“Ican.” He bowed again. “It is one of my hobbies.”
Her hand twitched, and for a brief moment he feared she might send his favorite vintage of wine sailing straight at his head.
“Of course it would be a hobby of yours.” The princess narrowed her eyes at him. “How are my brothers?”
“Your…” Graham feared he goggled unbecomingly. “Those highly trained deadly assassins were yourbrothers?”
“‘Were’?” She staggered backward. “They still are! Theymustbe. If you—”
“They’re alive and well,” he assured her. “And more than a little confused. I didn’t kill them. I lost them, as I said I would. They chased after me for a full mile before I doubled back over the rooftops.”
“Youthinkyou lost them. They are not stupid.”
“They did not appear to be,” Graham agreed. “They were also well armed. I have never seen someone take a holiday with quite so many blades and pistols hidden upon their person. My compliments to their tailor. I had thought their suits merely ill-fitting, not concealing an entire armory.”
The princess was not attending to his fashion commentary. “Floris and Reinald may return this way, if they have not already. They are intelligent enough to retrace their steps.”
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “We shan’t set out again on foot. I can summon a hack.”
“‘We’?” the princess repeated in offended hauteur. “I can manage my own conveyance.”
“Am I wrong to suppose you’ve never rented a hackney carriage before?”
“Until this voyage, I had never rented anything. That doesn’t mean I cannot. Though it’s true things have always just been purchased for me. I feel like a pumpkin in a gooseberry patch.” Her sharp gaze snapped to his. “Is that why you noticed me? Because I was so conspicuously out of place?”
“Ah. No.” He settled into an armchair and motioned for her to do the same.
For a moment the princess looked as though she might refuse on principle, but she settled into the seat across from him.
“I noticed you,” Graham explained, “because I was looking for you.”
“You did not know that I was here!”
“I didn’t know you wereyou,” he acknowledged. “But I had been following the clues most assiduously. I realized someone was being tracked and had managed to escape her hunters.”
She frowned. “Clues?”
“Advertisements,” he clarified. “Written in cipher and printed inThe Times. A newspaper. Your brothers may be lethal and fearsome, but I’m afraid they have no future in cryptography. I and two dozen of my sister-in-law’s closest lady friends were each independently able to work out the meaning in less than a fortnight.”
“What did the messages say?”
“You didn’t read them?”
“I was not available for correspondence. I am far too busy attending to my duties to waste time reading English newspapers.”
“Reading English newspapersismy duty,” Graham said solemnly. “One of them anyway. Though these messages were for you. First, letting you know you’d been spotted at this place or that, and then quickly becoming more threatening lest you fail to surrender yourself to your hunters.”
“Well, that sounds like my brothers. I thank you for your unsolicited intrusion and must now be on my way. I do not need your aid to summon a carriage. Good day, Mr. Wynchester.”
“Well,” Graham echoed.
He had hoped for a touch more effusive praise and perhaps an impassioned plea not to leave her side.
“I am at your service, Princess,” he tried again.
“I do not require a guard. Iama guard.” Her pretty eyes flashed. “And I am not a princess.”
“But you do need my help.”
