“Where shall I have the coachman take us?”
“I shall be returning to Little Peter Street,” she responded.
“Your lodgings?” He wore an expression of utter befuddlement. “Aren’t we going to find my son?”
“I understand your haste.” She’d expected as much. “But not today.”
Nonplussed, he demanded, “Why the deuce not?”
“A few reasons. First, you aren’t dressed for it.”
“I’m wearing my best, as instructed.”
“We can’t go where we’re going and ask questions with you looking like”—she waved her hand up and down, indicating his entire person—“this.”
“Like what, precisely?” he demanded.
“Likeyou.”
“And who else would I resemble?”
“You look like a lord.”
“What else would I look like? I am a—”
“Nob.I know.” A beat. “But you can’t look like one. We need to procure other togs for you.”
“Let us do that now.”
She shook her head. “Tomorrow. I, um”—why was she hesitating?—“I have an engagement tonight.”
He flinched, as if she’d struck him. “Another client?”
“A personal engagement.”
His shocked expression would have been amusing if it wasn’t so perplexing. Did the man think he was the only person in her life? That he hadn’t been too far off the mark wouldn’t bear up beneath close scrutiny.
“Allow me to retrieve Sir Bacon, and we can part ways here.”
She needed to ready herself for tonight. But she also needed to ready herself for what tomorrow would bring, for tomorrow she would be taking Clare to Flick Doyle, two worlds she was none too keen to see collide.Bloody hell.
“I shall see you to your lodgings,” Clare said, determined.
“You must stop this.”
His eyebrows knitted together. “Stop what?”
“Treating me like a woman.”
“But you are a woman.” He said each word slowly and deliberately as if he were speaking to a simpleton.
“I am most definitelynota woman for the purposes of our relationship. I am someone you’ve hired to run an investigation for you.”
A fraught instant later, he gave a reluctant nod.
Her message hadn’t sunk in. “You are a blasted frustrating man. Has anyone ever told you?”
“Yes.”
