“Gentleman to see you, sir.”
Dex looked up from Eloïse Fortrose’s letter. “I’m not at home to visitors.”
Hicks grunted and withdrew from the bedchamber.
Dex read the letter again, tilting it to catch the light seeping in through the windowpanes. He wanted the letter to say something different, but with each re-reading, the words remained the same.
Hicks returned and presented a visiting card with all the finesse of a butcher offering a scrap of flyblown meat for perusal. “Most insistent he is, sir.”
Dex’s temper flared. “I told you, I’m not at home to visitors!” He snatched the card from Hicks’s hand, preparatory to flinging it across the room.
A name caught his eyes.
Arthur Blake, Esq.
Arthur Blake, Esq.Dex crumpled the card in his hand, its edges biting into his palm. He wanted t
