the Orient and like no other royal residence in all of Christendom.”
Those assessing eyes raked down and up her body. “You seem to be quite well apprised of the prince’s plans.”
Eleanor glanced away. Perhaps she’d been a tad too exuberant. She’d best plead ignorance or risk further examination by His Grace. Danby was not only a rogue of the highest order, he was closely aligned with the prime minister, which was a flaming red flag as far as she was concerned. Anything more than an acquaintance with the duke could prove perilous to her business dealings, regardless if the prince favored her.
The corners of her mouth tightened as she raised her chin. “Why, anyone in Prinny’s confidence knows of his plans for the pavilion. Would you not agree?”
“Hmm,” he mused without conviction just as the Prince of Wales, Prinny to his friends, George to many, stepped beside them.
The host rocked back on his heels as he rubbed a hand around an embroidered silk waistcoat, buttoned snugly across his enormous stomach. “I’m happy to see two of my dearest friends are acquainted.”
The duke turned a critical eye toward Eleanor. Surely he was thinking the worst. After all, the prince had a reputation for rakishness, and she was a spinster attending a royal dinner, whose escort was nowhere to be seen. “We were just admiring your Mandarin statue. He is quite realistic, is he not?”
Biting the inside of her cheek, Eleanor remained a picture of placidness. Prinny knew better than to say she was, in a term, his privateer. Though Eleanor would never entertain a liaison with the prince. She was in his confidence and he in hers. Of course, she had many other customers to whom she sold rare treasures, but the prince was a special case. Working for him helped to ensure her dealings, which took place behind the façade of a legitimate import business, were always hidden from the public eye and never under the scrutiny of any parliamentary investigations.
“The Mandarin chancellor is one of the prized artifacts in this chamber.” Prinny bowed his head her way. “Thanks to the Honorable Eleanor Kent.”
Eleanor could have melted where she stood. Had the prince regent just told the prime minister’s hound that she’d been involved with this outrageously expensive venture?
The duke’s second eyebrow joined his first, almost popping off his broad forehead while his green eyes grew enormously round. Eleanor had thought them simply green, but as they stood staring at each other, she realized Danby’s eyes were a deep shade of moss—eyes that looked as if they harbored a hundred secrets. “Do tell me more,” he said, his voice deeper, lulling, and far too seductive.
A spike of heat spread across the back of Eleanor’s neck. Is he fishing?
Prinny seemed to take no notice of her discomfort as he spread his arms, gesturing from wall to wall. “Miss Kent has been of tremendous assistance with the chinoiserie aspects of the pavilion.”
Affecting a serene smile, Eleanor tapped the fan to her chin. “Merely in an advisory capacity.”
“You are an expert?” asked the duke.
The prince beckoned a footman and helped himself to a glass of champagne. “Indeed, she is.”
Danby took two glasses, passing one to Eleanor. “I am duly impressed.”
“No need. I enjoy antiquity. I studied Oriental art at finishing school and have been fortunate enough to travel on occasion.” She sipped, then added for good measure, “When my father was well.” It wasn’t exactly the truth. Her father had never taken her outside of England, though once she’d given up on the marriage mart and seized her independence, she’d had no choice but to travel. Extensively.
Danby raised his glass. “Ah yes, Viscount Lisle. How is he, may I ask?”
Eleanor did not mirror the toast. “You know of his infirmity?”
“A casualty of war, I’m afraid,” Prinny interjected. “Still confined to his bed, is he not, Eleanor? A shame, a horrible shame.”
Her heart squeezed as it always did whenever the subject of her father arose. “He is, as he has been for the past decade.” The last word strangled in her throat. Papa had been trapped within the confines of his own mind for so long, she hardly remembered what he’d been like before the war—the man he’d been before her mother passed.
“Agreed, Bonaparte inflicted far too much pain and suffering, both on our men as well as the women who remained home.”
Eleanor knew very well the agony of being left behind while her father went off to fight with the fifth coalition. Not