Page 11 of The Language of Love

“I’d rather not wait a week—my, um, Parker. I’m better at learning on the job—hands-on, so to speak—and I’m not keen too keen on cramming. Studying ain’t my strong suit.”

Yes, I know.

“We could dive in today as far as I’m concerned,” Colin declared with a frighteningly mindless smile. “I’m as fit as a fiddle and ready for frolics.”

Henry bit his tongue. Hard.

“In fact,” Colin went on, “this morning I was reading some of those invitations piled up in the library—”

Henry forbore to point out that it was his mail that Colin had opened and read.

“—and I found one for a whosy-whatsit—a party where you get to wear a costume.”

“A masquerade,” Henry supplied, dread blooming inside him.

“That’s the one! Anyhow, I only got to wear a costume once—the Nativity, you know. I was an ass, along with my elder brother, Tommy.”

“Is that so?” Henry asked, amused despite himself.

Colin nodded enthusiastically. “It was rather a cunning costume, two parts. But, erm, Tommy made me be the hind end, and I didn’t see much for most of the evening.”

“Ah.”

“I thought maybe you and I could find a costume like that?”

Henry clamped his jaws shut. Not. Bloody. Likely.

Colin’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Maybe a horse instead of an ass? And this time I’d get to be the front of the horse because, you know, I’m the earl.” He grinned. When Henry didn’t respond, Colin added, “Sounds rather a jolly lark, doesn’t it, Parker?”

It sounded like a brand-new circle in Dante’s Hell.

“So, what do you say?” Colin prodded. “Can we go? Can we, please?”

“I believe you are referring to the Palmer masquerade, which is tonight, my lord, and I doubt we shall be ready for that—even if we could locate a horse costume,” Henry added placatingly.

Colin’s eyebrows descended and his expression became downright mulish. “I am ready and I should like to go, Parker. Perhaps this Lady Sludgewit can—”

“Lady Sedgwick, my lord. And there will be no masquerade tonight.”

Or ever.

Colin flinched at Henry’s menacing hiss, swallowing a few times before nodding. “Er, yes, just so. I daresay she’ll tell me I need a bit of spit and polish, what?”

“I daresay.”

Colin’s expression lightened. “But there will other frisks with costumes—plenty of balls, routs, and the like?”

Henry nodded, an ache beginning in his head at the thought of such frisks.

Perhaps it was not too late to change his mind about this farce and flee back to Dacca as fast as his ship could carry him.