Page 62 of The Boxing Baroness

It wasn’t accurate to say she was eating; rather, she was desultorily dipping a finger of dry toast into the weak tea she favored.

“It is time I made a visit, Aunt. It has been years since anyone has gone, not since Father’s visit in 1784.”

She pushed away her cup, her tea and toast largely unconsumed. “I would have some gruel,” she said to her favorite footman, Charles, who was never far from her.

“Right away, my lady.” Charles bowed, his exit from the room soundless, courtesy of the thick felt booties all the indoor servants wore.

Sin grimaced; it was never a good sign when his aunt wanted gruel.

“America is such a dangerous place, St. John,” she fretted, pulling her teacup back toward her, but only to fiddle with the handle.

Fiddling was yet another bad sign.

“I’ve seen the stories in the newspapers—they are at war, my dear.”

Sin reached over and laid his hand over hers, the bones as fragile as a bird’s.

An image of Marianne Simpson’s hands—not so much larger, but eminently stronger and more capable—flashed through his mind. He’d felt those hands on his body, those fingers digging into his arse and hips . . .

Sin caught himself, yet again, and banished the unwanted image. It would not stay banished, of course, but he would keep trying.

Instead of fantasizing about Marianne, he applied himself to soothing his aunt, a woman he thought of as his mother, even though his mother still lived in the east wing of his house. If you could call her existence living.

He squeezed Lady Julia’s hand gently. “The conflict you are thinking about is in the far south, Aunt Julia—in the Florida territory. Our timberland is near the northern border with New Brunswick. Indeed, a good deal of the property is actually in our colony. There is no danger of war there.”

Lady Julia pursed her lips, thwarted, but not routed by any means. Sin was returning to London after breakfast, so she only had a few hours left to mount another assault.

“It will be fine,” he promised her, patting her hand before releasing it.

The door to the breakfast room opened and Keller, who’d been the butler at Wortham since Sin was a lad, entered, bearing a salver. “These just came for you this morning, Your Grace.”

“Thank you.” Sin’s gaze was already on the distinctive feminine writing on the top envelope.

He sighed. Alanna. Yet one more item on his list of matters to attend to before he left.

Below her letter were several others forwarded from his secretary in London and one other letter with no return direction, written on cheap parchment, and sealed with a putrid gray wafer.

“You really must talk to Phelps about whatever it is that he is using on your hair, St. John.”

He looked up from the letters. “I’m sorry, Aunt?”

“Your hair,” Lady Julia said, her pale green eyes—so like his own and his father’s—narrowing. “It looks almost . . . dirty.”

“I think it might be the new pomade Phelps is using,” he lied, silently begging his valet’s forgiveness.

Elliot had given Sin a coffee-based paste that darkened his distinctive ash-blond hair. How his friend knew about such things was a mystery he wasn’t sure he wanted to solve.

Phelps, his valet, had been appalled when Sin brought him the coffee mixture the first time and instructed him to apply it.

Elliot had assured Sin that the color would wash out easily. That had turned out to be something of an exaggeration. Fortunately, Phelps had concocted a vinegar rinse that had stripped off most of the color when soap and water had failed to do the job.

Poor Phelps. If his valet had been stunned about darkening Sin’s hair, he’d been close to apoplexy when Sin had told the man where he was really going for the next few months.

And where Phelps was really going.

Although his valet had not questioned the order to pack and prepare for a journey to America—a trip which Phelps would be taking with Sin’s secretary—Sin had sensed the other man had been as close to speaking out as he ever had in the almost twenty years that he’d served him.

Well, it couldn’t be helped. Phelps and Morland’s journey was necessary to preserve the façade of his trip to America. Besides, his secretary did have business to attend to in Boston, although it could just as well have been accomplished by letter.