Regency 03 - Deception by Jaimey Grant Page B

little Rory?” he asked
curiously, an engaging half-smile tipping his lips.
    “ I do not yet know,” she answered
honestly. “She was very pleasant to be with and she did hint that
she is not acceptable in Society. But she is a woman, Sir Adam, and
needs friendship just like any other woman. I will have to think
about it, I suppose.”
    “ Wise decision, my dear,” Adam
said pleasantly. “And I do hope that she is not out to cause
trouble. She is a very good friend when one has need.”
    Aurora looked up at her tall companion.
There was something in his voice that suggested Raven had been just
such a friend to him on more than one occasion. She filed this away
in the back of her mind to ponder later.

    *

Chapter Seven

    Levi burst through the drawing room door of Lockwood
House. “Hide me, Bri!”
    Bri leapt up from her place next to her husband and
Adam leaned back against the sofa with a look of supreme annoyance.
He glared at Levi as though he could make the importuning young man
disappear by doing so. Levi was too busy drawing the drapes and
peering through the resultant crack to notice Adam’s behavior.
    “ Vi, what the devil is the
matter?” his cousin demanded tersely as she beheld his daft
actions.
    “ Mama is coming,” he replied
without turning around or relaxing his vigilant search up and down
the deserted street.
    “ Oh, Lord,” Bri murmured as she
sank back down on the sofa next to Adam. He placed a casual arm
around her shoulders and lifted one dark brow in silent
inquiry.
    “ Levi’s mama is very difficult,”
Bri said tactfully as Levi switched to the other set of windows and
continued his odd actions there.
    “ Difficult, how?” Adam inquired
with deceptive mildness.
    Levi answered him, again without turning or easing
tension. “She is a shrew, Bri, no need to smooth over the truth.
She is a shrew with a penchant for spending money faster than I can
win it. And since I have quit gambling, I have stopped sending her
money and she has now written to tell me that she will arrive this
morning in order to discover why.”
    “ Heaven help us,” Bri said
piously.
    Adam sat up with an arrested expression on his face.
“You were gambling to support your spendthrift mama?” he asked in
amazement.
    “ In part,” Levi admitted. He bit
his lower lip and stared up the street, his brows drawn down in
concentration. “I do enjoy playing cards, Adam. Well, I did, at any
rate. I got bored with that and started losing.”
    “ And you were playing with
Percival Winters,” Adam remarked.
    “ What?” Bri exclaimed. “Is this
true, Vi?”
    The earl glanced at his family. “Yes, it is true. I
know the blackguard is not always aboveboard, but he made for an
interesting game.”
    “ And every time you lost, was it
to him?” Adam inquired calmly.
    The earl returned his attention to the scene
outside. “I suppose it was,” he admitted after a moment of intense
thought. He swiveled his head to regard Adam. “Do you think he was
cheating?”
    “ I know he was.”
    “ I guess it is a good thing I quit
playing, especially with him.” He stared out the window again,
straining his ears for the sound of his mother’s
arrival.
    Silence reigned for several minutes. Levi’s
attention never wavered from the scene outside the drawing room
window and Adam sat back with his arm around his wife trying to
calm her. Her agitation couldn’t be good for the baby.
    “ And if you did not want to be
disturbed, why the devil did you even get out of bed this early?”
Levi asked as he finally turned to his relatives with an impish
grin, proving that he had been fully conscious of the situation
before he had started enacting his little scene of
terror.
    Bri blushed and hid her face in her hands. Adam
scowled at the earl and retorted, “Why are you in my house? My
house, Vi. Not yours, not Bri’s, mine. I can do what I please
within these walls, where I please.”
    Levi shrugged. “Then lock the door,” he