Free Liz Carlyle - [Lorimer Family & Clan Cameron 02] by My False Heart Page A

players with mild interest.
    “Theodore!” Mrs. Weyden’s tone rang out sharply. “Hush this instant, or your bum will be exposed to my riding crop! And do not you, Mr. Roberts, be so wicked as to encourage them!”
    “Yes, ma’am,” agreed Elliot soberly, wiping a tear from his eye. He looked down to see that Gus was again sweeping up the pot. “Mr. Stokely!” Elliot called out to the instructor in the most companionable voice he could muster, “come save me from this lubricious gang of Captain Sharps, for I’m down to my last shilling.”
    “Oh, you’re a clever fellow, Roberts,” jeered Gus good-naturedly. “Best admit it when you’ve been done in by professionals!”
    “Aye, come on, Stokely!” added Theo. “Roberts is pressed to quit, else he’ll not be able to afford Evie’s commission, and she’ll toss him out on his ear.”
    Shoving his spectacles up his nose and laying aside his verses, Stokely stirred himself and obligingly took Elliot’s seat.
    Elliot, ever the opportunist, slipped across the room to stand alongside Evie’s sofa. “May I join you?” he asked as humbly as he knew how.
    Evie looked up from her book and blinked twice. “By all means, Mr. Roberts,” she replied, with stiff civility.
    Settling himself onto the empty half of the sofa, Elliot peered at her book. “Fielding?” he asked, keeping his voice deliberately low.
    “Yes.” Her throaty voice was cool but cordial.
    “Ah! Which one?”
    “
Amelia
,” she replied succinctly.
    “Oh, too serious, Miss Stone!” Elliot shook his head. “I much prefer
Tom Jones
.”
    Over her small, elegant nose, Evangeline fixed him in a pointed stare. “Indeed? The adventures of a charming libertine. I might have guessed.”
    Elliot choked. Evangeline Stone might not be worldly, but she was a quick wit. His gaze swept the room. Over the chords of the pianoforte and the din at the card table, no one in the room paid them any heed. He drew a deep breath and subtly leaned in toward her. “Ah, you need say no more, madam! I perceive that I have distressed you. Let me try again—”
    “Try what again?” she interrupted sharply.
    Elliot dropped his gaze and tried to look repentant.
    “Miss Stone, I owe you my deepest apology for giving even a moment of discomfort earlier this evening. I have not the slightest notion of propriety, I fear, since I was most shamelessly attempting to flirt with you.”
    She flicked him an icy look. “Flirting?”
    “Yes, and I am sorry for it. As you so carefully pointed out, this is not town. Moreover, I am a grateful guest in your home, and I have partaken of your generous hospitality. It was wrong of me to put you so out of countenance.”
    “Out of countenance?” A touch of humor brightened the perfect oval of her face.
    Elliot tried to smile innocently and lightly touched her hand where it lay upon the sofa. “Miss Stone, you are doing naught but echoing my words. You must smack me! Scold me! Tell me that I am not fit to kiss the hem of your skirt. For I am not, you know,” he added in a low voice.
    Evangeline watched her handsome guest’s gray eyes soften, and suddenly she found herself laughing, quite against her will. Elliot Roberts was trouble indeed, she realized yet again, for she could no more resist his charming entreaties than his subtle overtures. “Good Lord, Mr. Roberts! That’s quite enough! All is forgiven.”
    “Thank God!” he whispered melodramatically, falling back against the sofa. “I thought to be forever in your bad graces.”
    Deliberately, Evangeline broke away from his hypnotic gaze and forced herself to stare into the depths of her book. “With such skillful groveling as all that, Mr. Roberts, I shouldn’t expect that you remain in the bad graces of any woman for very long.”
    “Miss Stone!” he whispered softly. “I must warn you that you are now perilously close to flirting with
me!
It’s not at all the thing, either, since I’m a client.”
    Evangeline