“Father, I will speak with you after this scoundrel leaves.”
“He is not leaving, girl.”
Her heart dropped into her belly. She bit her lip. This wasn’t happening. Since when did her father take in vagrants? “What do you mean he is not leaving?”
“Not until he can find another place to stay. He has traveled from afar.”
She didn’t care if he came from the moon. “Well then,” she said curtly to her father, “he can keep you company.”
“He has been doing just that for the last three hours now,” her father informed her. “Telling me interesting stories.”
“I have no doubt,” she seethed, but managed a smile. “He told the constable interesting stories this morning as well. The wise constable did not believe him.”
“The constable fell for your fake tears,” her father’s guest countered without bothering to smile. “As I’m sure many men do.”
She hated him for being right. Her father knew it, too.
“Now, as I told your father…” He finally turned to look at her fully. “I want what you stole from me.”
Not this nonsense again. “I have nothing of yours as I told you and the constable.” She turned to her father. “I knew you cared little for me, Father, but to believe a stranger over me is—”
“A witness came to the door, Charlotte,” her father interrupted her. “Now, sit down. There are things we need to discuss.”
A witness. Did this witness ride on the other side of her carriage when she came home? She didn’t ask her father. He wasn’t in a humorous mood. “Will you not allow me to change out of my riding suit first?”
“So you can run away?” her father put to her, sounding as if he cared.
“Of course you understand,” came the cool, deep voice of Investigator Pendridge, “if she doesn’t return, I will have to hold you responsible, my lord.”
“Of course,” her father agreed. He agreed!
“I will not run away,” she vowed in a low, trembling voice. She wanted to pluck one of her knives from her boots and fling it at Pendridge.
“Don’t be long,” he warned and then returned to his cup.
She practically growled and stormed away. She moved slowly toward the stairs, and even slower up them. How dare he tell her not to be long! Was her father afraid of him? What was a detective anyway? What damage could he do to her family? She might have to be pleasant to him for her father’s sake, though she owed her father nothing. She didn’t often do things for his sake, but Detective Michael Pendridge was here because of her.
She would try to be friendlier and perhaps do something with all this hair.
With the help of her maid, Anna, Charlotte changed into a shift with ruffled sleeves, small panniers, or hoops, and open-fronted stays of olive green. The stays were pulled tight, drawing back her shoulders and straightening her spine. She hated them so tight, but it accentuated her womanly shape and helped her get what she wanted. She pulled on petticoats and finally a gown of pale green.
Anna then quickly pinned up her thick waves by piling them on top of her head. She could only find ten pins, but she promised they would hold, and shoved them into strategic places and secured her beaded cameo around her neck.
Charlotte left her room sometime later, feeling more confident than before. She hoped both men were asleep, but if they weren’t, she would handle them.
When she walked into the dining hall, her father stood up and smiled. His guest did the first, but not the second, though his sapphire gaze lingered on her before dropping back to the table.
“You are enchanting, my dear,” her father admired with an indulgent smile.
John pulled out her chair, one in which she rarely sat these days. She sat but refused a plate of food and touched her hand to her belly beneath her taut stays.
She glared at Detective Pendridge instead. “I know what you are thinking—”
“Oh?” he asked, ready for her. “If it’s that you took your sweet time testing not only your father’s patience, but mine, as well. You’re right.”
In the firelight of the dining hall, there was something devastatingly beautiful about him. Was it the tilt of his head that shadowed his piercing eyes beneath his brow? The resolute cut of his jaw that belied his mask of indifference? He reminded her of a wolf, ready to bite off her hand if she put it too close.
“I wanted to look presentable,” she defended.
