Page 37 of To Tempt a Troubled Earl
Kit smiled, too, but it was a timely reminder of the reason Kit was there in the first place. What with all the dancing and the kissing and other forms of amusement at the breakfast table, it had almost slipped his mind.
“So this isn’t breakfast at all, but a last supper,” he replied and rested his palm along the length of Lando’s lean thigh, hoping it wouldn’t be for the last time.
“Of course it isn’t,” insisted Lando. “You are very well prepared. You have read every government document front to back and back to front pertaining to that shipping canal, and if you forget any detail regarding my land, then I’ll cover for you. Having spent a month at the site after the purchase, I am well acquainted with it. And before you start, I’ll do whatever it takes for you to walk away from this cleanly.” He wrapped an arm around Kit’s neck. “Now that I’ve found you, I have no intention of relinquishing you.”
Kit wasn’t ready to let go of their current playful mood. “Is that why you’re sitting on my lap? Pinning me down?”
“No.” With a naughty look, Lando wriggled his skinny backside up against Kit’s tender parts. “I’m sitting here because it’s by far the most comfortable seat around this table.”
It was on the tip of Kit’s tongue to confess that even if he did manage to walk away from the scheme unscathed, another obstacle blocked his path in the form of a tenacious Bow Street runner. But admitting to that would spoil this delightful breakfast and practically guarantee no more would be forthcoming. Kit despised his cowardice. He hated that he held his silence whilst Lando, proud and lonely Lando, had exposed his vulnerabilities to Kit so plainly and with such honesty. Harbouring this secret shamed him, yet he continued, nonetheless. Perhaps because the secret was shaming in itself.
“What if one of them has also visited the site?” he asked instead.
Lando seemed unperturbed. “Firstly, there has not been sufficient time. But even if they have sent an agent there, he will merely confirm that the Earl of Rossingley is indeed the owner of a busy mill next to a busy shipping route. If interviewed, my man in charge up there would truthfully report that I also own the vast swathe of land surrounding it. And, as I explained to our potential business partners, our venture is not widely known, so it would come as no surprise if my man claimed no knowledge of it.”
“What about your relationship with Hamilton? And the plantation? What if they enquire about that at the mill, and your workers admit they don’t know of him?”
“Documents pertaining to my relationship with the Hamilton’s South Carolina cotton plantation are already in Cobham, Gartside, and Sir Richard’s hands. They are an exact copy of the real ones I have with an entirely different cotton plantation in Savannah, owned by a man named Hamilton. Except, the fake ones are elaborated on to include the new proposals.”
None of this was news to Kit, but hearing it again was reassuring. “What if someone at White’s asks me if I’m acquainted with Mr so-and-so from the ministry? And plenty of the chaps there will know the Foreign Secretary. He may even be a member himself.”
“They won’t,” said Lando swiftly. “Cobham has secured one of the private dining rooms. We shall not be disturbed.” He gave a quick smile. “It will all seem terribly secretive and important to the regulars. Which will impress Gartside all the more. And with a bit of luck, after the favourable impression you made on him at Lady Chalfont’s, he may not be far from making his move.”
That favourable impression had almost blown Kit’s cover. The man was a braggart and a drunk. As they’d played a few hands of loo, Gartside had tossed coins around like cheap enamel buttons, all the while boasting to Kit about someone else’s daughter he’d taken a fancy to. Kit had had to smile and laugh in all the right places while digging his nails into his thighs and grinding his teeth. Cheating Gartside out of a handful of pennies and a gilt snuffbox had been small comfort.
“The sooner it comes, the better,” he groused. “Every fresh occasion we meet brings me closer to wiping that smug expression from his hoggish, inbred, lubberly face.”
With a snort, Lando wrapped his fingers around Kit’s clenched fist. “I’m not sure His Majesty’s Chief Customs Officer of the North would be quite so vulgar about a distinguished baronet.”
“I bet he would if he had a sister or a daughter and spent five minutes with that bastard.”
Bringing their joined hands to his mouth, Lando trailed his tongue across Kit’s knuckles and gazed at him through his long, pale lashes. “You’re awfully masterful when you’re in a stew. I should endeavour to rile you up into one more often.”
Kit’s prick stirred, and he gave Lando a pinch. “Let a man have a good breakfast first.”
It was hard to believe now that the playful man curled in his lap was the same grim nobleman who’d looked down his nose at him from astride that walloping great horse. Kit had heard of melancholia, of course, and was in no doubt Lando suffered from it. But whatever ailment afflicted him seemed like the blue devils and then something more added to it. It was almost as if he switched and became a different character altogether. Sometimes he was the distinguished earl and at other precious times, like now, simply Lando, a dear man in desperate need of affection and wanting nothing more than to bask in the warm touch of another.
Kit was willing to oblige with that too. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if there was anything he wouldn’t do for this man.
He affected not to notice when Lando reached for a second bread roll.
As he slathered it in honey, Lando said, “You will be pleased to hear that when we meet later today, I intend to give the gentlemen a deadline of one week to place their bids.”
“Good. My heart can’t take the stress much longer.”
And then what? Would Lando disappear back to Rossingley? And Kit back to his lodgings? Presuming, of course, he made it out of this hare-brained scheme without being arrested. And if Kit achieved that feat of survival, then he still had the problem of Clark chasing his tail.
But one thing was certain. If Kit did succeed in escaping with his head and shoulders intact, then he’d need to find new lodgings. Which meant one more trip back to Sindell Street to collect what few belongings remained and plan his future in pastures new. Perhaps Lando would help him find another secretarial post with a country gentleman as quietly amenable as Sir Brandon. One who wouldn’t ask too many questions.
*
LANDO SUSPECTED THATvisiting the famously exclusive White’s as a guest of the eleventh Earl of Rossingley would be daunting if Kit hadn’t already experienced the opulence of Lando’s Grosvenor Street residence and the unrivalled magnificence of the Rossingley estate. As it was, even alongside Lando, he seemed trepidatious. For the wealthy gentlemen of thetonsuch as himself, whose families had been members since it opened its doors over a century earlier, climbing the steps of the glamorous bow-fronted club on St James was much akin to paying a visit to a neighbouring nobleman and finding all one’s old school chums already there.
As a member of staff fawned over Lando whilst divesting them of their coats and hats, he noticed Kit trying not to stare. The place was a maze of plush drawing rooms draped in fine upholstery, flocked wallpaper, and well-heeled gentlemen. The cheery clatter of dining came from one direction, the low hum of dice and card games from another. Two or three patrons stopped to exchange words with Lando, hopefully giving Kit the impression he’d been well-liked before his self-imposed exile. Aware of the scrutiny of curious stares, he was glad of Kit’s excursion to his tailor, even if it did mean the poor man endured a daily tussle with Jasper to get the tight coat across his broad shoulders.
They were the last of the party to arrive, and Lando had a suspicion the other gentlemen might have engineered it so, as already, they were seated with drinks. From Gartside’s ruddy complexion, it was not his first.
After despatching greetings, Lord Cobham, accompanied by his solemn man of business, lost no time getting the meeting underway.
