Page 67 of Scandalous

She gazed up from beneath blond lashes. “Thank you, Captain. I shall certainly keep your offer in mind.”

Martín laughed at her coquettish look. It was designed to tease and put him in his place at the same time. She would not be joining him for bed sport.

Mrs. Hensleigh led Martín up two more flights of stairs to a suite that was capacious and decorated in shades of brown and gold. Fine carpets covered the polished wood floor, and the furniture was built for comfort as well as style. All and all, it was every bit as elegant as the rooms in Davenport House.

“This will serve me admirably. I will engage it for the foreseeable future. I would ask you to send word to my man and have him bring my things.” He gave her the address of Davenport House. “Make sure whoever delivers the message is discreet.”

“Naturally.”

“I would have my bath and more brandy before my meal.”

She inclined her head and left.

Martín went to the window and gazed out onto the quiet, empty street below.

It was better this way. He would mix with his own kind and leave Sarah to find hers. From what Ramsay had said, the woman was a member of one of the wealthiest banking families in England. No doubt they would see to it she met suitable men.

The last thing she would want was to bring to her rich relations an association with an ex-slave, not to mention the rest.

The door opened, and he turned away from the street and his thoughts. Two women stood in the entryway, a buxom redhead and a petite blonde. He breathed a sigh of relief. Both women were lovely and very elegantly dressed, and neither of them bore even a passing resemblance to Sarah.

The women stood aside as a parade of strapping servants arrived with buckets of steaming water for his bath.

Martín smiled. “Please, come in, mesdemoiselles, and let us become better acquainted.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Martín had moved his belongings out of Davenport House.

“Bouchard has taken rooms at Mivart’s, I believe,” Ramsay said at breakfast the following morning. “He does not like to be beholden to anyone.”

For the first time since she’d met him, the baron was not his usual, smiling self. She hoped the two men had not quarreled. Martín often rubbed people—men, in particular—the wrong way, but she would have thought that wouldn’t apply to the baron, who seemed to enjoy the younger man’s abrasive company. In fact, Sarah believed he actively encouraged and taunted Martín into behaving badly.

For her part, Sarah was too choked with emotion to speak. She nodded and smiled, lifting a forkful of kipper to her mouth.

“I had hoped to learn what happened at Lord Bathurst’s office.” Sarah’s face heated at Ramsay’s inquiring look, and she hastened to explain. “Admiral Keeton promised Bouchard he would receive compensation for taking me back to England.”

Ramsay added a shocking amount of sugar to his coffee. “I haven’t spoken to him on the matter. Neither did I find out from Graaf what happened before he left.”

Mies, too, was gone—a guest at the king’s London residence, of all places.

“I shall send word to Martín today and invite him to the theater tonight, if I am able to secure seats at this late date.”

Sarah squirmed under the baron’s kind, knowing look.

Daphne, who’d been absorbed in the book that lay open beside her plate, fixed her husband with a long, bespectacled look before turning to Sarah.

“I daresay we shall see Bouchard in the coming days. In any case, we shall be busy. Tomorrow you meet your uncles.”

Sarah had received an immediate response from her uncle Sir Septimus, informing her of their intention to call on Lady Ramsay. Because his brother was out of town, he begged to delay their first meeting until he returned to London. Sarah had been relieved. She needed a little more time to accustom herself to the sudden appearance of two wealthy uncles. And to decide what she would, and wouldn’t, tell them.

* * *

True to his word, Lord Ramsay secured a box at the theater that night.

Even Martín’s absence could not ruin Sarah’s enjoyment in her first play. Not only was the play itself diverting, but the cream of London society stopped by their box. Lord Ramsay attracted people, mainly women, like moths to a flame.

Daphne, too, had her share of admirers, mainly scholars who’d been dragged to the opera by spouses or friends. Sarah watched with amusement as the beautiful blond woman engaged in a heated exchange with three elderly men and a boy who must certainly still be at university. Mysterious words like “Hegelian,” “dialectic,” and “hegemony,” were enough to keep Sarah at a safe distance.