Chapter Nine
Hortense sank backinto a shallow alcove, tetchy, alone. She’d left Sir Bacon with a dubious Mrs. Hayhurst. The guinea she’d paid the woman had assuaged the few remaining doubts. She couldn’t bring him tonight. She needed no distractions.
A familiar coach and four slowed to a stop at the agreed-upon corner. Speaking of distractions…
The carriage door swung open and out jumped Clare. He was a fish out of water in these surroundings. More like a peacock outside the forest. She suspected he was wearing his plainest clothing, but it made no difference. The man looked expensive.
She would wager a year’s pay he’d never ventured to the parts of London they would see tonight. Sure, he’d spent years trawling gaming hells of the highest and lowest order, but, like all nobs who indulged in those proclivities, it was a lark. They might have stepped one foot inside the East End, but the other remained solidly rooted in Mayfair and St. James. They knew the low pleasures offered in St. Giles and Southwark, not the realities. Tonight would be an education for the marquess.
“Return the carriage and horses to the mews,” he called up to the coachman. “I won’t be needing them again tonight.”
The man’s eyebrows lifted to the sky. “Ye want me to leave ye here?”
Even in the shadows of fallen night, she could see Clare’s gaze narrow on the man. “Indeed.”
Instead of offering further protest, the coachman called out a command to the horses, and the carriage lurched into motion. Clare was master here.
“You truly don’t like to be nay-sayed, do you?” she called out.
He faced her in a neat pivot. “Does anyone?”
She fought the half smile that wanted to curl at the corner of her mouth.
He gave her a quick up-and-down. “Back to the trousers tonight?”
The obvious didn’t warrant an answer. “We walk.”
She could see he was about to offer his arm—like a gentleman—so she struck out into the crowd and began wending her way through, leaving him no choice but to follow at her heels.
Once they reached a point where the crowd had thinned, she allowed him to draw abreast with her. “How was the rest of your evening last night?” he asked.
“I left soon after you.”
“No other personal assignations?”
“No.” Not that she owed him an accounting of her evening. “I spent much of it cleaning up after Sir Bacon.”
“Is he very much trouble?”
A bemused laugh escaped her. “Quite.”
“I’d posit you’ve come to rather like the dog.”
“Perhaps.”
“And your morning?” he asked. “Was it a fine one?”
She cut him a sharp look. “What are you on about?”
He spread his hands wide. “Making conversation. Have you never heard of the concept?”
Perhaps she was being unduly rude. “My morning was, um, yes, decent.”
“Do your lodgings offer a fine night’s rest?”
“They, um, do.”
“No one ever asks these questions of you or enquires into your life, do they?”
