sure you are, but business is business.’ Channing made her a small bow and took the chance to exit while she unravelled his comment. She was a smart woman, she would understand the reference and, when she did, she would be none too pleased to be categorised as an appointment. Appointments with the likes of Amery DeHart were business, but appointments with the likes of Lady Marianne were business, too, even if they were conducted at night. The sun had come up and it was time to move on with his day.
* * *
Channing was finding it hard to move on three hours later even after a bath and a change of clothes. He’d had to forgo the nap and it had left him struggling to focus. Channing pushed a hand through his hair, trying hard to concentrate on whatever it was Amery DeHart was saying. His thoughts kept returning to the question that had taunted him this morning: when had sex failed to meet his needs? Maybe his dissatisfaction with the act was a sign he should retire, close up shop altogether or hand the business over to someone else who had an appetite for it the way he had when he’d started the whole affair. Either way, perhaps it was time for him to get out.
‘I think it’s time for me to get out.’
Channing didn’t hear the rest. Amery’s words roughly jerked Channing’s attention front and centre. For a moment he worried he’d spoken his own thoughts out loud. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Amery gave him a disapproving stare that suggested he knew Channing hadn’t been listening. ‘I said I think it’s time for me to get out to the country and see the family,’ he repeated patiently.
‘You’re not thinking of quitting, are you?’ The last time Channing had sent an escort to the country, it had been Nick D’Arcy and the dratted man had got himself married. Channing wasn’t sure what he’d do without Amery. He’d come to rely on the younger man quite regularly in the past year with the departure of his three veteran rakes. Amery had been good with training the new gentlemen Channing had hired as replacements and the ladies liked him.
‘Not permanently,’ Amery clarified. ‘I’ve had a letter from home. I’ll be gone three weeks to a month. My sister is getting married and there’s some other family business to see to.’ Channing knew Amery liked his job, but he loved his family. If Amery was going home for a wedding, he’d be bringing his sister the finest wedding dress to be had in London. Channing handled all the finances and was aware just how much money Amery sent home to his mother.
Amery sighed apologetically and there was no doubting the sentiment was genuine. ‘I don’t like the idea of handing off an assignment halfway through, but my client and I were slated to attend a house party out of town for the Easter break.’
Channing flicked his gaze to the calendar on his desk. The Easter break, the last dash to the country before the Season began in earnest, was just three days away.
‘There’s no way I can make it,’ Amery was saying. ‘It would hardly be fair to desert her halfway through.’ Amery winked. ‘In all honesty, I think she’d do better with you anyway. She’s rather mature.’
‘I’m only thirty, Amery, hardly in my dotage.’ Channing tried not to feel offended by the comment. Just because he was contemplating retirement and had spent the morning fleeing a lusty woman’s bed did not mean he was old, only that he might be in the market for a new adventure.
‘It’s not age, it’s the maturity of her thinking, her mannerisms. It’s hard to explain.’ Amery groped for words. Interesting. Amery was never at a loss for what to say. Then he came out with it. ‘Oh, hell, Channing, she’s beyond me,’ Amery admitted baldly. ‘She’s too sophisticated. She’s got the Continent written all over her.’
‘Who were you assigned?’ Channing did a mental sort through the recent placements, but came up blank. Amery was slated to take the Misses Bakers to the opera on Wednesday since their brother couldn’t come up to town just now; he was escorting a diplomat’s wife to a fête at the Belgian embassy on Thursday. Multiple assignments at once were one way of keeping everyone guessing about the fact or fiction of the League, but none of the women on Amery’s roster fit his description.
‘You wouldn’t know her. She’s one of the clients I took on while you were gone for your nephew’s birth. Her name is Elizabeth Morgan.’
Ah, that explained it. He’d left Amery in charge while he’d gone home for a few weeks in February to see the new family addition.
‘I don’t think any of the new fellows will do,’ Amery went on, making his case. ‘Perhaps Nick or Jocelyn could have done it if they were around, but...’ Amery gave a shrug as his words dropped off to imply the impossibility. Nick and Jocelyn were happily married.
‘Amery, do you ever feel as if you’re the only bachelor left in London?’ Channing gave a chuckle, but it wasn’t funny, not really. Dear lord, weddings were thick on the ground these past twelve months. Nick and Jocelyn had married, as had Grahame, all three of them his veteran escorts. Both of his sisters had married last August in a double ceremony at his family’s estate.
And, of course, his older brother, Finn, had married their childhood friend, Catherine Emerson, even before that and had wasted no time in begetting an heir, a squalling, red little thing with a shock of black hair who had melted his rather cynical heart on sight and had done much in resolving some of the lingering tension between he and Finn after his last visit home.
Amery merely smiled. ‘I’m a bachelor and proud of it. Marriage is fine for some, but men like you and I need the spice, the thrill of a single life.’
Channing knew the thrill Amery spoke of: the thrill of sex as a tool for pleasure or power. The games one could play were limitless. He’d learned years ago those games served him far better than anything more emotional, more meaningful. Sex in that particular arena left one too vulnerable. Although that specific game had been heady, he’d not cared for the aftermath of that experience or the woman who had served it to him. Since then, he’d limited himself to the business of pleasure and women like Marianne Bixley.
Amery leaned forward. ‘Will you do it, Channing? I would be for ever grateful.’
There was nothing for it. There was no one else to send and he did owe Amery for filling in for him in February. It was only fair. Channing nodded. ‘I’ll do it. Now, go on and pack.’
Channing leaned back in his chair, pushing his hand through his hair again, this time in restlessness. He hadn’t intended to be out of town. He’d hoped to use the Easter lull as a chance to catch up on paperwork, go over the League’s accounts and maybe work with some of the new escorts before the Season. But perhaps a house party was what he needed to shake himself out of these megrims. He did admit, even in his current state of exhaustion, a twinge of curiosity over meeting a woman who’d managed to rout Amery DeHart.
He hoped the party had a decent hostess. He should have asked Amery where it was being held. The right activities were the key to any house party’s success. If not, given his current state of mind, this was going to be the house party from hell, no matter how ‘Continental’ Elizabeth Morgan was.
Chapter Two
This was going to be the house party from hell. Lady Lionel’s Easter getaway was not where the sophisticated and worldly Comtesse de Charentes would have chosen to be of her own accord. The venue promised to be bland and boring, the mediocre tone of the guests currently assembled already attesting to her hypothesis. But the comtesse had a mission and it had to be accomplished here. She was
