“Foist, is it?” He puffed out his broad chest and stroked his moustache.
“Foist,” Evie confirmed.
“Oh, very well, but I will not give you both these carrots,” he said placing them in the small pile of vegetables before her.
“Excellent. Because I will not accept them.”
After the haggling portion of her vegetable purchasing was over, she kissed Mr. Chester’s cheek and wandered on.
Mrs. Humphries would be somewhere haggling also.
The markets were loud, the air permeated with so many scents she couldn’t identify them. Meats, poultry, fish, andvegetables, there was so much to look at and buy here. The place was alive with noise and color. Evie loved it.
She only purchased what their household needed, and usually one treat for herself and one for Mrs. Humphries to eat on the return journey.
“He’s a handsome one,” Miss Furner, behind the bread stall said.
Evie, who had been studying the array of loaves on her table, turned to see who she was talking about. She tensed. Lord Hamilton was walking toward her.
Drat. She’d left the house deliberately hoping to avoid him. She wasn’t ready for the conversation he wanted to have. It had been a cowardly move, but she was tired from tossing and turning all night and needed to be at her best when they talked again.
Her eyes were itchy and tired, and her body weary from replaying his proposal and the consequences if she said yes, or no, inside her head. She had no wish to battle wits with this man when she was not her usual self.
Turning away, she looked for an escape route, even as she knew it would be futile. The man would catch her if she ran, as he had last night. Evie walked toward him instead of away.You are no coward,she reminded herself.
Life was excessively unfair. It was not her fault her father was hopeless with finances, and yet here she was, presented with two men wanting different things from her, neither of which she wanted to accept. Tamping down the frustration, Evie forced herself to smile.
“Lord Hamilton.” She sank into a curtsey. “How lovely to see you, and here of all places.” Her words rang with insincerity.
“Miss Spencer.” He bowed deeply, a mocking smile on his face as if he knew it was not lovely at all.
She found it excessively unfair that he looked his usual vital self. No smudges from worry or lack of sleep under his eyes. His face was not pale or wan as hers likely was, but a healthy glow tinged his cheeks.
In that moment she loathed him for who he was. A man who needed no one for his survival. A man who could wake and dress in that deep blue jacket of the highest quality, and the blue and gray striped waistcoat. Everything about him screamed wealth and confidence.
Horrid beast.
“Is there a reason you are fixing that dark scowl on me, when all I’ve said is your name?”
“How did you find me?”
“I called at your house, as I’d said I would, but you were not there.”
She refused to blush over that. They both knew she’d left the house to avoid him.
“Your father told me you had gone to Covent Garden,” he added.
Evie fought the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose.
“Allow me to carry your bag, Miss Spencer.” He reached for the handle, but she held fast.
“I can carry my own bag, thank you.”
“And yet it would be ungentlemanly of me not to,” he said with a hard tug, which pulled it from her grasp.
“You are always ungentlemanly!” she snapped.
“Did you rise on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Miss Spencer? It seems to me you are out of sorts.”
