Page 21 of To Tempt a Troubled Earl
“We’ll be running in the same circles soon, lordy. You mark my words.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Tommy’s keen gaze raked over Lando’s beautifully cut travelling attire, his foxy features turning lascivious. “You look good enough to eat.”
A fortnight earlier, Lando would have been sorely tempted. “At risk of disappointing you, on this occasion you may have to…ah…dine elsewhere. I am here with a very different sort of proposition, I’m afraid. Your purse will approve, even if—” He flicked his eyes down to Tommy’s nether regions. “—other parts of you are chagrined.”
Tommy grinned, uncaring. He was never short on bedfellows. “So you’ve finally taken Robert’s advice and found something to occupy your time?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ve been worried about you, lordy. You’ve been so lonely.”
Lonely? How inadequate that one word always sounded. As if Lando didn’t know his own bed.
“Yes, I have.”
“Is the new project a fella? It is, isn’t it?” Tommy’s eyes gleamed. “The lucky bugger. That’s what’s got you looking so well.”
Black curls escaping from a velvet ribbon danced before Lando’s eyes. Curls smelling of country air and sweet caramel. Lando shook the image away. A basic bodily need, that was all Mr Angel was filling. “No, although I have found myself a temporary distraction.”
A language Tommy understood very well.
“More importantly,” Lando continued, “I have a job for you, Tommy. One I think you’re going to enjoy very much, and I’ll pay you handsomely. Ah…how’s your American accent?”
Affecting a slouch, Tommy slapped his thigh and then pulled at the kerchief loosely tied around his neck. “Pretty darned good, Lord Rossingley,” he boomed in the tones of a man thrice his size. Despite the buckle heels, the tricorn, and one cheek thick with rouge and the other as pale as nature intended, the transformation was uncanny. “Pretty darned good.”
*
“I TRUST OURhouseguest is being well looked after by Jasper?”
“They haven’t descended to fisticuffs yet, if that’s what you mean,” answered Pritchard drily.
Seated at his dressing table in the grey banyan so admired by Angel, Lando examined his reflection and found it satisfactory. Fine fettle indeed. Over by the chest, Pritchard laid out his attire for the evening.
“And what does Jasper have to report?” Lando asked.
“That Mr Angel looks very fetching in his new wool tailcoat,” answered Pritchard. “He assures me it will be to your liking. As will the peach figured silk waistcoat.”
“You know that’s not what I mean, though I’m thrilled to hear it.” Idly, Lando riffled through a box of cravat pins. “They were gone for five hours, and Mr Angel is perfectly proportioned. My efficient tailor would have completed the job in under three.”
“They ran another errand afterwards,” admitted Pritchard. “But Jasper didn’t want you to worry yourself, my lord. Not now you are quite well.”
Through the mirror, Lando gave him a look of disdain. “I’m a thirty-four-year-old earl, Pritchard. I do not need coddling.” Sometimes, Lando wondered whether he was actually in charge of anything. “Has it not occurred to Jasper that Mr Angel’s wellbeing might contribute to my own current state of health? What is this terrible thing he thought he might need to hide from me?”
“Mr Angel’s abode,” said Pritchard shortly. “It’s not the most salubrious.”
“Silly me. I’d been assuming he resided in a palace. Where is it?”
“Sindell Street, my lord. But a stone toss from St Giles.” Pritchard’s tone suggested a cave might have been better. Throwing Lando a dark look and pausing for dramatic effect, he lowered his voice. “But there’s more.”
“Out with it then, man. Don’t worry. I shan’t have a fit of the vapours.”
“A boy is watching his lodgings. He’s in the pay of a Bow Street runner to report when Mr Angel is back in town. Jasper wagers there’s a beggar in the runner’s employ too.”
“And may I enquire how Jasper extracted that information from the boy?”
“Painfully, I believe. But, alas, not enough to scare him off. The boy is being rewarded too well. Jasper is of the belief he will continue to report Mr Angel’s comings and goings.”
