He cast a glance in Octavia’s direction, his gaze searching. “If I’m not too much distraction.”
Him? Distraction?
Always.
“Of course you shan’t be,” she lied, doing her best not to look at his lips and hands or think about all the clever pleasures they could give her.
“Perfect,” he purred.
She felt that lone word in her core.
Octavia swallowed. “Did you have anything planned?”
His grin faded, making it apparent he did not. “What activities did your father engage in with you, when you were a child?”
She thought. And thought. And thought.
“None.”
“Ah,” was all he said.
“Mama told us we could ‘ave seed cakes if we went through the entire abbsysarium,” Elizabeth offered helpfully, her evisceration of the word even more pronounced now.
Octavia bit her lip to stifle a smile. “Indeed I did. Perhaps you would care to join us?”
Jasper’s easy grin returned. “I’m bloody famished. Plummy idea.”
Oh dear. She had quite a road ahead of her when it came to teaching the girls manners. First, she would have to begin with their father.
She rose, placing the small leather-bound volume on a low table for later use. “Come then, and let us see what delicacies we may find.”
“I’ve one in mind,” Jasper said, giving her a pointed stare. “But it ain’t seed cakes.”
She knew precisely what it was.
Her.
“What is it?” Anne asked innocently.
Jasper gave Octavia a heated look that was enough to make her heart trip over itself. “Pudding.”
Pudding indeed.
She was suffused in warmth, from head to toe, and the ache in her belly that seemed to present itself whenever he was near returned with a vengeance. When Jasper Sutton chose to be charming, the man was utterly irresistible.
But he was still a scoundrel at heart.
Was he not?
The hour was despicably late by even the standards of the fashionable peers who gambled away their dwindling family coffers every night. Indeed, there was only a small handful of dedicated lords yet about the tables, desperate to regain their luck and their fortunes both. Fortunately, Lord Beaumont had been caught cheating and had not dared to make a return.
Jasper made a quick tour of the public rooms, making certain wine was being replenished swiftly and there were no signs of belligerence from the patrons, some who had spent the equivalent of a working man’s day within the carefully shrouded windows of The Sinner?
??s Palace. One could never be too careful. Polite society, when on the edge of its own hallowed territory and fortified by spirits, could often be less than polite.
On those occasions, he always attempted to calm the irate patron and see him nicely escorted to the door. Very rarely, a man—usually deep in his cups and light in the purse—attempted to cause trouble. That was when the guards or his brothers Rafe, Hart, and Wolf stepped in. Once, removing a drunken second son of a duke had required all his brothers and three of his men. It had not been a proud day for The Sinner’s Palace, but fortunately, the young lord had risen the next day in shame and had not attempted to ruin the good name of the Sutton establishment.
The quality certainly cared a whole hell of a lot about what everyone else thought about them. Reputation was paramount, almost a religion in itself, a secondary god they worshiped and praised. That was where a businessman and lords and ladies were not so different. Both required their reputations to remain intact to continue carrying on as they wished.