Chapter Eleven #2
sat back down. Reddy, however, remained standing until Mrs. Keyes had guided me over to the seat across from him, then he
moved to push my chair in. He grinned broadly at Mrs. Keyes’s look of approval.
“I see one of you retained the manners I attempted to instill,” Mrs. Keyes said, with one last pointed look in Foxcourt’s
direction as he returned his gaze to the papers.
My lips parted to introduce myself, only to remember Mama’s lesson that I shouldn’t. A lady was always introduced to a gentleman. The person of lower rank was introduced to the one with superior rank, single women introduced
to married women, and . . . my brow furrowed. Drat, why hadn’t I paid better attention? Introductions had only ever seemed
like yet another way for the Patricians to tie themselves into torturous knots. Maybe they enjoyed the pain of restraints.
Arabella had certainly indicated some of the gentlemen did.
Arabella, I thought miserably. I hadn’t any idea what had become of her.
Reddy was still smiling at me as he reclaimed his seat. Finally, Foxcourt rolled his eyes and sat back from the broadsheet.
“Miss Lockwood, this is Mr. Samir Reddy,” he said drolly. “Ignore him.”
A little victorious smile quirked my lips. I’d guessed correctly.
“Reddy, Miss Lockwood is the guest I told you about,” Foxcourt finished.
A guest, was I? I supposed that was a better introduction than the woman I imprisoned, freed under duress, and now, regrettably, must keep alive.
“Miss Lockwood,” Reddy said with another bow. He had a lovely baritone voice that seemed entirely too smooth for his own good.
“What an unbridled pleasure to meet you at last.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” I said. “Call me Viola, please.”
“He absolutely will not,” Foxcourt said sharply, snapping the next newspaper open in front of him. “Eat something before you
fall over.”
“You’re one to talk,” I muttered, eyeing him discreetly. Behind me, Willie, who had been doing his best impression of a bored
statue, chuckled.
Foxcourt’s fingers tightened on the newspaper. His long, bare fingers.
I looked away, surveying the beautiful spread of pastries and the tea service, both overwhelmed and ravenous.
Reddy looked between us. “I feel as though you may have forgotten a very important detail in your recounting of the morning’s
events, Fox.”
“I told you everything worth mentioning,” came Foxcourt’s reply from behind the paper.
“Did the idiot injure himself?” Reddy asked me instead.
Foxcourt lowered the paper in warning, but I’d already answered. “Didn’t he tell you? He was nearly cooked like a Midsummer
roast.”
Reddy’s gaze turned speculative.
“Don’t you dare breathe a word of it to the scandal sheets,” Foxcourt told him sternly. “I cannot have them asking questions
about which young woman I was accompanying.”
“So as not to upset your harem of rumored lovers?” I asked innocently.
Reddy choked on his next bite of scone. I serenely prepared my cup of tea—a splash of milk and a sprinkle of sugar.
“So as not to have anyone uncover your identity before you’ve completed your work, Miss Lockwood,” Foxcourt said tersely,
his gaze slicing over to Reddy. “Don’t you have somewhere more important to be?”
“Nowhere half this entertaining,” Reddy said, reaching for the jam and clotted cream. “Say, Fox, haven’t you heard that men
are allowed to forgo pride for a few days when they’ve been heroically injured? It’s the only reason to fling yourself at
danger, really.”
I sat back, watching the silent looks exchanged between them as if I were the sole audience member at a play.
Restored by my few sips of tea, I pondered Reddy’s presence here.
If he was a guest at the house—a true guest, not my incarcerated variety—wouldn’t someone have mentioned it?
And Mrs. Keyes’s earlier comment about teaching them both manners . . . I was curious against my will now.
“I’m fine,” Foxcourt insisted, thoroughly exasperated. “Mrs. Silver’s salve has done the trick, and sadly for you, Lockwood, you will
not be able to escape my presence today.”
Reddy sent a knowing, almost conspiratorial look to me across the tarts.
“Stop looking at her like that,” Foxcourt groused from behind his raised paper.
“You forgot to mention how lovely—”
Foxcourt’s paper lowered. Reddy’s mouth closed.
“Exactly how much do you know about what’s . . .” I began. “About my situation?”
“Everyone in this house knows everything, Miss Lockwood,” Reddy said, amused.
“Not everything,” I said pointedly to Foxcourt.
He gave me an infuriatingly bland look. I wondered then if Reddy knew what he had done to me, because his brow arched with
exquisite irony.
“Are you a member of this household?” I asked Reddy.
“I was until about three years ago,” Reddy said. “When, to my surprise and great delight, the house across the park became
available.”
“Which had nothing to do with you ruining Lord Tavenstock’s fortune by undercutting his investments in steel,” Foxcourt ventured
dryly. “Reddy and I attended school together, Miss Lockwood.”
“Where we absolutely despised each other,” Reddy interjected. “You may think him a bore now, but back at Rexford—”
“My uncle welcomed him here after his parents’ unfortunate deaths,” Foxcourt continued, “as his father was a friend.”
“What a generous way of saying he was one of Foxcourt’s favorite sources of whispers on trade,” Reddy said, though his smile
had lost some of its shine. “I think the old man felt rather guilty, seeing as he’d been the one to convince my father to
take the trip to deliver the King’s message to the sultanate.”
I set my teacup carefully onto its saucer.
His parents had perished in a storm while out at sea, on a return journey from Bharat, where it was said they had gone to explore new trade opportunities.
The story had burned through town for weeks, fed by gruesome speculation and half-hearted hope, until it was obvious that his parents had not been spared the storm’s wrath.
“I’m very sorry,” I told him sincerely. “Both for your loss and the fact that you were forced to live with this limp nib.”
Foxcourt’s glare could have iced hell. “What is a nib?”
I smiled innocently. “Exactly what a nib would ask.”
Reddy broke into a full belly laugh. “I can tell we’re going to be the very best of friends, Lockwood.”
I’d value a friendship with such an established businessman, especially when it came to quickly learning the ropes of the
House of Rosebourne and its accounts. A true friendship at that, rather than the euphemistic sort. Though . . .
I gave him another appreciative look, which he heartily returned. Not out of the question by any means. An unmarried woman
need not be lonely, so long as both parties were discreet.
Foxcourt folded his paper and tossed it aside with a muttered “Unbelievable.”
I sipped at my tea in the silence, letting my gaze drift again to the painted scene above me. Remarkable how toffs could festoon
their homes and palaces with depictions of fairies even as they left the fairies’ descendants to rot in prison. But so long
as fairies stayed in the purely decorative realm of art and allegory, not even the Church bothered itself with the hypocrisy.
Fleming’s essence heralded his approach. I glanced over just as his narrow form appeared in the doorway. As his gaze shifted
to Reddy, a remarkable transformation took place. The softening of his eyes took decades off his appearance. “Ah! Good day,
sir.”
“I always know it will be when I have the pleasure of seeing that impeccably powdered wig, Fleming,” Reddy said.