Dot had gone and let a strange man into the house after curfew. “I’m so sorry, but I did it without thinking, Lady Derring.” She’d wrung her hands. “It’s so very wet and cold out, you know how the wind gets, and it’s so warm in here, and he looks like a gentleman, and I thought, what would Lady Derring want me to do? She would want me to be kind.”
Lovely. Delilah had apparently been imparting lessons to Dot and perhaps hadn’t let on that those lessons contained nuances.
Angelique had already gone to bed. Their other guests, Captain Hardy included, were safely in, Dot had told her. She’d in fact left him with a pot of tea an hour ago.
The man in question turned at the sound of her voice. He was tall and thickset, almost perfectly rectangular. His elegant, many-caped coat swung in flawlessly cut elegance from his shoulders to his ankles. He appeared to be holding their list of rules.
Dot was right. She could almost trace the provenances of his clothes to Hoby, to Weston, or to Guthrie.
He looked at her rather... longer... than she preferred before he finally bowed.
And when he was upright, his gaze remained a trifle too familiar. His dark eyes were sheltered by straight, bushy brows and his face was heavy, pale, and very English. She fought the impulse to smooth her hair or her apron, to fidget.
Familiar.A word that belonged to her past, she realized, because she might have a title, but her station couldn’t really shield her from a gaze like that.
A man would, however, she thought rather bitterly. Damn it.
She thought of Captain Hardy snug in his bed, hopefully sleeplessly watching his ceiling and revisiting, again and again, that kiss. In other words, precisely what she’d been doing for the past two nights. But she’d also avoided being alone with him. She rather hoped, given distance, sense would settle in, because the decision seemed too momentous and too fraught, the outcome too uncertain, and part of her thought that everything would be easier if she didn’t have to make it.
She resented that she wished he was standing here right now. Lucifer and Atlas, indeed.
“My horse threw a shoe and I cannot get it seen to until tomorrow morning, I fear, Lady Derring,” Mr. Brinker told her. “I’ve stabled him at Cox’s Livery and I wondered if I could prevail upon you for a room for the night.”
His delivery was gracious and his voice was low and pleasant.
And yet something prevented her from inviting him to sit.
“Ah, that is misfortunate, Mr. Brinker.”
“I thought the women who ran boardinghouses were built like houses themselves, and brandished rolling pins and sported chin hairs. You sound like... an actual lady.”
She gave a short, polite laugh, the kind that reminded her uncomfortably of how she used to laugh for Derring to salve his ego and keep the peace. “Iama lady, Mr. Brinker. A widow.”
Though she thought, at that moment, it might be more useful to be the built-like-a-house, chin-hair sort of proprietress.
“Ah,” he said. After a moment, “I see.”
Why did everything he said sound so puzzled?
“I should tell you, Mr. Brinker,” she said pleasantly enough, “that our guests typically stay a little longer than one night, for the security and comfort of our other guests, so that we can all come to know and trust one another.”
This was his opportunity to apologize and leave.
He took this in with a little frown. “Here at the... docks?”
“It’s a convenient location for people from all walks of life. Why, even you yourself are here.” An acerbic quality was creeping into her tone.
“Of course. Who knows? It might be the next St. James Square.”
She disliked his tone, for reasons she couldn’t quite put a finger on. “Perhaps.”
Perhaps he was merely weary and wet and inconvenienced and uneasy being away from his usual haunts. Perhaps if she made him feel at home, if he was treated well, he might tell other people with money about The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“What sort of business brings you to Lovell Street, Mr. Brinker?”
“I’m a merchant—I deal in silks, typically. My father owns a textile mill in Kent and I am involved in the investment end of it.”
“How interesting.” It sounded respectable enough.
