Those eyes should’ve been cold, but they weren’t.
Neither were they warm.
Yet heat burned within.
The sort of heat that could burn straight through a woman, if she wasn’t careful.
Lawks, this lord was a dead knocker, wasn’t he?
This wasn’t his first time sharing a carriage with a woman, either, for the instant the vehicle stopped, he edged past her—this carriage truly wasn’t big enough for the two of them—and opened the door before jumping down to the cobbles, his hand extended to help her descend. It was the rare occasion that Tilly felt like a lady, but the feeling stole through her as she allowed those long, masculine fingers to take her hand—and there was that strength and warmth and capability.
Feet solidly on the ground, she reclaimed her hand and said, firm, like a lady would, “I have business to attend to.”
With that, she brushed past him.
Heavy footsteps thudded behind her. She exhaled a sigh that implored the universe for patience, then swiveled around. “Don’t you have a day to get on with?”
“We have yet a few matters to get straight between us,” he said, as if the universe had granted him all the patience she’d asked for. “I still don’t even know your name.”
She saw two things at once.
Determination in his eyes—and the fact that he was right.
Perhaps she could give him her name, and he would be on his way.
Likely not.
“You can wait for me here.” She indicated the patch of sidewalk beneath his feet. “I’ll be out in ten minutes.”
But as she entered Mrs. Marlow’s Millinery, she heard now-familiar footsteps following. Did the deuced man think she was looking to escape through the alley?
She shook him from her mind—or, more like, attempted to—and set about her business. She liked this millinery. Mrs. Marlow and her girls didn’t put on any airs, and they had a genuine understanding of the vital functions a hat must perform all at once.
First off, for many a society lady, a hat was about propriety. Sometimes, it was about protection from the elements, like sun or rain. Those were the practicalities of a hat. But a perfect hat also needed to convey a lady’s sense of style to the world. And topmost of all, as went a perfect hat: it must flatter, drawing the eye toward and away as one preferred.
“Tilly!” a voice rang out.
One of the girls—Maude—waved from her place behind a large rectangular table stacked with hatboxes waiting to be picked up. “I was just saying—” Her gaze shifted over Tilly’s shoulder, and the words stopped dead in her mouth.
The lord in the shop had been spotted.
Well, he was hard to miss.
Another girl rushed forward, a greeting on her lips… That stopped dead, too.
Then, as suddenly, the shop went all aflutter. Seeing as how the place was empty of customers other than Tilly, its cause could’ve been precipitated by none other than that too-handsome lord.
The most handsome lord Tilly had personally beheld, she could allow.
Lawks.
Usually, she stayed for a while, taking her time to peruse various ribbons and trimmings. She liked to keep up-to-date about the newest products. Today, however, her business needed to reach its conclusion posthaste.
She needed to get rid of this lord.
She was tempted to give him the ring.
An idea she rejected for one reason alone.
