Eloquence and Espionage by Regina Scott Page B

his mouth that spoke of the pain
inside.
    Squaring his shoulders, Sinclair moved into
the room. His father glanced up at him as he came to stand on the
ruby-colored carpet, and it struck Sinclair once more how unlike
his father he was, in every way, from coloring to build to
disposition.
    “And here is my heir,” his father drawled,
raising the glass as if in toast. “Have you nothing better to do
than to visit an old man?”
    His father had waited until reaching his
forty-fifth year to wed, making him more than sixty now. Sinclair’s
birth had greatly disappointed the distant cousin who had been the
heir presumptive until then.
    “I wanted you to be the first to know,”
Sinclair told him. “I am betrothed.”
    “To Miss Ariadne Courdebas, Rollings’s
youngest,” his father replied, hitching his velvet banyan closer.
“Yes, so I understand.”
    The servants could not have heard and
gossiped so quickly. There simply hadn’t been time. Sinclair’s
hands fisted at his sides. “You had me followed again.”
    “You are imagining things,” his father
replied, pausing to take a sip of his brandy. “I am simply well
informed.”
    By his goggle-eyed personal secretary Reston
Symthe, no doubt. A pasty-faced fellow with a limp handshake,
Symthe had risen from apparent obscurity to sit at Lord Winthrop’s
right hand and keep up his correspondence. From what Sinclair had
seen, the man’s one goal in life was to ingratiate himself to
Sinclair’s father, perhaps in hopes of a rich bequest on Lord
Winthrop’s death.
    “You have no reason to spy on me,” Sinclair
challenged. “Have I ever embarrassed you? Disappointed you in the
least way?”
    His father elbowed himself higher in the
chair, as if trying to tower over Sinclair as he once had. “You
lack understanding. I sold my pride to birth you, boy. I’m not
about to let you run off and get yourself killed fighting a French
madman.”
    It was the same argument they’d been having
for three years, ever since at sixteen he’d begged a commission in
the Hussars so he could help his friends who were going off to
fight.
    “It was your choice to marry my mother and
the wealth she brought into this family,” Sinclair grit out. “It is
my choice what to do with my life.”
    His father leveled a finger at him. “Not
until you reach your majority. And neither can you marry now
without my consent.” He leaned back in the chair, setting the
goblet on the table at his elbow. “And I do not consent.”
    This time his father’s bark held no bite. “I
don’t care,” Sinclair told him. “I offered for her because her
father caught us kissing. We have no intentions of marrying.”
    “Indeed.” His father eyed him. “I want to
meet her.”
    Fire licked through Sinclair. “I’ll not have
you bully her.”
    His father’s smile hitched up. “You’ll not
have, eh? Must be true love.” His smile vanished as he shifted
against the pain. “You’d better choose a proper bride, boy. I’ll
thank you not to darken my good name by marrying beneath you.”
    “Why not?” Sinclair countered. “You
obviously think you did.”
    Those graying brows came thundering down.
“Watch your tone. You forget. I know where the MacDougalls
live.”
    He never forgot. His father’s threats were
the reason he hadn’t seen his maternal grandparents the MacDougalls
for nearly ten years. “Leave them out of this,” he said. “I have
done all you asked in their regard.”
    “Perhaps,” his father said, eyes glittering
brighter than the brandy. “You just see that you have your girl
here tomorrow evening. I intend to quiz Miss Courdebas until I
uncover all her secrets. If she’s hiding something from you, you’ll
thank me for my intervention.”

Chapter
Nine
    Ariadne would never have guessed that all it
took to be popular was for one gentleman to show interest. But she
could not deny that she had suddenly come to the notice of Society.
For one thing, a dozen invitations to balls