Lady Olivia To The Rescue Read Online Free PDF Page B

this afternoon, did I?”
    “A woman? To this house?”
    “A lady, perhaps?”
    “Oh no, m’lord. You have not done such a thing since you were a youth. How well I remember the expression on the dowager countess’s face!”
    “Yes, well, that is a relief. Yes, I will do nicely. Do not wait up for me, Fenwick. I can put myself to bed.”
    “Very good, m’lord.”
    Sheridan smiled as he strolled out the door to the stairs. Every night it was the same. He told Fenwick he could put himself to bed. Fenwick agreed and then waited up anyway. It was the result of too many years of dedicated service.
    “Sir Richard is in the drawing-room, m’lord,” said the butler when Sheridan reached the hall below.
    “Thank you, Silvers.”
    His hand on the door, Sheridan paused. He could have sworn he had spent some time with a woman that afternoon. A blurry cloud of blonde hair and china-blue eyes kept presenting in his aching head. Rubbish, of course. He had not visited the brothels since his youth, either, and he did not have a mistress at the moment.
    Pasting a smile on his face, he opened the door.
    “Ready for an evening of madcap frivolity, old boy?” asked the dapper Richard.
    “Ready as I will ever be.”
    “Where is your cane?”
    “Silvers has it in the hall.”
    “Which is it tonight?”
    “The silver wolf with the ruby eyes.”
    “Perfect,” said Richard, clapping Sheridan on the shoulder. At his raised brow, Richard added, “It will match your bloodshot eyes to perfection!”
    “Devil a bit!” replied Sheridan. As they left the room, he asked, “Are we picking up Maddie on the way?”
    “Heavens, no! You know her thoughts on attending a rout.” Raising his voice, he mimicked, “’A more colossal waste of time you will never find—not to mention the discomfort of squeezing up and down a narrow staircase with a hundred other fools, most of whom have never made use of soap and have instead bathed in the most foul-smelling cologne ever made.’”
    “Succinct enough. You have Maddie down very well,” said Sheridan, entering the carriage. “Perhaps we have all been spending too much time together this Season.”
    “Never say you are tiring of our company. I may be forced to re-enlist,” said Richard.
    “Not at all. I am enjoying this Season very much more than the last two without you. Maddie is all well and good, but she cannot accompany me to Manton’s for shooting or Jackson’s Boxing Salon.”
    “Nor can she join us at White’s—a pity, I say. Perhaps you and I should begin a new club in which ladies are allowed.”
    “My, yes, wouldn’t that be well attended?” drawled Sheridan. “Besides, there is no need for another such club. You can always go to Watier’s with a friend.”
    “Not all the time and not the same calibre of female as our Maddie,” said Richard.
    “Certainly not.”
    “Have you wondered why she never remarried after old Thorpe snuffed it?” asked his friend.
    “I asked her once,” said Sheridan, and Richard cocked his head to one side in surprise. “We were at a musicale or some such entertainment and were trying to converse so as to drown out the screechings of some young miss demonstrating her singular lack of talent on the harp.”
    “Ah, and how did our Maddie reply?”
    “Only that since Thorpe left her very well set for life, she didn’t feel any particular need to ever be mauled about again. I didn’t wish to pursue the topic further.”
    The two men exchanged understanding glances and looked out the windows, lost in their own thoughts. Sheridan, who knew that Richard had once been enamoured of their friend Maddie, wondered how he was digesting this bit of information.
    Could there still be some feelings there? Probably not. They had been in their salad days, all of them, a time when love had flamed at the mere batting of a girl’s eyelashes.
    The carriage came to a stop, and a footman threw open the door. Sheridan hopped to the ground first.
    Facing