Page 51 of Immortal Rose

“The pleasure is all mine,” I said. “Call me Viola, please.”

“He absolutely will not,” Foxcourt said sharply, snapping the next newspaper open in front of him. “Eat something before you fall over.”

“You’re one to talk,” I muttered, eyeing him discreetly. Behind me, Willie, who had been doing his best impression of a bored statue, chuckled.

Foxcourt’s fingers tightened on the newspaper. His long, bare fingers.

I looked away, surveying the beautiful spread of pastries and the tea service, both overwhelmed and ravenous.

Reddy looked between us. “I feel as though you may have forgotten a very important detail in your recounting of the morning’s events, Fox.”

“I told you everything worth mentioning,” came Foxcourt’s reply from behind the paper.

“Did the idiot injure himself?” Reddy asked me instead.

Foxcourt lowered the paper in warning, but I’d already answered. “Didn’t he tell you? He was nearly cooked like a Midsummer roast.”

Reddy’s gaze turned speculative.

“Don’t you dare breathe a word of it to the scandal sheets,” Foxcourt told him sternly. “I cannot have them asking questions about which young woman I was accompanying.”

“So as not to upset your harem of rumored lovers?” I asked innocently.

Reddy choked on his next bite of scone. I serenely prepared my cup of tea—a splash of milk and a sprinkle of sugar.

“So as not to have anyone uncover your identity before you’ve completed your work, Miss Lockwood,” Foxcourt said tersely, his gaze slicing over to Reddy. “Don’t you have somewhere more important to be?”

“Nowhere half this entertaining,” Reddy said, reaching for the jam and clotted cream. “Say, Fox, haven’t you heard that men are allowed to forgo pride for a few days when they’ve been heroically injured? It’s the only reason to fling yourself at danger, really.”

I sat back, watching the silent looks exchanged between them as if I were the sole audience member at a play. Restored by my few sips of tea, I pondered Reddy’s presence here. If he was a guest at the house—a true guest, not my incarcerated variety—wouldn’t someone have mentioned it? And Mrs. Keyes’s earlier comment about teaching them both manners . . . I was curious against my will now.

“I’m fine,” Foxcourt insisted, thoroughly exasperated. “Mrs. Silver’s salve has done the trick, and sadly for you, Lockwood, you will not be able to escape my presence today.”

Reddy sent a knowing, almost conspiratorial look to me across the tarts.

“Stop looking at her like that,” Foxcourt groused from behind his raised paper.

“You forgot to mention how lovely—”

Foxcourt’s paper lowered. Reddy’s mouth closed.

“Exactly how much do you know about what’s . . .” I began. “About my situation?”

“Everyone in this house knows everything, Miss Lockwood,” Reddy said, amused.

“Not everything,” I said pointedly to Foxcourt.

He gave me an infuriatingly bland look. I wondered then if Reddy knew what he had done to me, because his brow arched with exquisite irony.

“Are you a member of this household?” I asked Reddy.

“I was until about three years ago,” Reddy said. “When, to my surprise and great delight, the house across the park became available.”

“Which had nothing to do with you ruining Lord Tavenstock’s fortune by undercutting his investments in steel,” Foxcourt ventured dryly. “Reddy and I attended school together, Miss Lockwood.”

“Where we absolutely despised each other,” Reddy interjected. “You may think him a bore now, but back at Rexford—”

“My uncle welcomed him here after his parents’ unfortunate deaths,” Foxcourt continued, “as his father was a friend.”