Jameson growled, but continued reading the story. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. His frown shifted to a look of calculation. “We could increase the price by a penny or two. That would cause a stir as well, and it would provide a certain degree of insurance, in case Lady Hamilton sniffs us out.”
“I fully endorse your plan to increase the price,” Phin said with a nod. “And I invite you to keep all of that profit to mitigate your risk.” He’d give Jameson the shirt off his back as well, as long as Hazel and the girls and his father all still had shirts on their backs.
“It’s a deal, then,” Jameson said with a heavy sigh. “Now, you’d better get out and leave me to my work before I change my mind.”
Phin plopped his hat back on his head. “Immediately, sir.”
He turned to leave the office, unsure whether he felt relieved at his attempts to make things right on Lady Agnes’s account or if guilt would continue to eat at him until Lady Hamilton gave up her fight and Lady Agnes was safely married to some duke or other. Perhaps Lionel could help on that account. His brother knew everyone in London and then some.
But before he spared his thoughts for Lady Agnes Hamilton’s problems, Phin had a few more concerns of his own. He stepped back out into the blustery morning and turned his steps toward Oxford Street. Lenore was coming for supper that night—ostensibly with her fiancé, though if Phin knew anything about anything, he would be vastly surprised if Freddy Herrington had any intention of dining with them—which meant he had to make the evening a night to remember.
Lenore hadn’t felt the same sort of excitement of possibility as she mounted the stairs to Phineas’s decidedly modest townhouse since she’d stepped off the ship at Portsmouth and set foot on British soil for the first time. It didn’t matter that Phineas clearly didn’t have the funds that the rest of the crowd Freddy and Reese ran with had, or that he answered his front door himself. The second Lenore saw him dressed for dinner and groomed to perfection in the context of his own home, her heart ran riot and her unmentionable parts thrummed in anticipation.
“Miss Garret, how lovely to see you,” Phineas greeted her, taking a step back and gesturing for her to enter. “Lord Herrington isn’t with you?”
“Good evening, Mr. Mercer,” she said, stepping into Phineas’s front hall. She unbuttoned her coat and turned her back to Phineas so that he could take it from her shoulders. “I’m afraid Freddy has come down with a bit of a cold,” she said, glancing coquettishly over her shoulder at Phineas, one eyebrow arched.
“Oh, dear,” Phineas said, his tone hinting he wasn’t fooled for a minute and that they’d both known that was the plan all along. “I will be sure to have my cook send him some of her fortifying bone broth to speed in his recovery.”
“You have a cook?” Lenore asked, teasing him as he hung her coat on a peg on one wall beside his own. If the peg wasn’t a sign of Phineas’s modest finances, then nothing was. Reese had an entirely separate room just for the coats, hats, and gloves of his guests, and a butler to carry them away.
Phineas sent her a look that said he knew he was being teased. “I have a cook and a maid both, I’ll have you know. Though neither of them live in. They’re day help only.”
Lenore’s brow shot up. On the one hand, that was decidedly middle-class for a man who was set to inherit a baronetcy someday. On the other, it was a blatant admission that they were alone in the house for the duration of the evening.
“How very interesting,” she said, lowering her voice to the appropriate level of purr that a gentleman who had invited a lady over to seduce her would expect.
“I would be happy to show you their handiwork, if you’re ready,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him down the hall.
It was not lost on Lenore that the sweep of his gesture took in both what appeared to be an entrance to a well-lit dining room from which delicious scents of supper were emanating and a staircase leading to private rooms upstairs, as though it were up to her to choose which way to go. She grinned to herself and continued on to the dining room, glancing deliberately up the stairs as she went. However the night ended, she hadn’t had supper yet. Some things always took priority over others.
Besides, the true purpose of her evening was to discover proof that Phineas Mercer was the author of Nocturne. Whatever else came after she’d teased an admission out of him or found her proof in other ways was best saved for dessert.
“What a lovely home you have,” Lenore said as Phineas held out a chair at the small dining room table for her. The table was very noticeably only set for two, in spite of the invitation ostensibly being for Freddy as well, confirming every suspicion Lenore had about the purpose of the evening.
“I know it’s not half as grand as anything you’re used to,” he said, pushing her chair in, then seating himself diagonally across the table from her. “Either here in London or in your Wild West.”
Lenore laughed. “You’d be surprised at how humbly we lived at home,” she said, genuinely impressed when he uncovered a few of the dishes waiting on the table and served her a generous helping of each of their contents. “Papa and Mama were never much for ostentation, no matter how well Papa’s businesses did.”
“Businesses?” Phineas asked. “Plural?”
“Papa started out life as a card sharp,” Lenore explained with a
