“Shut it,” Reuben grumbled. “You don’t know what you saw. Your eyes ain’t never been good.”
“Don’t take much to—”
Reuben rounded on him, squaring off chin to chest with the big man. “You didn’t see it.”
Sammy’s brows rose but he didn’t argue. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest. “Wot’s yer interest?” Then he snorted. “Aside from the obvious.”
“It ain’t that!” Reuben huffed. Except, that was a lie. Any man would be interested given what he’d seen tonight. Clear skin silvered in moonlight. Full breasts on a sturdy frame. She reminded him of a picture he’d once seen of the Goddess Hera. The queen of the gods had held a scepter in one hand and a babe in the other. She’d seemed majestic to him even as his adolescent mind had noted the high, full breasts. Exactly what he’d seen of Iseabail tonight, except she was living flesh and not a marble statue.
“Then wot is it? Exactly.”
“I need her to get into a ball tomorrow night. She’s going to waltz with me.”
Sammy’s brows rose. “How’d you manage that?”
“Threatened her.”
“Well, I believe yer not her lover. Why would you go to a ball?”
“And how else am I to meet a fine nob to marry if I can’t get into a ball?”
“Since when do you want to marry a nob?”
Since the day when he was six that a fine lady told him he wasn’t good enough to shine her boots. Since the day he realized every woman knew who he was and wanted a piece of his fortune. Since he’d conquered everything he’d ever wanted in London and was now looking for more. And what else was there for a man like him except a lady wife? A truetonlady to bear his name and his children.
“Yer daft, you are,” Sammy scoffed. “Always looking fer more. Never satisfied.”
He couldn’t deny it. Neither could he wipe the image of Iseabail in the moonlight from his mind. “Can you wait with the Scots? Don’t tell ’em that you’ve found her.”
“Just long enough so’s you can taste those teats?”
Reuben’s growl took them both by surprise. He didn’t like what she’d done, and he’d liked even less that Sammy had seen it. But he couldn’t deny that he knew precious little about Miss Spalding, and he was becoming more curious by the hour. Was she a tart who’d just set out to tempt him? Or was she an innocent witch praying to the moon? Didn’t matter. He still needed her to dance with him at the ball.
“Wait to talk to the Scots,” he commanded, even though he knew Sammy didn’t take orders from him.
“Can’t. They want her back, and they’ve got nothing else in London to distract them from banging on my door.”
“Nothing else in London? Are they daft?”
He shrugged. “What do I know if they’re regular Scots daft or beyond the usual daft?”
“Can you wait a day? Tell them she’ll be in Hyde Park day after tomorrow.”
Sammy turned to look at him. “An’ how do you know that?”
“Because I’ll get her there myself.”
“And wot are you going to do when they grab ’er in front o’ you and drag her off with that ugly brute?”
He sighed. “I’ll let her go. By then, I’ll have better things to do.”
“An’ wot if she offers you a taste of her—”
This time he hit Sammy square in the middle of his chest. He’d warned the man once not to talk about what they’d seen. He wasn’t going to allow it again. “She could be the Virgin Mary herself, an’ I’d let her go. And as far as you are concerned, that’s exactly who she is.”
Sammy stood still, his expression hard. “They paid good coin fer me to find her and hand ’er over. That’s the law if she’s ’is wife.”
“And what if he lied?”
