The Lady Chosen (Bastion Club 1)

She had to suppress a too-revealing smile when Trentham, despite himself, was drawn in, becoming engaged with Mr. Hunt in a discussion of suppression orders as pertaining to the popular press. She stood by his side and presided over the group, ensuring the talk never flagged. Lady Holland drifted up, paused beside her, then nodded and met her eye.

“You have quite a talent, my dear.” She patted Leonora’s arm, her gaze sliding briefly to Trentham, then archly back to Leonora before she moved on.

A talent for what? Leonora wondered. Keeping a wolf at bay?

Guests had started leaving before the discussions waned. The group broke up reluctantly, the gentlemen drifting off to find their wives.

When she and Trentham once more stood alone, he looked at her. His lips slowly set, his eyes hardened, glinted.

She arched a brow, then turned toward where Mildred and Gertie stood waiting. “Don’t be a hypocrite—you enjoyed it.”

She wasn’t sure, but she thought he growled. She didn’t need to look to know he prowled at her heels as she crossed the room to her aunts.

He behaved, if not with joyous charm, then at least with perfect civility, escorting them down the stairs and out to their waiting carriage.

Tristan handed her aunts up, then turned to her. Deliberately stepping between her and the carriage, he took her hand, met her eyes.

“Don’t think to repeat that exercise tomorrow.”

He shifted and handed her to the carriage door.

One foot on the step, she met his gaze, and arched a brow. Even in the dimness, he recognized the challenge.

“You chose the field—I get to choose the weapons.”

She inclined her head serenely, then ducked and entered the carriage.

He closed the door with care—and a certain deliberation.

Chapter Eleven

Over breakfast the next morning, Leonora considered her social calendar; the evenings were now much fuller than they had been three days ago.

“You choose,” Mildred had told her as she’d descended from the carriage last night.

Munching her toast, Leonora weighed the possibilities. Although the Season proper was some weeks distant, there were two balls that evening to which they’d been invited. The major event was the ball at Colchester House in Mayfair, the more minor and assuredly less formal, a ball at the Masseys’ house in Chelsea.

Trentham would expect her to attend the Colchester affair; he’d wait for her to appear there, as he had last night at Lady Holland’s.

Pushing away from the table, Leonora rose and headed for the parlor to dash off a note to Mildred and Gertie that she fancied visiting the Masseys that evening.

Sitting at her escritoire, she wrote the brief note, inscribed her aunts’ names, then rang for a footman. It was her hope that, in this instance, absence would make the heart grow less fond; quite aside from the fact her nonappearance at Colchester House would annoy Trentham, there was also the definite possibility that, if left alone in such an arena, he might find his eye drawn to some other lady, perhaps even become distracted with one of Daphne’s ilk…

Inwardly frowning, she looked up as the footman entered, and handed over the note for delivery.

That done, she sat back and determinedly turned her mind to more serious matters. Given her stubborn refusal of his suit, she was perhaps naive in thinking Trentham would continue to aid her in the matter of Montgomery Mountford, yet when she tried to imagine him losing interest, removing the men he had watching the house, she couldn’t. Regardless of their personal interactions, she knew he wouldn’t leave her to deal with Mountford alone.

Indeed, in light of what she’d learned of his character, the notion seemed laughable.

They would remain in undeclared partnership until the riddle of Mountford was solved; it therefore behooved her to push as hard as she could on that front. Keeping clear of Trentham’s snares while dealing with him on a daily basis would not be easy; prolonging the danger was senseless.

She couldn’t expect any answers to her letters for at least a few days more. So what else could she do?

Trentham’s suggestion that Cedric’s work was most likely Mountford’s target had struck a chord. Besides Cedric’s letters, the workshop had contained more than twenty ledgers and journals. She’d brought them up to the parlor and stacked them in a corner. Eyeing them, she recalled her late cousin’s fine, faded, cramped writing.

Rising, she went upstairs and inspected Cedric’s bedroom. It was inches deep in dust and strewn with cobwebs. She set the maids the task of cleaning the room; she’d search it tomorrow. For today…she descended to the parlor and settled to work through the journals.

By the time evening arrived, she’d uncovered nothing more exciting than the recipe for a concoction to remove stains from porcelain; it was difficult to believe Mountford and his mysterious foreigner were interested in that. Setting aside the ledgers, she went upstairs to change.