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His right eyebrow cocked. “Your hopelessly inept investigator?”
“Roe.” His name hissed out of her lips.
This was a game to him. She was a game to him. All of this blasted ballroom and the title and his duke for a brother and she hadn’t had the slightest notion. Not to mention how maddeningly little he’d told her about the danger they were in and why they’d had to come here for safety. And now he was laughing at her. Mocking her.
Just when she started to tug her fingers out of his grip to quit him on the dance floor, his hand clamped hard onto hers, his fingers at her waist pulling her closer to him.
“It was kept ridiculously quiet at my request.” He leaned slightly down toward her, his breath teasing along the side of her face with his low words. “I told Logan I wanted an estate bought near London to set up as an orphanage for the abandoned children in St. Giles and he went and purchased an estate called Glenford. The ass. He managed to forget to mention for a number of months that he’d wrangled a barony to go along with it for my service to the crown on the ship.”
“So youareLord Glenford.”
“I am Roe. That is all.”
“Yet that isn’t the full truth of it. And you answered quite nonchalantly to the title when spoken.” Her look skewered him. “So not such a quiet transaction—the ladies of the Revelry’s Tempest seem to know you and your title quite well.”
He glanced in their general direction. “Well, they are among the few as they give quite a bit of money to the orphanage. Plus they are old friends of Logan’s, so I am quite indebted to their kindness.”
She caught sight of the duchess and Lady Vandestile laughing, the air about them practically glowing. “That conversation didn’t seem like indebtedness. It seemed like flirting.”
His head snapped back slightly. “Was that what it was like? If so, I best get my guard up against the Duke of Dellon storming me.” A grin tugged at the sides of his mouth.
“If you would like to flirt with the lot of married women, go ahead and do so.” Her fingers on his shoulder curled into a ball that she had to forcefully flex open. “It’s of no consequence to me.”
“You wouldn’t care?” His eyebrows lifted in feigned curiosity. “For it appears as though the slightest bit of jealousy has crept into your voice.”
Her look drifted down to the askew knot of his cravat. “Don’t make me the fool, Roe.” The words came out tiny, and she hated them for their lack of fortitude.
“Tor.”
Her look lifted to him.
Her words had sobered him, the needling look evaporating from his face. “Know that I am hopelessly inept at charming the ladies. I’ve been in prison or at sea for the last nine years. So no, I was not flirting. I didn’t even recognize it if that was what it was.”
He spun her, terribly out of time with the music. What was odd at first, trying to step in time with the music as he was leading her in a hopelessly mistimed gait across the floor, had eased into familiarity. Stepping out of time was far easier—freeing, even—when she let him lead her into it.
“You are not a fool, Tor.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she studied him, searching his steel grey eyes for the truth. Or at least a lie she could hold onto.
“The title—it makes it easier for Logan when he has to drag me to the clubs or to a ball in London. There are always more funds needed to be raised for the children, and there is always plenty of money floating about London ballrooms. He originally had me pinned to marry an heiress looking for a title—what would have been the easiest way to secure the orphanage for quite some time.”
“But that didn’t take?”
“It did for two days.” A mischievous grin lined his lips. “But then I figured it’d be easier to hunt down another Turkish ship and take my share of the spoils than it would be to be saddled with a self-indulgent heiress for the rest of my life.”
She laughed. “You caught the ship, I presume?”
“We did. And probably in more timely a fashion than it would have taken for me to catch an heiress.”
“So the orphanage is secure?”
“It is. And it isn’t just an orphanage. They train the children as well. Find them apprenticeships for whatever type of work they’re interested in. Or the truly intelligent ones, they catch them up on their education and then we send them on to school. One of the older children—an incredibly brilliant boy—just entered Edinburgh Medical School. He’d spent his years in St. Giles following about Madame Rosewren—she’s a bone-setter and curer of all ills, so he already knew more than most students there. Logan had to pull strings and he was the youngest man ever to be admitted.”
The pride in his grey eyes was unmistakable. This—doing this for the children—was where his heart lived.
Her chest swelled, sending a lump into her throat. “That is tremendous.”
“What would be even more tremendous is if you forgot you ever learned of the title.” His eyes darkened, his look intent on her. “I’m just Roe, Torrie. I’m the man you met on that ship. Not the man from before the moment I found you on the docks. Not the man with a title. Just me.”
