He scowled. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you alone?” she asked.
“Yes.” He cast his glance over her shoulders at the vacant alleyway. “Are you?”
She nodded.
He crossed his arms in annoyance, but he didn’t shut the door.
Her heart thumped. Perhaps she had a chance. “May I come in?”
His expression shuttered. “Bryony—”
“Please.” She hugged herself to keep out the cold. “Just for a moment. It has been a tough day.”
He wasn’t going to allow it.Nowas written in his eyes.
“It’s dark,” she said quickly. “And late. What if I promise to leave at first light?”
This was blatant manipulation. He knew it as well as she did. Bryony had clearly made it this far across town in her tailcoat and top hat. Surely she could find her way back home in the dark.
Yet a true gentleman would be unable to turn her away.
Begrudgingly, he stepped aside to let her pass. “Dawn is in less than an hour.”
She hurried inside before he could change his mind.
The week had been full of constant disappointments. Bryony simply couldn’t please her mother. From the dozens of marriageable gentlemen who didn’t ask for a second dance to the excruciating evenings filled with meaningless small talk about nothing at all.
Even if she didn’t really belong, she felt less out of place hunched over Max’s desk in men’s clothing than she did mincing about with her corseted spine ramrod straight while forcing herself to giggle becomingly at inane observations about fresh scones or rainy weather.
Yet she tried. For her mother. For herself.
At the Cloven Hoof, everything was different.
For the first time, Bryony very much cared whether the gentleman in question happened to like her back. Max had earned her respect. She didn’t want to lose his company.
“What was the reaction to the change in prices?” she asked, as if she had any right to the answer.
Well, technically, she did have every right to know, and would find out herself in the next monthly report. However, that detail was not something she could share if she wanted to continue to be received with open arms. Or at all.
She was not just an investor, but the owner of the land around them. A property Max very much wished to regain for himself.
After which, he would have absolutely no need for Bryony.
Shecouldn’tsell. The entire impetus behind sneaking in that first night was to discover whether the deed to his property was worth holding onto. The answer was obvious. Guard the asset and keep collecting rent.
Yet life was far from straightforward.
“Hmm?” he asked.
She cleared her throat. “The wine. Was there a strong reaction to the new prices?”
“As you suspected.” Max scribbled in one of his journals. “No reaction at all. Except mine, when I saw our higher numbers.”
Bryony knew that Max wasn’t including her in his use of the wordour, but her heart soared all the same. She had been useful. She had value.
If only she hadn’t had to disguise herself to prove it.
