“Here we are then,” she said in the overly bright tones that people used in a sickroom. “I have brought a small dish of poached trout in cream sauce and fresh asparagus, as well as a few strawberries.”
“Yes, thank you,” Talia softly interrupted, her stomach rebelling at the smell of fish.
Perhaps sensing Talia’s distress, Hannah moved toward the low cherrywood table near the white marble fireplace.
“I’ll just leave it here, shall I?”
Talia managed a weak smile of gratitude. “Did you locate my father?”
“No. It is…” Hannah broke off her words, gnawing on her bottom lip. “What?”
“I was told that Mr. Dobson has not been seen since he left the church.”
Talia shrugged. Her father was stubborn enough to search for Harry Richardson until hell froze over.
“I see.”
Hannah cleared her throat. “No doubt he will soon be returning.”
“No doubt he will,” a dark, sinfully dangerous voice drawled from the open doorway. “Mr. Dobson is rather like a cockroach that scuttles about the shadows and is impossible to be rid of.”
Talia went rigid with horror, as she easily recognized the voice. How could she not? As much as it might embarrass her to admit, there was no denying that she had used her position among the shadows to spy upon the Earl of Ashcombe like a lovelorn schoolgirl.
He had fascinated her with his golden beauty and predatory grace. He was like a cougar she had seen illustrated in a book. Sleek and elegantly lethal.
And of course, his aloof manner of treating society with barely concealed disdain had pleased her battered pride. He obviously had no more regard for the frivolous fools than Talia did.
Now, however, it was not breathless excitement she felt as she turned to regard the stunningly handsome face and the frigid silver gaze.
Instead it was a chill of foreboding that trickled down her spine.
CHAPTER THREE
GABRIEL, THE SIXTH Earl of Ashcombe, made no apology for being a cynical bastard.
His cynicism had been hard earned.
After inheriting his father’s title at the tender age of eighteen, he had shouldered the burdens of several vast estates, hundreds of servants and a mother who refused to leave her bed for weeks at a time.
And then there was Harry.
Six years younger than Gabriel, his brother had always been outrageously spoiled by Lady Ashcombe. Gabriel had done what he could to mitigate the damage, but he wa
s often away at school, and when he did return to Carrick Park, his ancestral home in Devonshire, he’d been expected to devote his time to his father, learning the complex duties of being an earl.
As a result, Harry had been allowed to indulge his worst impulses. He’d been sent down from school for cheating on his exams, he’d gambled away his generous allowance, and he had fought at least two duels. All before traveling to London.
Since his arrival in the city, his wild excesses had become even worse. Gambling and whoring and risking his neck on every ludicrous dare that might be uttered in his hearing.
Gabriel had tried to impose a few limitations, only to be constantly undermined by his mother. In desperation he’d at last warned the countess that he would have her beloved Harry banished to Carrick Park if the boy didn’t learn to live within his allowance.
Christ. He had suspected that Harry would plead, lie and even cheat if necessary to avoid being forced from London, but it had never occurred to him that he would become engaged to an upstart female who could only bring shame to the family.
His mother, of course, had taken to her bed with the vapors, demanding that Gabriel do something to rescue her darling son from the clutches of the evil Dobson chit. Gabriel, however, had grimly refused to interfere. If his brother wanted to toss away his future by wedding a female who was a social embarrassment—and worse, related to Silas Dobson—then Gabriel washed his hands of him.
A grim smile touched his lips as he stepped into the private salon. He should have known Harry would find a means of saving his own damned hide while leaving Gabriel to clean up his mess.
Shrouded in the icy composure he had honed over the years, he cast a quick glance around the room, absently noting a plump female with brown hair before turning his attention to the female perched on the window seat.