Chapter Five
For the last seven hours, and after giving himself a very stern talking to, Seb had been centring himself. It was a process he often did when assuming the persona of someone else and one which was usually successful. As someone else, he could hide behind a veneer. Within his mind he constructed the character, the way they thought, spoke, their particular idiosyncrasies. The layers which created a believable cover and separated the shy by-blow from Norfolk from the mission at hand.
Lord Millcroft was aloof, arrogant and judgemental. He was a man’s man, preferring to talk business or discuss the brash and bawdy things gentlemen did when gathered together behind closed doors. Millcroft was a man who preferred to play cards or drink or socialise with other men in the sanctuary of White’s or Brooks’s. Seb had no problem with any of those things because they also served to disguise his awkward shyness around the fairer sex. A shyness which never plagued him around men, where his fierce pride came to the fore. In his head, no matter who they were, he strove to be their equal even if he didn’t always feel it. Therefore, he would work to that strength and try to ignore the swathes of ladies at the same events. Lord Millcroft wasn’t on the hunt for a wife, he was an eager investor on the lookout for ways to swell his fortunes, so it stood to reason he would have no interest in the ladies whatsoever.
It was a canny plan and would cover his shyness perfectly. By the time his preparations were done, he was quietly confident he could pull this charade off just as he had countless others beforehand and had stridden into the Earl of Upminster’s ballroom radiating haughty indifference with the very best of them.
He’d had a little moment when he had first encountered the crowd. It was not the crush which bothered him, more the unpalatable fact that this was asocialoccasion, filled with those who had been born to consider themselves better than most and his sort especially, and that Seb would actually have to take some part in thesocialisingrather than merely watch it from a distance. After he had given himself another stern talking to and noticed that many of the gentlemen paid scant attention to the ladies anyway, the flapping eagles in his stomach became sparrows.
Upminster introduced him to several people as they made slow progress around the room and Seb responded in character. He engaged with the men and simply nodded politely to the ladies. The convoluted preamble served to further calm his nerves, to the extent that the sparrows were mere butterflies by the time he met Viscount Penhurst and his circle of friends. He greeted them as equals, bowing only slightly lower to the Duke in the party on principle, and happily engaged in the sort of male-orientated conversation he had planned meticulously for.
Icy calm.
Calculated.
Completely in control.
Then he’d spied her next to Penhurst’s wife and those lofty plans flew out of the window. Instead of avoiding the women altogether, he’d had to think on his feet and fast. Rather than treating Gem with the haughty indifference he had practised in front of the mirror, he had rushed at her like a man recently speared deep by Cupid’s arrow. He’d grabbed her hand, gazed up at her beseechingly and, to all intents and purposes, declared to the entire ballroom he was suddenly, openly smitten and eager to get better acquainted with a woman he had technically only laid eyes on a few seconds before.
Besotted and desperate to woo! Two states which were as far away from where Seb felt comfortable as it was humanly possible to be. He was also fearful of her potential reaction to his blatant lie and furious at himself and his superior for this potentially calamitous oversight. Fennimore should never have put him in this position! A stable, a garden, the kitchens, even the sewers were better places for his covert talents and dubious lineage. In this kaleidoscope of genteel poppycock he was seriously out of his depth, especially if he now had to play the role of ardent suitor.
‘Lady Clarissa Beaumont.’ She inclined her head graciously. ‘I am intrigued to meetyou, my lord. And so fresh from theAntipodes, too. I look forward to hearing all about it. They sound like such a fascinating place...when the furthest I have been isNorfolk.’
As barbs went, hers were perfect. Much like her. Tonight she was stunning. So stunning the flapping eagles returned with a vengeance and pecked at his heart. She stepped back and Seb was aware of her eyes on him as he was introduced to Penhurst’s wife. At least it appeared she had given him a grace period before she turned him over to the wolves, yet the very real possibility only served to make his pulse race faster than it already had been before he had set eyes on her. The hours he’d spent rehearsing had been wiped the second he had and he’d very nearly broken character and fled. Already the tips of his ears felt warm; his tongue threatened to fail at any moment and he had no idea now how the mysterious Lord Millcroft would continue to behave because he didn’tknowthis character at all. Seb would have to make it up as he went along.
Not his strong suit as the bullet hole could attest.
This was a complication neither he nor the wily Fennimore had foreseen. The rest of society might well have never seen him, his dreadful brother might not recognise him, but the Gem had tormented his thoughts ever since he’d met her, teased him and seen him half-naked, drunk and slurring just a few short weeks before. One wrong word and his mission was over before it had started; worse, it might encourage Penhurst and Camborne to cover their tracks and warn the Boss that the King’s Elite were on his tail. The combination of inwardly dying from mortification, the purely male and visceral reaction at seeing her again and the very real fear he had just seriously jeopardised the whole investigation in the process caused him actual physical pain. His damn heart was clattering so fast it was jarring his recently healed bullet hole and the acid churning in his stomach was so potent it would dissolve iron nails.
He needed to get her alone. Lord only knew what he would tell her, but somehow he would ensure her silence.
He had to.
‘Did I mention that Millcroft here is on the hunt for suitable investment opportunities?’ Upminster was playing his part perfectly and it nudged Seb to do the same. For the time being he was impotent to do anything else.
‘He is?’ Penhurst replied with an air of boredom. ‘What types of investment?’
‘Whichever yields the most coin in the shortest time, my lord.’ Seb offered the man a knowing smile. ‘I am a man with little patience for the long term.’
Penhurst’s thin lip curled. ‘A speculator, then?’
‘If that is the polite terms for a man who enjoys making money, then, yes, I am—and proudly so. Although I know here in town most people are squeamish about admitting to it, especially as land is considered to be the foundation of good society. But as I have no land, and have never been particularly good, I make no excuses for funding my lifestyle through canny investments. Idohave a nose for those—alongside a taste for the finer things in life.’
‘A nose! By Jove, that he does!’ Upminster slapped him on the back. ‘I doubt there are many men who could make such a fortune in that home of convicts and ne’er-do-wells at the bottom of the world, but Millcroft has managed it. If reports from the governor are to be believed, he went from nothing to becoming the richest man in New South Wales in less than a decade.Thatis no mean feat, sir!’
‘Hardly nothing, my lord. I still had my wits and my keen eye for profit.’ Seb’s eyes could not resist quickly flicking to hers, trying to ignore the fact that the Duke of Westbridge had taken her arm proprietorially and the jolt of raw jealousy that hardened his own jaw at the sight. ‘The spirit of entrepreneurship thrives in the Antipodes. Alongside the ne’er-do-wells.’
* * *
The next ten minutes were spent in much the same manner. Seb and Upminster continued baiting the hook for Penhurst, who did his best to seem uninterested, but asked the pertinent questions one would expect from a fishing expedition. Penhurst was trying to subtly gauge his measure and Seb was dismissively flippant in his answers, making sure the corrupt viscount was left in no doubt that all he cared about was increasing his fortune. Because it was a conversation between men, the ladies had moved to the periphery and Gem stayed close to her Duke, hanging on the fellow’s every word adoringly, although her eyes frequently wandered to Seb and held, their message obvious. She was biding her time, but still expecting an explanation. Once or twice, Westbridge caught her staring and scowled. She didn’t appear to notice.
It went without saying he hated Westbridge on sight. He was exactly the kind of pompous windbag Seb had pictured when she had first mentioned him. Fashionably dressed, the evening waistcoat in a garish turquoise silk, his hair pomaded to sit just so above his regal, straight eyebrows and his cravat secured with a pin tipped with an emerald the size of a quail’s egg. Looking at everything and everyone down the slope of his long, narrow nose, he was the epitome of the superior aristocrat—stand-offish, self-important, supremely confident in his wealth and standing to the extent his eyes never met any of those he considered beneath him.
All show and no substance.
But a duke.
Penhurst was a different kettle of fish but equally as dislikeable. The way he had clicked his fingers to summon his wife, followed by the nervous way she snapped to attention, told Seb a great deal. When you closely watched human interactions from the shadows, you grew to recognise certain emotions fast. The Viscountess Penhurst was frightened of her husband. Her husband, on the other hand, was largely indifferent and cold towards her. Theirs was no marriage made in heaven. A detail which he would store away in case it became useful, alongside the fortuitous knowledge that it appeared Lady Clarissa Beaumont also happened to be more than an acquaintance to the nervous viscountess. Perhaps another avenue into Penhurst’s circle if he needed one? And if he could get her to go along with his lies... But would she, seeing as Penhurst and her hidebound Duke were old friends? Perhaps even business associates?
