Caleb put his other hand up. “I know. You seem to have an aversion to compliments.”
“Not an aversion, but I would prefer it if we maintained some boundaries between us,” Miss Delacourt said. “We are not friends, but merely agents that are assigned to the same case.”
Caleb chuckled. “You mean we are partners.”
“Yes, but it is under protest.”
His curiosity was piqued. “Why are you so opposed to having a partner?”
“I do not like answering to anyone,” Miss Delacourt replied. “It is the only thing in my life that I have control over.”
“Are you terribly stifled at home?”
Miss Delacourt glanced away as she admitted, “My father hardly pays any attention to me now that my mother is gone.”
“That must be hard.”
“It is all I know,” she said.
Caleb could hear the sadness in her voice, and he assumed that admission cost her a great deal. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”
“My father is a very busy man, and it has allowed me tocome and go as I please,” Miss Delacourt said. “If anything, I should be grateful for his aloofness.”
“My parents are very attentive, almost too attentive,” Caleb admitted. “My mother is adamant that I find a wife, and quickly.”
“Are you opposed to marriage?”
Caleb nodded. “My life is not conducive to having a wife. I do not wish to cause that complication in my life.”
“I agree,” Miss Delacourt replied. “Although, my father wishes for me to marry this Season. He has even offered to arrange a marriage for me.”
“That is most gracious of him,” Caleb teased.
Miss Delacourt grinned, just as he had intended. “I would rather be a spinster than have to answer to a husband. Furthermore, I would have to give up working as a spy and that is not something I wish to do.”
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,” Caleb said, referencing Sir Walter Scott’s poem,Marmion. “We both would rather work for the Crown than pursue our own happiness.”
“I am happy,” Miss Delacourt asserted.
“I did not mean to assume otherwise,” Caleb said.
With a curious glance, she inquired, “Are you not happy?”
Caleb brought a smile to his lips. “I am.” It was the same lie that he had been telling himself for months now. He wasn’t happy, but he didn’t quite know why that was. He had everything that he wanted, but he seemed to long for more. But what he longed for, he couldn’t say.
As he led her out of Hyde Park, he was grateful for the lull in their conversation. He didn’t want to reveal too much of himself to Miss Delacourt. As she so graciously pointed out earlier, they were not friends.
Miss Delacourt pointed towards a black coach that was waiting down the street. “That is my coach,” she said.
“Out of curiosity, how is it that you elude your companion so easily?” Caleb asked.
“Mrs. Fernsby is mostly blind and deaf in one ear,” Miss Delacourt explained. “She is my father’s second cousin and came to live with us after my mother died. I hardly knew her then, and it hasn’t gotten much better. We are such different people.”
“Does anyone in your family know that you are a spy?”
With a glance over her shoulder at the maid, Miss Delacourt replied, “Felicity does, and I am confident that she will never betray my trust.” She cocked her head. “What of your family?”
“My sister knows the truth, but that is only because she was abducted and was told of my unusual profession.”
