My question had been rhetorical but he replied, “Not anywhere worthwhile.”
“I got you one of the chocolate ones you’re always pestering Will about.”
“Thank you,” he said, reaching eagerly for his fairy cake. “I take back at least seven percent of my grumbling today.”
“Then you may have seven percent of your little cake thing,” I replied with a teasing grin.
He froze, fairy cake halfway to his full lips. “I’m willing to go as high as thirty-four percent.”
“Then you may eat thirty-four percent of your fairy cake. That may be a full bite.”
He sighed, dark lashes flickering between me and the fairy cake in his hand. “Fine. This plan of yours is brilliant. You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, ever, in your entire life,” he said, just before he took a massive bite out of the decadent dessert.
An indecent groan spilled from his chest and his eyelids fluttered shut. A chocolate crumb caught on his lower lip and his tongue darted out to catch it in an entirely ungentlemanly display.
“If—” I broke off to clear my throat. “If I’d known all it would take to end your whining and to acknowledge my exceptionalism was a little cake thing, I would have given you one at our every meeting.”
“Thought you didn’t want a husband,” he said, not glancing away from his fairy cake.
“I don’t.”
“Giving a man a fairy cake at every meeting is an excellent way to end up with one.”
I could do nothing more than blink slowly at him as he decimated every last crumb of the cake before popping his fingers in his mouth one after the other.
Five
NORTH ROAD—APRIL 10, 1817
KIT
As soon asthe sugary confection left my hand, my head caught up with my mouth.
“Not me, of course,” I tacked on to my entirely inappropriate proclamation.
“Right,” she agreed kindly, leaning across me to peer out the window. “I think we’re almost to the Old Bell.”
Much of her hair had come loose from her coiffure when she pulled the wig off, and a few loose strands kissed the back of her neck. Those curls were darker than the rest, unaccustomed to the sun’s touch.
A wheel hit a divot, rocking the carriage and causing her shoulder to knock into mine, her delicate, sweet and spicy scent brushing over me.
Desperate for a less enticing breath, I cleared my throat. “Did you want to go into the inn?”
“I thought to, yes. These places always have the best sorts of people,” she said, something eager in the tilt of her arch brows.
“And were you going in as Mr. Jack?”
Startled, her gaze dropped to her form, and she plucked at her oversized shirt with surprise. Apparently, her attire had slipped her notice. “I suppose it would make me less recognizable.”
“And attract more notice.”
“I attract plenty of notice in my gowns, thank you very much,” she informed me with a little smirk.
“I’m aware. Do you have something simple? That dress you wore at Decker’s, perhaps?”
The day that had started it all—my very first rescue of Lady Davina Hasket. Minutes after my promotion from Will’s clerk to his partner, Rosehill strode in, fretting something fierce about his sister, who had managed to find employment at a milliner’s under a false identity and had been accused of theft.
Will, ever the bemused employer, volunteered me for the retrieval mission.
