Jenny felt a spurt of admiration as she looked at his unyielding countenance.
"What a killjoy," she said gently.
"I try to tease you, and you ravage the period with integrity. You realize you are not obligated to stay, dear friend. You have reimbursed your deficit to us thousand times over."
Marvyne jerked his head instantly.
"It would be like evacuating a nest of plover chicks with a fox nearby."
"We are not as vulnerable as all that," she challenged.
"I am perfectly competent in taking care of the family ... and so is Chad. When he is sober."
"When would that be?" His bland expression made the query all harsher.
Jenny opened her mouth to contend the question but was stricken to shut it. Marvyne was right—Chad had roamed through the past six months in a state of eternal drunkenness.
She put a hand to her abdomen, where trouble had compiled like a satchel of lead shot. Impoverished wretched Chad—she was horrified nothing could be achieved for him. Difficult to redeem a man who did not wish to be redeemed.
That would not stop her from attempting, however.
She paraded around the room, too frantic to sit and dawdle calmly. Chad was out there somewhere, wanting to be redeemed. And there was no telling how lengthy Smith would have them bide their duration here.
"I am going to have a peek around," she said, going to the door.
"I won't go far. Remain here, Marvyne, in case Mr Smith should arrive."
She imagined him mumble something under his breath. Dismissing her petition, he heeded at her heels as she went out into the balcony.
"This is not reasonable," he said behind her. Jenny did not halt. Appropriateness had no strength over her now. This is my only possibility to discern inside a gaming arena—I am not going to forfeit it."
Following the noise of voices, she embarked toward a hallway that encircled the second story of a massive, stunning room.
The populace of beautifully adorned men assembled around three large danger tables, scrutinizing the play, while croupiers utilized Casanova to collect dice and cash.
There was a huge bargain of chatting and blurting, the air crackling with passion. Labourers strode through the obstacle room, some carrying trays of food and wine, others carrying trays of chips and green cards.
Remaining half-hidden behind a pillar, Jenny scanned the crowd from the upper hall. Her stare descended on Mr Smith, who had worn a black coat and cravat. Even though he was dressed likewise to the association partners, he stand out from the others like a fox among pigeons.
Smith half sat, half crouched against the huge mahogany administrator's desk in the nook of the room, where the hurdle bank was supervised. He seemed to be conveying guidance to a labourer. He utilized a minimum of indications, but even so, there was a recommendation of showmanship in his actions, an understandable physicality that brought the eye.
And then . . . somehow ... the vigour of Jenny's curiosity appeared to touch him. He reached up to the rear of his neck, and then he stared instantly at her. Just as he had done in the hallway.
Jenny could feel her heartbeat awaken everywhere, in her organs and feet and hands and even on her knees. A surge of uneasy pigment drenched her. She stood drenched in remorse and warmth and shock, red-faced as a teenager before she could eventually gather her humour adequately to flicker behind the pillar.
"What is it?" she heard Marvyne inquire.
"I guess Mr Smith saw me." A shaky chuckle evaded her.
"Oh, dear. I hope I have not infuriated him. Let's head back to the waiting room."
Caven shoved off from the mahogany desk and left the danger room. As expected, he could not take off without being halted once or twice ... there was an attendant, muttering that Lord so-and-so desired to have his credit maximum lifted ... an under-butler inquiring if he should supply the sideboard of refreshments in one of the token chambers.
He replied to their queries absent-minded, his mind engaged with the woman expecting him upstairs.
An evening that had vowed to be systematic was turning out to be somewhat unusual.
It had been a lengthy period since a woman had ignited his urge as Jenny Anderson had. The minute he had noticed her standing in the hallway, wholesome and pink-cheeked, her curvaceous figure embodied in a simple gown, he had yearned for her.
He had no indication why, when she was the epitome of everything that irritated him about English women.
It was evident Miss Anderson had never-ending confidence in her proficiency to oversee and regulate everything around her.
Caven's expected outcome for that type of female was to escape on the opposite path. But as he had glanced into her beautiful blue eyes, and noticed the slight discerned frown clamped between them, he had felt a blasphemous desire to pull her up and carry her away someplace and do something cruel. Vicious.
Of course, unsophisticated urges had always roamed a bit too intimate to his skin. And in the earlier year, Caven had started to disclose it more impossible than normal to govern them.
He had become uncharacteristically short-tempered, impatient, and effortlessly aggravated. The things that had once given him delight were no longer appealing.
Nastiest of all, he had found himself heeding his sexual desires with the same absence of confidence he was doing everything else these days.
Discovering female friendship was never an issue— Caven had found discharge in the arms of many a voluntary woman and had reimbursed the favour until they had purred with fulfilment.
There was no actual delight in it, however. No emotion, no fire, no feeling of anything other than having taken care of a physical task as common as sleeping or eating. Caven had been so worried that he had certainly carried himself to talk over it with his employer, Lord St. Raphael.
Once a prominent skirt-chaser, now an extremely committed husband, St. Raphael knew as much about these circumstances as any man alive.
When Caven had inquired glumly if a reduction in physical longings was something that generally ensued as a man neared his thirties, St. Raphael had gulped on his drink.
"Good God, no," the Viscount had said, wheezing barely as a swallow of brandy scorched his throat. They had been in the administrator's office of the club, flipping over account books in the early hours of dawn.
St. Raphael was a good-looking man with wheat-coloured hair and faint blue eyes. Some alleged he had the most complete form and characteristics of any man alive.
The stares of a saint, the soul of a troublemaker. "If I may ask, what type of women have you been carrying to bed?"
"What do you mean, what type?" Caven had inquired warily.
"Elegant or plain?"
"Elegant, I suppose."
"Well, there is your dilemma," St. Raphael said in an unexaggerated tone.
"Plain women are far more satisfying. There is no nicer aphrodisiac than gratitude."
"Yet you wedded an elegant woman."
A sluggish smirk had curved St. Raphael's lips. "Wives are a diverse example altogether. They compel a great pact of effort, but the dividends are significant. I highly approve of wives. Particularly one's own."
Caven had glared at his employer with anger, evaluating that crucial discussion with St. Raphael was frequently thwarted by the Viscount's passion for twisting it into an activity of wit.
"If I comprehend you, my lord," he said curtly.
"Your suggestion for an absence of longing is to start luring unappealing women?"