Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)(23)

Ned made an embarrassed motion with his hands—adolescent language Jenny deciphered as “I would rather be stabbed to death with a toasting-fork than receive an honest compliment.”

“Given your constant criticism and bullying, I can only conclude that through some arcane alchemical process, you are intent on transforming your cousin into some baser metal.”

“A diverting analogy, Madame Esmerelda.” There was no amusement in Lord Blakely’s harsh voice. “I assume you are getting to the part where you explain the task?”

“Change lead back into gold,” Jenny said. “Simple, is it not?”

He tapped his lips, working through the implications. “You want me to find something good to say about Ned here?” His dubious tone implied the task she’d set was as impossible as alchemy.

That, above all, was why she’d assigned it. She’d learned early on that telling her clients what they wanted to hear produced more income. But when she said those nice things, she’d begun to believe them herself. The act of searching for good engaged her sympathies. If the same happened with this arrogant man, it would be a fine start on his payments.

Thinking of his debt sparked a second gleeful, wicked impulse inside Jenny. Humiliation, too. “Oh, the process should be more open than that, don’t you think? The spirits demand that you sing his praises in public.”

“Announce it? Well.” He appeared to consider this. “I suppose I could manage a public compliment or two.”

“My comments about transmutation were metaphorical. But when I told you to sing his praises, I meant that. Literally.”

The stony silence was broken only by the muted clop of the horses’ hooves. Even that sound seemed dampened, as if the animals knew better than to interrupt their master’s fury.

Lord Blakely drew himself up, a frightening tower on the opposite seat of the carriage. “You want me to sing? In public?”

“An ode of your own composition, if you please.” She smiled at him.

No answer. He sat in baffled outrage. A streetlamp they passed sent a rectangle of light over his hands, where they quivered on his knees. The horses clacked on, a serene counterpoint to the tension building in the close quarters.

“You’re trying to humiliate me.”

Absolutely. Among other things.

“It won’t work,” he told her. “Better men than you have tried and failed.”

Jenny shook her head. This was an even better idea than the elephant. The horses drew up as they reached Jenny’s home. As the footman opened the carriage door, Jenny delivered her deathblow.

“Oh, and, Lord Blakely?”

No acknowledgment. Not even a twitch of an eyelash in her direction.

Jenny grinned and wagged a finger. “You are required to mean every word.”

CHAPTER SIX

GARETH STARED GLUMLY at the two sheets of paper laid in front of him. His desk was laden with hundreds of other papers, all demanding his attention. Both Lord Blakely’s work for the estate and his personal scientific correspondence weighed heavily on his shoulders. But his mind was blank. Depressingly blank, like the sheets in front of him.

That was what he deserved, he supposed, for playing truant from the estate work that should have taken up the bulk of his afternoon. But Madame Esmerelda’s task, assigned late the previous evening, had tied his mind in knots.

It had not taken him long to figure out how to sing without humiliation. But the subject matter…

“Good things about Ned,” he’d labeled the mostly blank page. And then he’d numbered one through fifteen down the side of the page. It was precisely the method he’d employed earlier that day, when he’d labeled a page “Possible Explanations for Swallow Migration (Taking into Account Known Patterns).” Except he hadn’t stared at that page for half an hour without the slightest inkling of how to proceed. He’d filled that sheet of paper in minutes.

Things that were good about Ned. Hmm. It would have been much easier, and more satisfying, to sing a song about things that were wrong—desperately wrong—with Madame Esmerelda.

Across from Gareth, his man of business quietly and efficiently sorted through correspondence. William White was young for his position—scarcely older than Gareth—but intelligent and well-versed in modern innovations. His dark hair had been clipped close to his head. He bent over the desk industriously. No doubt he imagined Gareth was addressing matters of similar gravity. Gareth had no desire to disillusion the man.

Two tasks left. He didn’t have to complete them; he could walk away at any time. But if he did, Ned would continue to consult the woman, and worse—if he gave up, she would win.

He couldn’t let her do that. He just had to start writing.

Ned is not so bad to see.

There. A first line. It had a nice trochaic meter to it, if he did say so himself. It wasn’t, perhaps, the greatest compliment one man had ever delivered to another, but he wasn’t about to wax rhapsodic over Ned’s curly brown locks. Gareth had a certain amount of dignity to maintain, after all.

Now all he needed was a rhyme.

Ned is not so bad to see.

That’s because he looks like me.

It wasn’t quite true, of course; Ned had a few years yet to grow into the breadth of Gareth’s shoulders. But it rhymed and had meter. And it was a compliment.