A Gentleman Never Tells Read Online Free

the man I was hoping for. I can’t seem to make these Italian fellows understand that English ladies, however sturdy and liberal minded, simply
cannot
be expected to sleep in a room with strangers.
Male
strangers.
Foreign
male strangers. Don’t you agree, Your Grace?” She stopped in front of them.
    “Are there no rooms available upstairs, madam?”
    She shrugged beautifully, her tailored black shoulder making a practiced little arc through the air. “A small room, a very small room. Hardly large enough for Lady Somerton’s boy to sleep in, let alone the three of us.” Her gaze shifted to Roland and she started visibly, her entire body snapping backward. “Lord Roland!” she exclaimed. “I’d no idea! Have you . . . my cousin . . . Lady Somerton . . . good God!”
    Roland bowed affably. Why not? It seemed the thing to do. “I had the great honor of meeting her ladyship outside on the . . . the portico, a moment ago. And her charming son, of course.”
    A choking noise emerged from Lady Morley’s trim throat, as if a laugh were suppressing itself. “Charming! Yes, quite.” Her mouth opened and closed. She cleared her throat.
    Roland, watching her, felt his own shock begin to slide away, numbness replaced by awareness. You could not deny the reality of Alexandra, Lady Morley. She crackled with reality. And if Lady Morley were real, then . . .
    His nerves took up a strange and inauspicious tingling.
    It was true. He hadn’t dreamt it. Lilibet was here.
    Stop that
, he told his nerves sternly, but it only made things worse. Only made things more real, only made Lilibet’s presence—the actual existence of her living body not ten yards away—more real. He had the disturbing premonition that he was about to do something rash.
    Lady Morley wrung her hands and looked back at the duke beseechingly. “Look here, Wallingford, I really must throw myself on your mercy. Surely you see our little dilemma. Your rooms are ever so much larger, palatial really, and
two
of them! You can’t possibly, in all conscience . . .” Her voice drifted, turned upward. She returned to Roland. “My dear Penhallow. Think of poor Lilibet, sleeping in . . . in a
chair
, quite possibly . . . with all these strangers.”
    Burke, standing next to Roland with all the good cheer of a lion disturbed from his nap, cleared his throat with an ominous rumble. “Did it not, perhaps, occur to you, Lady Morley, to reserve rooms in advance?”
    Roland winced. Damn the fellow. Old scientific Burke was hardly the sort of man to endure arrogant young marchionesses with patience, and patience was called for just now: patience and delicacy and the utmost exquisite sensitivity.
    Because Lilibet was here. Here, within reach.
    Lady Morley’s cat-shaped eyes fastened on him in the famous Morley glare. “As a matter of fact, it did, Mr. . . .” She raised her eyebrows expressively. “I’m so terribly sorry, sir. I don’t
quite
believe I caught your name.”
    “I beg your pardon, Lady Morley,” said the Duke of Wallingford. “How remiss of me. I have the great honor to present to you—perhaps you may have come across his name, in your philosophical studies—Mr. Phineas Fitzwilliam Burke, of the Royal Society.”
    “Your servant, madam,” he said, with a slight inclination of his head.
    “Burke,” she said, and then her eyes widened an instant. “Phineas Burke. Of course. The Royal Society. Yes, of course. Everyone knows of Mr. Burke. I found . . . the
Times
, last month . . . your remarks on electrical . . . that new sort of . . .” She drew in a fortifying breath, and then smiled, warmly even. “That is to say, of course we reserved rooms. I sent the wire days ago, if memory serves. But we were delayed in Milan. The boy’s nursemaid took ill, you see, and I expect our message did not reach our host in time.” She sent a hard look in the landlord’s direction.
    “Look here.” Roland heard his own