Page 9 of The Language of Love

But his amusement had faded as he’d comprehended the sheer magnitude of Colin Parker’s ignorance: the man had spent four years in India and couldn’t identify Dacca on a map! Not only was he as thick as a plank, but he was also willfully ignorant and casually bigoted. Of course, one could say the same of at least half the men currently working for the Company and living in India.

Parker had also turned out to be the worst sailor in the history of humankind.

So, instead of spending their journey rehearsing for the approaching deception, Colin had spent every moment moaning in misery or puking into a basin. Henry hadn’t been sure the man would actually make it to England alive.

They’d exchanged hardly a word during the long journey and barely knew each other. While that was certainly a godsend when it came to preserving Henry’s sanity, it meant that Colin knew next to nothing about the man he was supposed to be impersonating: Henry, the real Earl of Rotherhithe.

Henry sighed and forced himself to smile at Colin. “Let’s practice a bit before our next course arrives, my lord.” Henry was as sick of the topic as the other man probably was, but it was the minimum Colin should know for the meeting they were to have later that day.

“How did you come to be in Dacca, my lord?” Henry asked for the fifth or sixth time that week.

“Erm, I went there by ship.”

It took extreme self-control not to lash out.

Whatever Colin saw on Henry’s face—insane rage? Despair?—seemed to jolt his memory. “Oh, yes, I remember now!” Colin snapped his fingers and the sharp crack caused several diners to turn and frown. “I received a letter from my father’s business partner in Dacca.”

Henry nodded and Colin visibly warmed to his subject and continued, “I was living in Yorkshire with my uncle—the Earl of Rotherhithe—and his five daughters.” He grinned triumphantly.

Henry narrowed his eyes.

“Er, three daughters?”

“I thought your uncle had only the one son, Charles—”

Colin raised his hand in an obnoxious, halting gesture, an expression of intense concentration compressing his handsome features. “Wait, wait—I know this one. Yes, my cousin Charles, who was the last earl. He, er, died—about two years ago, now.” He cut Henry a quick, hopeful look.

“I can’t quite recall how he died. Do you, my lord?”

Colin worried his lower lip. “He got hit on the bone-box during a cricket match?”

“Close, my lord. He died ramming his mount into a rock wall while hunting.”

Colin’s eyes widened, as if he’d never heard the story before—rather than hearing it earlier in the day.

Fortunately, before Henry resorted to violence, the waiter arrived with more food.

“Oh! Yorkshire puddings—my favorite.” Colin’s grin stretched from ear to ear as he bounced up and down in his chair, his innocent enthusiasm causing Henry to feel churlish about being so short-tempered with him.

As he watched Colin enthuse over his meal, it boggled the mind to think what sort of work the man might have done for the Company. The only thing Colin seemed to have any expertise at—based on his boastful jabbering—was billiards and whoring.

Henry had witnessed Colin’s unimpressive performance in the billiards room at Rotherhithe House last night.

As to his whoring? Well, Henry thankfully had no personal knowledge of that, although he’d certainly had several opportunities. Instead, he’d twice vetoed Colin’s request to visit a London brothel that some mate in Dacca had told him about. According to Colin, the brothel in question was the sort of place where a man could get up to all sorts of bobbery.

Henry shuddered to imagine.

“Do you suppose we might go see that waxwork thing today?” Colin asked. “I mean, after we’ve finished our cramming?” Parker chewed with his mouth open, wide open and quite full.

Henry’s temperature rose.

You’d better take a damper, Henry. After all, it was your idea to engage in this deception.

Yes, it was his stupid idea; he clamped his jaws shut.

“You know the one I mean?” Parker persisted, undeterred by Henry’s silence. “A mate of mine in Dacca saw her statues at the Lyceum.”

If Henry had to hear the words, a mate of mine one more time, he would—