Читать книгу Regency Improprieties: Innocence and Impropriety / The Vanishing Viscountess - Diane Gaston, Diane Gaston - Страница 16

By the next morning, the rain had cleared and the day promised to dry up some of the damp. Still, Flynn was grateful Rose was not scheduled to sing that evening, and she had assured him no plans to dine with Greythorne would be made.

Flynn needed the respite from the turmoil raging inside him, but, more than that, he needed a very quiet place. He closeted himself in Tanner’s library, busying himself with the most tedious of his many tasks.

Tanner breezed into the room, humming a tune, and causing Flynn to lose the tally of the long line of figures he was tabulating.

‘I trust I am not interrupting something important,’ Tanner said.

Flynn had done something uncharacteristic the night before. After leaving Rose, he availed himself of one of Tanner’s bottles of brandy and downed the entire contents in the privacy of his own room. He now paid the price with a killing headache and a foul mood.

Head throbbing, he put down his pen and recapped the inkwell. ‘Did you have need of me?’

Tanner picked up a ledger Flynn had left on the side table. ‘No need, really.’ He leafed through the ledger, slammed it closed, and dropped it with a thud that ricocheted in Flynn’s brain. ‘I did wonder how it went with Greythorne—and Miss O’Keefe, of course.’

Flynn’s mood became blacker. ‘He cancelled because of the rain.’

Tanner laughed, a loud guffaw that rattled painfully in Flynn’s throbbing head. ‘The fribble. He’d give her up to keep his coat dry.’ He laughed again, then drummed his fingers on the wooden table. ‘Did he set another date?’

Flynn gripped the edge of the desk, trying to remain composed. ‘Not as yet.’

‘Rain is good for something besides crops,’ said Tanner cheerfully.

Flynn tried to look composed. ‘It appears he is putting pressure on her father. He paid a sum for the opportunity to dine with her.’

‘Ah ha!’ Tanner cried.

Flynn pressed his fingers against his temple.

‘We have more in our arsenal of weapons besides money, do we not, Flynn?’ Tanner laughed again.

Flynn had not a clue what Tanner meant, but he would rather not ask and prolong this loud conversation.

But Tanner showed no inclination to be quiet. ‘We have cunning, and we have friends in high places.’

‘Indeed,’ muttered Flynn, who did not care what the deuce Tanner meant, if he would only stop talking.

‘Any fellow can throw money at a woman and win her, can he not?’ Tanner went on, walking to and fro as he spoke, his footsteps pounding on the carpet. ‘But we think of voice lessons and opera performances!’

‘I am not getting your point, Tanner,’ Flynn said tersely.

Tanner glanced at him quizzically, then peered at him more closely. ‘You look ghastly, Flynn. What the devil is wrong with you? You look as though you are going to shoot the cat.’

Flynn’s stomach did not react well to this reference to vomiting. ‘I have a headache.’

‘A headache from too much drink,’ Tanner concluded. ‘What did I miss last night?’

‘Nothing. You missed nothing.’ Merely a near-betrayal of all Tanner’s trust in him.

Tanner continued stomping around the room. ‘Good, because it was very fortunate that I was in the company of his Royal Highness, the Duke of Clarence, you know. Friends in high places!’

Flynn gave him a direct look. ‘Am I supposed to understand you?’

Tanner laughed again, this time a loud, barking, brain-joggling laugh. Flynn pressed his temples.

‘No need to heed me.’ Tanner winked.

Did not Tanner need to meet someone at White’s or bid on a horse at Tattersalls, or something? ‘If you require my services, sir, I will endeavour to oblige you, but I was working on these sums …’

Tanner sidled up to the desk and leaned over Flynn to look at the numbers on the page. ‘I trust nothing is amiss?’

Flynn could feel Tanner breathing down his neck. ‘All is as it should be—but I have not tabulated the whole list.’

‘I despise sums.’ Tanner lumbered away, pulling books off the bookshelves, opening them, then slamming them shut again, and shoving them back into place.

Flynn closed his eyes and waited for the wave of hammering in his head to subside.

‘So!’ said Tanner, so loud Flynn thought his head would blow apart. ‘What is next in this game of ours? I say, this is more like a chess game every day, except not so ghastly tedious.’

A chess game, indeed, thought Flynn. The Queen was the prize. And after his behaviour the previous night, Flynn was a rook. ‘It is time to deal with the father. Make the offer.’

Tanner stood before him, hands on his hips, head cocked. ‘I had surmised more pursuit was in order. The girl hardly seems willing.’ He looked pensive. ‘I knew she’d be a challenge. She should come around after Ayrton puts her in the opera. How long do you think that will be?’