Page 81 of Rakes & Reticules
“Then you have a genuine rival?”
“I don’t know. Amelia thinks the gentleman stuck the note in her reticule by mistake. She thinks the fellow believed the reticule belonged to another young lady. Will you ask around for me? Try to be discreet about it.”
“Let me see the note.”
Callum slipped it out of the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to his brother. “Recognize anything in it?”
“No, not a clue. Why don’t you show it to Rosie? She’s awfully sharp about these things. Women have a way of noticing subtleties in a man’s behavior. Anyway, she ought to be told since it involves her niece.”
“I suppose. Ask the gentlemen first. I’ll take it to Rosie if none of them admit to writing it.”
He left his brother and went off to mingle with his guests. But as he strolled from one circle of friends to another, he noticed Dorothea in a corner talking to one of his long-time friends, Lord Pennington. At first, he thought nothing of it until Pennington looked around furtively and then slipped out of the parlor.
When Callum returned his gaze to Dorothea, she had a beady look in her eyes and a smirk on her lips.
Gad, the girl was up to something.
He trusted Pennington, but had absolutely no faith in what Dorothea might have told him. Was the girl plotting something against Amelia?
He extricated himself from his guests, irritated it had taken him several minutes to do so, and strode to the library.
Amelia was a beautiful girl.
What poison had Dorothea been whispering in Pennington’s ear?
“What are you doing in here?” Callum tried to stifle his anger when he found his friend leaning over Amelia as though curious about what she was reading.
His lips were far too close to Amelia’s lovely neck.
Amelia, of course, seemed completely unaware of Pennington’s intentions.
“Ah, Marston.” He straightened immediately and stepped away from her. “Nothing untoward, I assure you. All quite innocent. I was merely curious about what Lady Amelia found so fascinating in that book.”
“All well and good, but why are you in my library in the first place? Everyone is in the parlor.”
Pennington held out his hands in a supplicating gesture. “Are your guests not allowed to explore the house for themselves? Or slip away to read as Lady Amelia is doing?”
“She is reading. I’m just not sure what you are doing here.” Callum’s friendship with Pennington went back to their days at Eton, so he knew the man rather well. He was a decent fellow, but also a bit of a scoundrel who often boasted of his prowess with women. Just the sort Dorothea would seek to trick into...he knew the vixen had filled Pennington’s head with lies about Amelia.
And Pennington was just puffed up enough to believe Amelia was hoping for an assignation with him.
Callum wanted to flatten the man.
He would if Pennington dared lay a hand on Amelia.
Amelia looked up from her book and now listened to their exchange with interest.
Pennington cleared his throat. “Honestly, Marston. You are misreading the situation entirely.”
“Am I?”
Pennington nodded. “What did you think I meant to do?”
Callum folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t know. What did Lady Dorothea suggest you do?”
His friend chuckled. “Ah, that. You noticed our exchange, did you? If you must know, she made some absurd claim that Lady Amelia was infatuated with me and hoped I would meet her for a...um, rather spicy romantic interlude.”
Amelia’s eyes rounded in surprise. “Here? In the library? With you, of all people? Indeed, what an absurd notion. Are you serious?”
