“He chews with his mouth open.” When that didn’t elicit an immediate rejection, he pursued his fiction. “And he cracks his knuckles incessantly. He’d drive you completely dotty within five minutes.”
“What about Harry Hall?” She pointed to the slender man talking to Pascal.
“Doesn’t wash.”
She turned to frown at Silas in puzzlement. “I’ve danced with him. He smelled perfectly fine.”
“Well, when I say he doesn’t wash, he does have a scrub-down once a month. You must have timed your dance just right.”
“Oh, dear,” she said with unconcealed disappointment. “Eligible lovers seem thinner on the ground than I’d anticipated. I’m so glad you’re helping me to discount the bad choices.”
If he had his way, he’d have her discounting every rake, roué, mother’s boy and decent chap in London. Except for that fine example of British manhood Silas Nash.
She brightened as her eyes settled on a tall, fair-haired man in the opposite box. “There’s Lord Garson. You can’t tell me he’s unsuitable. I know you’re great friends.”
A friendship likely to end in bloodshed if Caro went to the swine’s bed. Silas struggled to come up with something to dissuade her from pursuing a fellow he both liked and respected. His honor dangled by a thread, but he couldn’t bring himself to accuse a good man of cheating at cards or swindling old ladies.
Garson caught his eye and signaled a greeting. Then he raised his quizzing glass to inspect Caroline with unconcealed interest. A shamefully primeval itch to poke the delicate implement into Garson’s eye gripped Silas.
“He…snores,” he said in a strangled voice.
“Is that all? We won’t do much sleeping.”
Buggeration, now he was imagining her not sleepi
ng with Garson. The pictures swarming through his mind made him long to smash his fist into his friend’s wholly inoffensive face. “Caro, you shock me.”
She looked unimpressed. “No, I don’t. Anyway, how do you know?”
“Know what?”
“That he snores.”
Silas hadn’t lied so much since he was a lad caught raiding Sydenham Place’s larder at midnight. “A few years ago I had the misfortune of sharing a room with him at a dashed poky hunting box in the Cairngorms. Didn’t get a wink of sleep. Every breath sounded like a battery of artillery.”
“I agree that’s a disqualification in a husband, but it’s not really a problem in a lover.”
The devil, what else could he say against his dear, much admired friend? “And he picks his teeth. It’s worse than Pascal’s knuckle cracking.”
Caro cast him a doubtful glance. “Are you sure? People do nothing but sing his praises, and nobody’s mentioned any unfortunate personal habits.”
Silas shrugged and strove to look reliable. “I’m only telling you what I know. You were the one who asked me to snitch on my friends. You ought to be grateful that I’m breaking the gentlemen’s code for your sake.”
“You’re right, Silas. I’m sorry.” A ruminative expression entered her eyes. “From what you’ve said, West sounds the best of the lot.”
Bloody hell. All that lying and Silas was no further advanced than he’d been last night. “He’s not right for you.”
“I don’t see why not. Unless you’re going to accuse him of snoring or picking his teeth or crunching his knuckles. I know he washes and his mother is a charming lady. She came to one of Helena’s teas.” Before he could gather his arguments, she sent him a brilliant smile. “Thank you, Silas. You’ve been most helpful.”
Helpful? Someone should hit him with a hammer before he was so helpful again. As if to underline the stinking morass Silas waded into, West glanced up from the stalls and smiled at Caroline, damn his sneaky, covetous, lecherous, thieving eyes.
And Silas’s beloved smiled back with a cordiality that made him want to snarl like an angry mastiff.
***
A soft tap on Silas’s bedroom door interrupted disturbed dreams where he chased endlessly after Caro and she chased endlessly after some faceless man. Round and round, and nobody laying a hand on their quarry. Feeling exhausted with all that running, he cracked open one eye. The room was dark. He groaned and rolled over to bury his face in the pillow. Whoever the hell it was would go away.
Except there was another knock and the faint squeak of an opening door, before a tentative voice asked, “My lord?”