Free Lady Iona's Rebellion by Dorothy McFalls Page B

stepped back and inspected his employer with a critical eye before diving back into his complaints, listing the amount of extra work Nathan had caused him, clucking on and on like an underfed hen, his voice trailing after Nathan as he escaped to the street and made his way toward the center of town.
    Twenty minutes later, Nathan had settled at a small table that looked out onto the gardens on the ground floor of the Sydney Hotel. He’d finished eating a couple of Sally Lunn’s teacakes and was sipping on a coffee while reading a newspaper when two gentlemen with red-rimmed eyes crowded around his chair.
    “You are a wretchedly difficult gent to find, Wynter,” Talbot said and dragged a chair over from another table and sat himself into it without invitation. “We were looking for you for over half the night. The stakes in Goldsmith’s back rooms were running fast and high. We had a smashing time of it, didn’t we, Harlow?”
    Harlow, who looked as if he was suffering from a devil of a hangover, grunted.
    “And where were you, Wynter? Off burying yourself in a pretty piece of fluff perhaps?” Talbot asked, nudging Nathan in the ribs.
    “Nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid. After finishing off that bottle of whiskey yesterday afternoon, I spent the evening in my bed and frightfully alone.”
    Harlow, who’d found himself a chair to lower himself into, propped his elbows on the table so he could cradle his head. “We visited your apartments,” he grumbled. “No one was about. Not even your chubby little valet.”
    A wolfish gleam lit Talbot’s eyes as he waggled his brows. “Ah, we have caught our friend in a lie, Harlow. If I remember correctly, a Miss Rose Darly has newly arrived in Bath to play the part of Euphrasia in The Grecian Daughter at the Theatre Royal.”
    Nathan rolled his eyes. He knew only too well where this conversation was going.
    “Doesn’t the young lady hold a soft spot in your heart, Wynter?” Talbot pressed. “The kind that obliges you to pay her a generous monthly stipend? And shower her with pretty baubles?”
    “I cannot image what you’re talking about,” Nathan said, gritting his teeth. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss the talented Miss Darly—not while sensual images of Iona were lingering in his mind.
    “Come now,” Talbot said. “The lady travels with a young by-blow that bears an uncanny likeness to you.”
    Nathan gave a wordless shrug, unable to deny the charge. The young tot did wear the distinctive Wynter stamp on his face.
    “Ha, he does admit it!” Harlow crowed. “Let’s discuss tonight.”
    “Tonight?” Nathan asked, wondering why the blazes he was now considered a bosom friend to these young pests. He would have chosen a sound beating over getting foxed with them yesterday if he’d known how closely they’d attach themselves to him this morning.
    “Yes, tonight,” Talbot said, leaning forward in his chair, that wolfish gleam still firmly intact and brightening his liquor-reddened eyes. “I need your help.”
    “We both do,” Harlow added.
    Nathan leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms against his chest and frowned. “With what?” he asked, though he already knew he didn’t want anything to do with whatever scheme they were plotting.
    “Not what,” Harlow said, “but who.”
    “The glacial Lady Iona, to be precise,” Talbot clarified. He sent Harlow a killing glare. “And I am the one who will be taking the first shot at thawing her.”
    “We will have an equal shot,” Harlow argued and then groaned. Apparently he’d upset his aching temples with his own voice. His head landed in the cradle of his hands again. “You hold no prior claim, Talbot,” he whispered.
    “Lady Iona?” Nathan raised a brow while trying his damnedest to look bored with the conversation when in truth his hands itched to punch something. If anyone was going to thaw Iona, it was going to be him, not Talbot or that whelp Harlow.
    Not that she needed any