That devastating smile of his that pulled his cheeks wide and stacked wrinkles beside his eyes and nearly rendered Allie’s knees weak.
Madonna mia.
Apollo, indeed.
“Nothing, lass. I want nothing.” His smile deepened as he performed a nerve-tingling skim up and down her person. “Except perhaps tae gaze upon your bonnie face once more.”
Her knees truly did tremble at that.
Locking the traitorous joints in place, Allie lifted an eyebrow. “Andthatis why you have hidden yourself in my brother’s back garden?”
“Well, that and I saw a rather familiar, rag-mannered Italian man duck through your garden gate, and the gentleman in me insisted I come to investigate.”
“Thinking to rescue me? You attempt that every time we meet. Unfortunately, you have yet to succeed.”
Did he sigh at her words? “Aye, my lady. ’Tis a source of vexation.”
A small silence ensued.
The foolish girl in Allie’s heart clapped her hands in giddy excitement.
The handsome man noticed you. He cares what happens to you!
The battle-hardened realist she had become rolled her eyes at that girl.
Surely Ethan Penn-Leith, like every other man on the planet, had an agenda. The Scot was merely waiting to exploit her in order to achieve his goals.
Whatever those may be.
He smiled far too readily, too magnetically, to be trustworthy.
And she had an escape to make.
“As I said at Lord Aberdeen’s not three days past, I am not your concern, Mr. Penn-Leith. Therefore, I bid you good-day and assume you will show yourself out of my brother’s garden.”
Giving the Scot an aristocratic nod of her head, Allie passed through the gate and into the alleyway.
She walked ten paces down the narrow passageway before pausing. Behind her, the garden gate remained ajar, Mr. Penn-Leith presumably still inside. Thirty feet ahead, footmen in livery and maids carrying baskets mingled with ladies in bonnets and gentlemen in top hats.
Now what?
The chance to escape had come so unexpectedly, she hadn’t a moment to plan.
Thankfully, she was wearing a walking dress and bonnet. However, she lacked a pelerine or a shawl or any other accoutrement of a lady.
Worse, she did not have a single farthing to her name.
Drat.
In the past, she hadalwayshad a plan.
Was she going soft? Had months of being waited on hand and foot by Kendall’s servants dulled her sense of survival?
Perhaps she could slip back into her bedchamber and retrieve the small cache of coins and expensive baubles she had purloined over the past few months. But if Aunt Whipple awakened. Or Kendall returned home. Or Fredericks, her brother’s stodgy butler, noticed the unlocked gate before she could exit again, then—
“Are ye sure ye don’t require some aid?” Mr. Penn-Leith said at her elbow. “Ye appear tae be dithering far too long for a person who doesn’t need assistance.”
Allie suppressed anothereeep!of surprise, spinning to glare at him. How did he sneak up on her like this?
