“You’re cross,” Jason guessed, holding open the door of the Turnip and Tea.
In truth, Isobel Tinker looked so much more than cross. She looked outraged, or perhaps simplyenraged, but the open door gave her no choice but to step into the street.
Midday sunlight painted Hammersmith in eye-squinting brightness, and she walked only so far as a window box. She stopped next to a cascade of flowers and shaded her eyes. The high street was thinly trafficked at the moment; only a boy on a pony clomped past.
She glared at the boy and his mount. She checked a watch in her pocket. She studied the petunias in the window box. She would not look at him. Meanwhile, Jason saw only her. He’d spent the last hour watching her charm his aunt from across the dim tearoom and he’d passed the week anticipating this moment.
She’d worn a dress of apple green with a tidy straw hat several shades paler. Her gloves were a faint apricot color, and she’d pinned a small silk poppy to her lapel.
He’d told himself that she would be plainer than he remembered, less sparkling. He’d told himself that theunexpectedness of Isobel Tinker had painted his memories of her far better than she actually had been.
He’d been wrong. There was nothing less about her. She was exactly as compact and bright as he remembered.
He looked his fill, taking time to reseat his hat and propping against the windowsill. In his mind, he played a game he called “Things Not Done by an Effective Foreign Agent.”
For example, an effective foreign agent did not feel guilty about using his aunt to trick an informant into meeting in Hammersmith.
An effective foreign agent was not distracted or entranced by said informant, no matter how fetching she looked in her snug green dress.
An effective foreign agent did not waver from the goal of recruiting the informant for urgent missions, no matter how she resisted.
And finally, an effective foreign agent did not use the rescue of hapless cousins as a means to become close—in mind or body—to the informant.
He must not touch her again, no matter how much his hands itched, in this very moment, to run a finger down the slim line of her arm. As a rule, he did not touch women uninvited—in his experience, no one of any gender welcomed random groping by another person—but his impulses seemed to be hung up on a continuous loop.Stay. Lean. Touch.
Jason did not touch her. He gave his head a shake and cleared his throat. He realized that if he stoodjustso, he could block the sunshine from her face with his shoulder. He propped a gloved hand on the building and leaned beside her. If he could not touch her, he would shield her.
“So,” he ventured, “you’re surprised to see me?”
This elicited a look. Finally. Blue eyes stared at him as if he’d just invited her to step off a high cliff.
“You thought our business was finished?” Another guess.
Guessing her mood seemed more prudent than asking her how she really felt. Validate her anger without inviting a vivid account.
When he’d left her that night in Grosvenor Square, she’d dismissed him with a three-sentence entreaty:
Do not approach me again. Please. If you have any respect for me...
At the time, she hadn’t seemed cross so much as hurried and emphatic and distressed. He’d agreed because he’d wanted to put her at ease. And also, she’d darted up the steps and disappeared inside before he could speak.
And now here he was, seeking her out again, just as he’d promised not to do. He’d also spoken of her to others. Not many others, but a few. His chat with her uncle, Sir Jeffrey Starling, would be among the more difficult interviews to reveal.
But authenticating her information was allowed—nay, necessary. Everything he did was necessary for the recovery of Reggie and the avoidance of an international incident with the Danes.
He was in the right. He’d never had to remind himself of this, and the mental exercise was growing tiresome.
He tried one more time. “You enjoyed meeting my aunt?” he ventured. This she could not deny.
At last, she opened her mouth. She sucked in a little breath. Jason stared at the small, pink perfection of her lips and was immediately distracted. He’d revisited their kiss as often as he’d revisited every other factand figure from the night in Grosvenor Square. He’d devoted his week to confirming and researching and building on the details. The kiss should have been irrelevant to all of it; instead, it felt like a beginning.
Finally, she spoke. “Is the dowager’s holiday part of the ruse?” Her voice was soft and a little weary.
“What? No, of course not. There is no ruse, Isobel—”
“I prefer ‘Miss Tinker,’ if you please,” she said lowly, glancing about them.
“Forgive me, Miss Tinker.”He exhaled and started again, whispering, “My aunt has dreamt of a sojourn to Italy for an age. It was my pleasure to introduce you. Her patronage will keep you busy for the better part of a year.”
