“Surely you can’t be serious,” Clare exclaimed.
“We cannot bring them with us tonight,” she explained, patiently, as to a child.
Mutiny in his eyes, he shut his mouth, her point conceded.
Haley clasped his hands together with a glee fit for a girl of teen years. Clare winced, and Hortense inhaled a snort. It was distasteful behavior for a man of middling age. The pawnbroker began zipping about his shop, plucking up a few shirts here, a pair of trousers there. “Will milord be needing boots?”
“Yes,” she said at the same time Clare said, “No.”
Their eyes clashed. “Not my boots,” he said. “They took two years to break in, and I’m not parting with them.” A man had to make his stand somewhere, Hortense supposed. Boots seemed a reasonable place.
She released a resigned sigh. “I reckon a chunk of coal will do.”
“For what purpose?” he asked, warily.
She pointed at his rather dashing boots. “They’re too shiny. They need a bit of roughing up.”
“Like their master?”
She gave a wry snort. “Something like that.”
“Milord?”
Haley stood at the back of the shop, one arm full of clothes and the other sweeping back a curtain with a flourish. Dust filled the air. “For your convenience,” he continued, “you may use this room to exchange your clothes.”
Clare cast a parting glance at Hortense, who couldn’t help smirking up at him. This was the moment of decision. He would proceed to exchange his fine clothing for the rags in Haley’s arms, or he wouldn’t. And if he didn’t, the job was off.
Jaw tight with decision, he closed the remaining distance to Haley, took the clothes, and stepped inside, securing the curtain behind him.
She followed, her ear attuned to the muted sound of his broad shoulders knocking about the tiny room fit for a broom closet. Once the noises settled a bit, she pressed her mouth to cloth long gone dingy with must. “I’ll take your discards.”
A midnight blue frockcoat shot through a thin part in the curtains. “That coat alone is worth the contents of this entire shop.”
Her thumb rubbed across the velvet collar appreciatively. It was of the latest style, she reckoned. He was likely correct.
“One for one, milord,” sounded Haley at no far distance. “That’s the agreement.”
An indistinct, muffled grumble sounded from behind the curtain. A few seconds later, a black silk vest appeared, then a white silk cravat. A white lawn shirt and gray cotton twill trousers followed another flurry of movement. The man must be down to his smalls.
A frisson of heat flushed through her at the notion.
His hand appeared again, this time empty. “Trousers.”
Haley transferred an armful of clothes to her, and she passed the requested item along.
“These won’t do,” came Clare’s voice, brimming with irritation, which, in turn, irritated her.
Without properly considering the consequences, she poked her head inside the tiny room, a scold at the ready. “This is hardly the time to be concerned with quality or appear—”
Her gaze fell, and the remainder of her admonishment died on her lips.
He was shirtless.
Her mouth went dry. Had it ever been this dry?
She couldn’t remember.
She wasn’t sure she could remember her own name.
