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“Just Addison will do.” He pulled out a chair for her, as directed by the butler’s nod.
“Mr. Addison, then,” she said, as he seated himself beside her. Thankfully, Merry had placed Cleo on his other side, with Lilford beside her.
Once they were all seated, Lady Lydia began telling him a long tale about a young lady last Season who had been stung by a bee just before her reception by the queen. “She could only see out of one eye,” she said with a portentous gasp.
“Unfortunate,” Jake remarked.
“Do you have a sister?”
He nodded.
“Was she presented?” the girl asked.
Jake schooled himself to patience. “That would be impossible, since America does not have a queen.”
“What a shame!” Lady Lydia cried. “Don’t you wish you could turn back the clock? Just think how happy it would make all the young ladies to make their curtsy before Her Majesty. Why, one can hardly consider oneself a true lady without that!”
Jake was under the impression that a debut resembled a line of woolly sheep being paraded before a buyer, but probably the observation wouldn’t be welcome. He certainly wasn’t interested in discussing the concepts that lay behind democracy.
At the head of the table, Merry finally turned from the viscount to Byng, and all around the table, heads turned like clockwork to the other side.
Which meant he was able to talk to Cleo.
“Do you have any American cant to share?” Cleo asked him, rather unexpectedly.
He raised an eyebrow. “Cant?”
“Unconventional words, like those Lady Yasmin was using at the ball: ‘some potatoes,’ for example. My mother adored knowing such phrases; since young people make up most of them, she felt it kept her young.”
Jake nodded, storing that detail about her mother away to think about later. He was fast thinking that the main obstacle between marriage and Cleo was Julia Lewis. “The term is ‘some pumpkins.’”
She dimpled at him, and warmth glowed in his stomach. “May I bring you some decent sherry later?” he asked in a low voice.
“Absolutely not.”
“I thought perhaps I could bribe you to allow me to wear regular clothing tomorrow.” He glanced down. “I am planning to go to Tattersall’s auction on Hyde Park Corner. Any buyer seeing me stroll into the building will raise the reserve price for even a broken-back steed by a hundred pounds.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Tattersall’s is exactly where you should wear Martha’s clothing. At a ball, you are so surrounded by ladies that the gentlemen can’t make their way to you and ask who tailored your clothing. No, I am sorry, Mr. Addison. What does your valet have planned for tomorrow?”
He groaned. “Pale blue breeches with a green coat. A spotted scarf, so starched that I shan’t be able to see my own feet. My valet is enjoying himself greatly, though he regularly informs me that if his colleagues in New York or Boston could see me, he would die of mortification.”
“I am certain that you will garner much attention at the auction,” Cleo said in a silken tone that told him just how much she was enjoying the thought of his mortification.
“It isn’t even the color so much as the fit,” he replied. He glanced down at the thick linen napkin covering his legs. His tool felt as if it was strapped to his leg.
Did British gentlemen not get erections at awkward times? Perhaps not. He couldn’t adjust himself without going to a retiring room and unbuttoning the tiresome double fall. What was he supposed to do now? Pray that Cleo’s bosom didn’t catch his attention again?
With her, it wasn’t a matter of body parts. He had inappropriate reactions to the sound of her laughter, the way her eyelashes lay on her cheek, the way she managed to sound wry when talking of accomplishments that no other woman of his acquaintance had attempted, not to mention achieved.
Real irritation likely shone in his eyes, but instead of getting wary or even frightened, the way ladies often did when someone with his forbidding visage was displeased, Cleo just laughed.
And glanced at his mouth, he noticed.
She liked kissing him, for all she’d forbidden the practice. Something eased in the area of his chest.
“Your breeches are uncomfortable?” she inquired in a politely solicitous tone.
“Very.” He kept it short because he couldn’t go into detail.
