide which possibility you prefer.”

She left off fiddling with the newspapers, her mind made up. “I cannot do what you ask, Lord Galbraith. I do not know your friend, and I cannot afford to trust his discretion. But...”

She paused, taking a deep breath and shoving down any misgivings over what she was about to do. “But I would like to offer you an alternative proposition.”

Chapter 7

Rex couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He had her backed into a corner, and she wanted to negotiate? She had gumption, he’d give her that. “An alternative proposition? Is that a joke?”

“Not at all. You know my secret.” She paused, her gaze narrowing on him, a look he was coming to know well. “Though that is only because you goaded me into revealing it.”

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