“Or the cards.”
“Charlotte.”
“Or befriending Mr Deverell. But I am sorry your night is now ruined.”
Theo looked at her for a moment. “When we arrive, you will go straight upstairs. Tomorrow, we shall decide how best to contain this.”
Oh, yes—contain.She burped loudly and held back the bile. Contain the damage. Contain the girl. Contain Charlotte Tolliver before she spilled over the edges of what everyone had decided she ought to be. Her apology curdled at once.
She had lost the game. She had lost the wager. She had lost, with spectacular efficiency, every coin she possessed. But Jasper Deverell still wanted what he was owed, and after being scolded, escorted, contained, and all but delivered home like contraband, Charlotte Tolliver was in precisely the sort of mood to—
Oh no.
Morleigh moved at once. “Stop the carriage.”
“I am fine,” Lottie announced, just as the carriage slowed, the door opened, and she leant out into the cold London night with all the dignity remaining to Mr Charleston of Wiltshire.
Which was very little indeed.
Chapter 23
By ten o’clock the following morning, Jasper Deverell had resolved three things. First, that whisky was an agent of Satan. Second, that sunlight had been invented by a vindictive God. And third, that if Langley and Morleigh had come to murder him, he could only hope they would do it quietly.
When the butler entered the drawing room of his bachelor lodgings, announcing Lord Langley and the Duke of Morleigh, Jasper closed his eyes. “Show them in. But if they ask for pistols, tell them I am not home.”
The butler did not smile. “Very good, sir.”
Theo entered first, and Morleigh followed, dark, immaculate, and so coldly composed that Jasper felt his headache worsen out of respect.
“Gentlemen,” Jasper said, rising with a wince. “You are early. I had not expected my execution until noon.”
Theo did not laugh. Ah. Very well, then.
Jasper cleared his throat. “Before either of you begins, I know. It was reckless. It was stupid. It endangered her reputation, and I ought to have known better.”
“Yes,” Theo said. “You ought.”
“I am sorry for allowing the evening to become something that may have harmed her.”
“For that?” Morleigh’s gaze sharpened. “Not for bringing her to your rooms? Not for smuggling her into a gentlemen’s club in disguise?”
Jasper’s headache beat once, hard, behind his eyes. “Well. I am not sorry for being her friend, not one wink. What is the harm in it, I ask you? She has only done what any man might do daily: drinking, gambling, loitering about uselessly and pretending to be cleverer than he is. If she had been born male, no one would have blinked.”
“She isnota man,” Morleigh said, each word cold as carved obsidian. “And somehow, Deverell, I suspect you might feel rather differently towards her if she were.”
Jasper’s smile flickered and then sharpened. “Tell me this, then… Would either of you think less of me for befriending someone with wit, spirit, and mettle simply because she had the misfortune to be born a woman? Would you prefer I patted Charlotte on the head and recommended embroidery?”
“You are calling her Charlotte now?” the duke snapped, as though the name itself were an affront. “You presume familiarity where none is permitted.”
Jasper looked at him flatly. “It is her name, Morleigh. Would you prefer I refer to her as Mr Charleston and continue the farce?”
The duke took a step nearer, his voice low and lethal. “You shall address her asMiss Tolliver. You would do well to remember that she is the daughter of a viscount and sister-in-law to both an earl and a duke. She is not some actress to be dressed up and paraded through clubs like a clever pet!”
“She dressed herself,” Jasper replied coolly. “And she came of her own volition. I did not coerce her. I did not pressure. I simply held the door open and allowed her to walk through it.”
“You allowed her into a gentleman’s club in the middle of the night! Do not insult us.”
“I am not insulting anyone,” Jasper snapped, now fully alert and no longer amused. “I am defending her. Because for all your high-minded talk of scandal and honour, what you truly fear is not that she shall be ruined, but that she will befree. That she might act as any man would and enjoy it.”
