3
Dante looked up from the newspaper he was reading when Hunt walked into the private dining room on the upper floor of the Rose Room.
“What are you doing here? I thought dragging me away from domestic bliss was necessary because you were on an assignment for Sir Phillip.” Hunt headed to the sideboard and poured coffee, then loaded up his plate with breakfast items.
“I am on assignment. This afternoon I am cursed with attending a garden party and since I’m assuming there will be no more than a few dainty edibles available I thought to fill up on real food first.”
Hunt sat and shook out his napkin. “A garden party? It appears I was indeed dragged away from home for no reason. What sort of assignment is this?”
Even though they were alone in the dining room, Dante lowered his voice. “Matters that the Crown prefer not to be known have been passed along to Germany. The German Ambassador himself is under suspicion. Since there is reason to speculate that it is at social events where he gathers his information, we are attending as many as we can.”
“We?” Hunt’s brows rose.
Dante shrugged, attempting to make it appear that he was unconcerned about the assignment and that there was a woman involved. Knowing Hunt, he would not let the matter go until he was fully cognizant of the facts. “I am working with a woman who is well known and received by Polite Society and the recipient of numerous ton invitations. She is my entrance to the various events.”
“Sir Phillip is using a debutante on such a delicate matter?”
“Not precisely.”
Hunt leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, his food forgotten as he examined his youngest brother with something akin to delight and curiosity. Apparently Dante had not done a good enough job of hiding his angst with the situation. “Then tell me, brother. Who is this woman?”
“Miss Lydia Sanford, Viscount Sterling’s daughter, apparently does work for Sir Phillip, also. She is beyond the debutante age. I would guess she is close to her mid- twenties.”
“Surprising. Both the fact that she is from the Upper Crust, and a female. She must be an unusual woman.”
Dante sighed and ran his palm down his face. “She speaks, writes, and reads seven languages. English, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, French and Arabic.”
Hunt studied him with his jaw slack. He shook himself and smiled. “Ugly as sin, I assume. A body not worth looking at?”
“Young, beautiful and possessing a very distractible body.”
His brother burst into gales of laughter. “Good luck on this one.”
Despite Dante’s scowl, his ass of a brother continued to laugh, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, shaking his head.
“Have I ever told you how happy it makes me to be such a source of amusement for you?”
Driscoll and Amelia entered the room, hands joined as if they were afraid of losing each other on the short walk from their carriage to the dining room. “What’s so funny?” Driscoll said.
Dante stood and pushed his chair in. “Hunt, why don’t you fill them in, since you find it so entertaining, and I’ll go pick up Miss Sanford?”
Amelia looked at Hunt as she sat. “Who is Miss Sanford?”
Indeed, who was Miss Sanford? As Dante made his way downstairs and outside to the carriage—his, not Hunt’s—he pondered that question. Aside from exhibiting quite a wallop, she was everything he abhorred in a woman. Arrogant, condescending, confident, and annoying.
If he’d been attributing those faults to a man, it would make sense, and actually make said man appealing to the ladies. However, Miss Sanford was not a man, and those faults did not sit well on a woman. At least not on a woman he’d ever dealt with before. He’d always favored women who were experienced in the bedroom, enjoyed flirting and dalliances, and were aware of how the game was played between a man and a woman who planned for no commitment.
He doubted the haughty Miss Sanford had ever made it anywhere near a bed, except her own. Dressed in a nightgown up to her neck and down to her wrists, with a white ruffled cap on her head. He shuddered at the image.
As the carriage made its way from the club to Miss Sanford’s townhouse, Dante had time to go over the situation. The hours he’d spent the night before doing the same thing had not settled him.
He had no idea how to deal with a female partner, how to pretend a courtship with a true lady, and what the devil one did at these ton events.
He climbed from the carriage, adjusted his jacket, and took the steps to the front door two at a time. He dropped the knocker, and the door was opened by a man fashionably dressed for the prior century. The butler wore white knickers, buckled shoes, a deep blue jacket and a wig. He bowed. “Good afternoon, Mr. Rose. Miss Sanford awaits you in the drawing room.”
The viscount’s home was to be admired. Nothing showy or ostentatious. All the wall coverings, floor coverings and furniture were of excellent taste. The surroundings somehow reflected Miss Sanford, who stood in the center of the drawing room as he entered, offering him a bright smile. No sense of irritation from the liberties he’d taken the last time they were together.
Miss Sanford was apparently not of the grudge-holding female class. A rarity to be sure. He’d been subjected to objects hurled at his head, tears, recriminations, threats, and other dramatics which generally ended when he presented the wronged woman with an expensive piece of jewelry.