Page 45 of Enlightened

“Will you require a table for dinner, my lord?” the butler asked as he ushered them through the vestibule. “We have roast beef this evening, and there’s an excellent syllabub.”

“Not just now, thank you,” Murdo said politely. “I think we will take a look around to begin with.”

“Very good, my lord. You will find a number of lounges on this floor. This is where our gentlemen like to meet and converse. The dining rooms are on the next floor, and the card rooms are on the floor above that.”

“Thank you,” Murdo replied, his cool tone discouraging any further conversation. Taking the hint, the butler nodded and withdrew.

“Come on,” Murdo said to David, and they began a tour.

It quickly became plain that, despite the single front door, Culzeans occupied more than one house. There were four separate lounges of varying sizes on the ground floor, and the rooms had been arranged so that the members could stroll from one to the other with ease. Most of them were crammed with small groupings of comfortable-looking leather armchairs, many of which were occupied by the members and their guests. The fireplaces in each room burned merrily, and candles blazed from sconces on the walls.

It was when they reached the fourth and last lounge that Murdo was hailed by someone he knew.

“Murdo, my boy! What on earth are you doing here?”

Murdo stopped dead at the sound of his father’s cut-glass voice, and David halted slightly behind him. As luck would have it, the marquess hadn’t noticed David when he’d first clapped eyes on Murdo, and his tone was warm with mingled surprise and approval, his harsh features lightened by something that looked like real pleasure. A moment later, though—when he saw David at his son’s shoulder—the pleasure faded and his mouth tightened into a grim line.

“I see you have your…secretary with you,” the marquess added. There was enough of a pause before the wordsecretaryto convey his displeasure without alerting his companion, a man with a stiff bearing who looked to be around the same age as the marquess, to his true thoughts about David.

Murdo looked up and, after a brief hesitation, shifted his course to approach his father and the other man.

“Good evening, Father,” he said. “Lord Hartley.”

Lord Hartley. So this was the man whose daughter Murdo was engaged to.

David had no choice but to follow Murdo. He stayed a little behind him, hovering at his right elbow, noting the cool expression on Lord Hartley’s face as he took Murdo’s proffered hand and shook it briefly.

“This is my secretary, Mr. Lauriston,” Murdo added, standing a little to the side. Hartley gave the slightest of nods, forced to acknowledge David but clearly not pleased to be introduced to so lowly a personage. David bowed politely, though not deeply, in return. The marquess ignored him.

Lord Hartley turned back to Murdo. “I didn’t realise you were in town,” he murmured, turning to glance at the marquess as though expecting an explanation from him.

“He’s only just arrived, haven’t you, Murdo?” the marquess said, smiling tightly.

“Indeed.” Murdo gave his father a wintry smile in return, then turned to Hartley. “I was actually planning to call on you tomorrow, my lord. I was hoping we could speak in private. Perhaps in the afternoon?”

The marquess spoke before Hartley had a chance to respond. “I have to attend Parliament tomorrow afternoon. The evening would be better. Perhaps over dinner—”

Murdo interrupted him before he could go further. “You misunderstand, Father,” he said mildly. “I wish to speak to Lord Hartley in private.”

The marquess’s lips thinned at that, but Lord Hartley said, “We can talk now, if you wish. There must be a private chamber we can use here.”

“I regret I cannot this evening. I am on an errand of some importance.”

“More important than speaking with your future father-in-law?” Hartley replied with a slight sharpness to his tone.

Murdo’s pause was uncomfortable. “Yes,” he said at last. “I’m afraid so.”

The marquess’s expression was pure ice, somehow furious and blank at once.

Hartley plainly wasn’t pleased either, but he gave a curt nod. “Very well,” he said. “Come to the house at two o’clock tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” Murdo executed a short, stiff bow. “Please excuse us.”

He didn’t say anything to David until they were moving through the open doors into the next room.

“Sorry to be so high-handed with you,” he murmured, “but you are supposed to be my secretary.”

David just gave a soft laugh.