If she’d been a green girl, if the kiss had taken her by surprise and shocked her, he would have said something, taken care to assure her.
If she’d been appalled and offended, he would’ve apologized.
But she’d been neither, and he didn’t know what the hell to do.
“I—ah,” he began, peeking through the dense bush for the location of the watchman.
“No discussion is necessary,” she said briskly. Her tone was enigmatic.
“Right,” he said, plunking his hat on his head.
“How will I get home without being seen?” she asked.
“Do you know the watchman’s route?”
She was silent, thinking. Finally, she said, “When I see him, he’s usually walking up Lumley Street from Oxford.”
“Then we’ll take the same route and be careful to stay well ahead of him. Here in the park, we’ll pick our way through the vegetation and keep under the cover of trees.”
“Yes. Good,” she said. “I will follow you.” But she’d already identified the thickest, leafiest way, and was drifting in that direction.
Jason cleared his throat. “Miss Tinker?”
“Please,” she said. “Don’t say anything. Please.”
“I—”
“I cannot bear to examine it. I cannot.”
“Right.”
He stepped around her, inching into a thicket of flowering bushes. He tried again. “Thank you for everything you’ve divulged tonight. About the pirates.”
He held out his hand and she took it. He pulled her along. He whispered, “I might require another conversation, to follow up—”
“Do not approach me again,” she said with finality. “Please. If you have any respect for me—which I would understand how you might not—but if you have anygratitudefor the information I’ve given you,do notseek me out again.”
“My respect for you is—”
“Do not. Your Grace. Please.” Her voice cracked.
Was shecrying?He glanced back. Her face was buried in the hood and their path took them through a tunnel of darkness. He saw nothing but the outline of her small body.
He squeezed her hand, an unplanned, instinctive gesture, and said nothing more.
She held more tightly but remained silent, allowing him to pull her along.
Chapter Six
“I don’t understand,” Samantha said to Isobel two days later. “Why cultivate new clients if we’re being forced toleaveEverland Travel?”
The two women were assembling a folio with pamphlets and maps for a morning meeting with a dowager countess.
Isobel, employing equal partsdon’t-think-about-itandpretend-it-won’t-happen, was carrying out her duties at Everland Travel as if she was not on the brink of expulsion. It had been two days, and she hadn’t yet been sacked.
Yes, Drummond Hooke held the ax of termination over her head, and yes, she’d allowed a very wild, very overwhelming fragment of her old self to streak through her current life, but otherwise,nothing had changed. Yet.
“Life goes on,” Isobel told Samantha now, mimicking the sage wisdom of someone who was not wild or overwhelmed. “We do not have the luxury of burning bridges. What if we find work in another travel agency? If this is a possibility, we’ll want well-served clients to migrate with us.”
