The comment drew a laugh, but it quickly gave way to a quizzical huff. “Yes, yes, but she is the devilish side of you that exists only on paper. The real you is too carefully composed to do anything rash.”
Am I?
“You wouldn’t want to do anything risky that might expose your secret,” went on her sister. “Playing sleuth with Lord Davenport could be dangerous. Whatever he is up to is no concern of yours.”
“But I can’t help being curious,” murmured Anna.
“You know what they say—curiosity killed the cat,” pointed out Caro.
“Cats have nine lives,” she countered, feeling rather pleased with her cleverness. “Ha, ha, ha.”
“That may be so, but racy romance novelists have only one,” shot back her sister. “And trust me, just a small slip could prove mortal to your reputation.”
“Perhaps I don’t care about my reputation,” muttered Anna.
“You wouldn’t be able to write any more books.”
The quill seemed to stir against the blotter, adding its own flutter of warning.
Anna didn’t wish to confess her fears that her inspiration may have gone missing for good, so instead she merely muttered, “Hell’s bells, since when have you become the Voice of Reason?”
“Now that I’ve turned the age to be admitted into the adult world, perhaps I’ve decided that certain excesses of emotion ought to be left in the schoolroom.”
She sighed. “You are right, of course, to counsel caution. I won’t do anything rash. However, don’t become too much of a stick-in-the-mud.”
“I doubt there is any danger of that happening. Exercising restraint is deucedly difficult.” Caro cracked her knuckles and began pacing in front of the hearth. “I swear, I was sorely tempted to punch Lord McClellan in the nose this morning.”
“Talk about slaying one’s reputation in one fell swoop,” said Anna dryly. “What did he do to provoke your ire?”
“He saw me leaving the library with the volume of Robert Burns’s poetry as well as the Shakespeare play and a book of the Bard’s sonnets—and made a very mocking comment about simpering schoolgirls and their silly infatuation with poetry and true love.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t cram the books down his throat, along with making him eat his words.”
“I was sorely tempted,” grumbled Caro.
“I’m very glad to hear that you haven’t become too staid in your old age,” said Anna.
“I fear there’s little chance of that.” Her sister grinned. “As Josette says, a lady should be a little dangerous.”
The word stirred an uncomfortable prickling in her fingertips. “Which reminds me that I had better get back to work on Emmalina’s adventures, else I really will be in peril of missing my deadline.”
“I, too, plan to spend the rest of the day writing,” said Caro defiantly. “A satirical ode about gentlemen who have no more sense of romance in their soul than a garden slug.”
Chapter Eight
The unrelenting rain continued, keeping the guests cooped up indoors for the rest of the day. Cards, billiards, and backgammon provided diversion for the gentlemen, while reading, letter writing, and playing the pianoforte kept the ladies occupied. By suppertime, however, everyone seemed a little restless.
“Is it my imagination,” murmured Caro, as she and Anna entered the drawing room with their mother, “or is the champagne flowing a little faster tonight?”
“Given the dreary wetness outside, Lord Dunbar does appear anxious to add a bit of sparkle to the evening’s proceedings,” answered Anna.
Caro repressed a laugh as the elderly Scottish baron became a trifle too animated and nearly spilled his wine down the ample cleavage of Lady Hohenzugger, the older and stouter of the two German nobles. “Things are already getting more than a little effervescent.”
“Don’t giggle, girls,” commanded their mother in a low voice. “It’s most unbecoming.”
“Yes, Mama,” answered Anna.
Lady Trumbull was distracted from further chiding by the approach of Prince Gunther and Colonel Polianov, the Russian attaché. In contrast to the prince’s fair-haired Nordic good looks, Polianov was dark—dark hair, dark eyes, dark scowl twisting his handsome mouth.