‘We both knew you were not sick,’ he reminded her. ‘I upset you with my talk of the heir.’
‘It is all right,’ she said quickly, feeling her stomach lurch as the carriage began to roll.
‘No, it is not,’ he said. ‘Last night...’ he started to say, then paused to wet his lips.
His hesitance was unusual for he was rarely at a loss for words. She raised her veil so they might talk face to face, since whatever he wished to say must be important.
‘Last night, the things I said to you were not true.’
‘You received conflicting information?’ she said, surprised to feel more uneasy than relieved by the reversal of fortune.
‘I lied,’ he said with a resigned sigh. ‘It was cruel of me to taunt you and I never would have done so had I known how it would upset you.’
‘You lied,’ she repeated. ‘But why?’
Again, he paused. Again, he wet his lips before speaking. ‘It bothered me that you seemed to prefer the help of the Earl to anything I might offer.’
‘You were jealous.’ Now she was not just surprised. She was amazed.
‘Yes,’ he said. Then he added, ‘Professionally speaking, of course.’
‘Of course,’ she repeated.
‘I do not know any more about Miles Strickland than I did on the first day. He might be exactly as you hope him to be, single and eager to help you.’
The prospect should have made her feel much better about the future. Instead she felt a vague disappointment. ‘He might also be exactly as you described him,’ she replied.
‘But we will not know for sure until he arrives.’ He reached a hand out and covered hers in a gesture of reassurance.
She stared down at it. It was a nice hand. She had never been conscious of male anatomy before, especially not the extremities. When she thought of them at all, she imagined her father’s hands, which she could remember as pale and gentle, or her grandfather’s, which were thin and knotted. When she attended balls, the hands of the men she danced with seemed to have no weight to them at all, barely grazing hers as they danced.
But Mr Drake’s gloved hand was solid and strong. It did not tremble as it lifted her into carriages. It had been faintly possessive as it had led her through the dance at the ball and it had not hesitated when forced to take her reticule and return her stolen goods.
She had seen the bare skin briefly, when he had removed his gloves to root through the chest of candlesticks with her on the first day. They had been darkened by sun with a smattering of freckles across the knuckles. The nails had been clean and neatly trimmed, but there was something about them that made her suspect he was not afraid to get dirt under them, if a task required it.
All in all, she’d have described his hands as ‘capable’. Much like the rest of him, really. He met problems without flinching and dealt with them. It was what he’d been hired to do. He was not helping her by choice. He was doing it for money. No matter what she had dreamed, she must not expect anything more than that from him.
He cleared his throat and she started suddenly, aware that she had been staring at him.
He pretended that he had not noticed and removed his hand to pull the list from his pocket. ‘I thought today we might try to find the oddment.’ He gave her an expectant look.
She nodded in agreement, eager to turn her mind to a problem that might have a solution.
He offered an expectant wiggle of his fingers, staring at her in a much more forthright way. ‘I thought, perhaps, a description would be forthcoming by now.’
‘It would if I had one to offer,’ she replied. ‘Grandmama is mum on the subject, but assures me I will know it when I see it.’
‘Oddment implies that it is a remnant of something,’ he mused. ‘Or did she use the term in a more general manner? Could she have meant an oddity?’
‘I really have no idea,’ she said. ‘And if I cannot tell you what it is, then I cannot even tell you where to begin to look.’
‘Then, I will take the initiative.’
Despite herself, those words made her feel instantly better.
He thought for a moment. ‘There are several shops I can recommend that sell things no one else has. Let us assume that, whatever this thing is, there is not another like it in the whole of London.’ He looked at her sideways for a moment. ‘You may find these places rather unpleasant. They are not the sort that one normally takes gently bred young ladies.’
‘I find the whole experience rather unpleasant,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Why should this day be any different?’
