“The delight is all mine, Miss Rare-Foure.” Saying her family name now seemed like a farce, a secret code from a Gothic mystery since in private they were on a first name basis. It made him offer her a silly smile in return.
“What are you doing here, and in the middle of your workday?”
He could see instantly something was wrong, as her expression clouded over.
“I am not on a happy errand, to be sure,” she confessed.
“May I assist you in some way?”
She shrugged. Such a delightful movement when she performed it.
“Truly, I don’t know. I am looking for a street seller who is somehow selling Rare Confectionery or its exact likeness.”
“Indeed. And this person is here?”Had she truly planned to stroll through the crowds alone until she found a sweet seller? Then what?
“So, I’ve been told. But I don’t want to take up your time.”
“Don’t be silly. I am happy to escort you around the marketplace.” Then he recalled the writ he hadn’t finished and the court proceedings he ought to be observing later, instantly dismissing both.
“Very well,” she said. “I welcome your company.”
That sealed it, then. He could no more abandon her now than he could fly off into the sky. While they walked along King Street toward the colonnade area of the marketplace, she told him of her troubles.
“So you can see, it couldn’t happen at a worse time, what with the expansion and added expenses of furnishing the upstairs, not to mention having closed the downstairs.”
“A staircase shouldn’t take too long. It’s not Marlborough House, after all,” he teased, reminding her of the costume ball they’d both attended the year before at one of the most magnificent residences in London.
“No, it shouldn’t,” she said, glancing away, not looking pleased, and he figured something more was going wrong in her world. Before he could ask about the staircase, she said, “Over there. That man is selling sweets, I believe.”
They wandered toward a rough-looking vendor in festive colors that belied his scowling face.
“Boiled sweets, guvna?” the man offered. “Perhaps a nice sack of ’em for your missus?”
“Thank you, no,” he told the man. “Do you have any chocolates?”
“Nah, sir. What do I look like?”
Charles didn’t want to tell the man he looked like a grumpy Harlequin so he merely nodded, and they moved on.
“I don’t like to think of you wandering around here, approaching strangers,” he said.
Sighing, her head on a swivel as she looked at the crowds and many sellers, she said, “That’s nonsense. I deal with strangers most every day.”
“From the safety of your shop.”
“I had a robber in there last year,” she confessed. “I had to chase him off with our cricket bat.”
He stopped still, his heart pounding. “You went after a man with a bat?”
She nodded. “He fled, too, although it was my loud whistle that finally roused him from the shop and sent him into the street. He got my favorite green purse, but he was really after Beatrice’s.”
“Come along,” she added when he didn’t move. She took a few steps without him, and he hurried to catch up.
“Tell me,” he demanded, but she shook her head.
“That’s a story for another day,” she said. “Let’s keep looking or ask someone.”
“Who would we ask?” It wasn’t as if there was any order in the chaos of the Covent Garden marketplace, or so it seemed. Nevertheless, at that time of day, the market was peaceful compared to earlier. If they’d arrived at six o’clock in the morning, they would have been in the midst of the chaos of vegetable sellers, with cabbages, cauliflower, peas, carrots, turnips, and potatoes.
