A Man Above Reproach by Evelyn Pryce Read Free Book Online Page B

heart good to see you enjoying yourself.”
    “You have always had an exceptional gift for hyperbole,” Elias frowned, noting that ears around their table had perked up. “I needed to put the girl in her place.”
    “Which place is that?” Nicholas chortled. “Your bed?”
    “She is impertinent, Thackeray,” he said with as much gravity as he could muster, though he was still smiling. “Behave, watch the show. Here comes your Crimson, in fact.”
    As Nicholas’s paramour took the stage, Digby set down a much-needed brandy in front of Elias. He drank deeply and then craned his neck to make sure that Blue had gotten her wine. He had paid a handsome fee for Digby’s services and for Mother to leave them alone, and he intended to get his money’s worth. The expensive wine sat on the pianoforte, untouched. Josephine had her head down as she played. He meant to look away, but her loose hair fell over her neck in such a way that he found his gaze locked. He mentally traced the line of her collarbone, so high and defined.
    She glanced up and he smiled, bashfully, which was an odd emotion for him. Something about it pleased her and she returned the smile.
    He was ruined.
    “Bloody schoolboy,” Nicholas whispered, chuckling.
    Elias kicked him under the table and he let out a little
oof
.
    “Mind the stage show, Nicholas, for Sally will ask your opinion.”
    Elias himself could not attend the stage show at all. He closed his eyes and let Josephine’s notes wash over him unaccompanied by images. He drained the remainder of his cognac. It was refilled soon enough after, then twenty minutes after that. How long could this show be? It was utterly boring to him, as girl after girl paraded in front of them. Interminable group numbers. Bawdy skits. At least the musical accompaniment was exquisite, though it was hard to hear over the unruly men.
    He found that he was getting pleasantly drunk, which in turn made him feel more charitable about the cut direct he had received from that gorgeous creature. It was a misunderstanding. They would talk after she played, and he would be able to tell her that the ideas in her book had a certain clarity that he did not exactly disagree with and that he was not one of the “oblivious” nobility, as she had termed it. It was a damned good thing that no one seemed to patronize her bookstore. If another duke had read the book, the whole of her supply would be set on fire in the public square.
    His eyes snapped open. What a feverish idiot he had been to not think of this before—Josephine had used her real name on her book. How was it that she used a careful pseudonym at the club but was so careless with her real reputation? She had been lucky up to that point, but it could not continue. The wrong person would happen upon the book; it was inevitable. Her bookstore would be in jeopardy for certain, her person as well, perhaps. The book was not just radical in its social implications; it was a condemnation of the entire upper echelon. What Josephine was doing was both dangerous and imprudent.
    The music was reaching a crescendo, the finale being all of the girls dancing together in a haphazard manner. It did not look as if they had rehearsed long. Some tottered; some peeked at their companions to find their place in the steps. Elias set his glass down with heavy-lidded eyes. The good mood he had been cultivating was rent to shreds on thethought of Josephine being in peril. There would be no flirting after the show. There would be a serious conversation, whether she liked it or not.
    The show ended with the girls dancing off of the stage and into the crowd, picking their favorite men or being plucked away by a greedy eye. It was no time at all before Sally and Thackeray found each other. Just as Elias was about to get up, a painted face and bejeweled dress landed in his lap.
    “Where are you off to, Duke?” purred the woman, her eyes lined thick with kohl. “The bluestocking told me earlier