And wasn’t that a beautiful thing?
“Miss Thorncroft!” a familiar voice rang out from the top of the staircase. “What are you doing here? I did not expect you back for another week at least.”
“Mrs. Benedict.” Smiling warmly at the widow as she hurried down the stairs, Evie embraced her at the bottom. A longtime resident of the boarding house, Mrs. Benedict had befriended Evie within the first few days of her arrival. While Joanna was doing heaven knew what with her private detective, Evie and Mrs. Benedict had played many a game of whist, strolled through Hyde Park, and even dined at the Claridge Hotel.
“I’ve come to see Joanna,” she explained as the two women broke apart. “My cousin, Miss Rosemary Stanhope, joined me at Hawkridge Manor and shared that my sister did not depart London as planned. Have you seen her? Is she still staying here?”
An odd flicker of emotion passed over the widow’s countenance. “I…Ihaveseen her. Recently, as a matter of fact. But she is not here at the boarding house.”
“Then where has she gone?”
“To live with Mr. Kincaid.”
Evie’s eyes widened. “Tolivewith him? Are you certain?”
She’d known that Joanna choosing to remain in England could only mean that she and Kincaid had worked out whatever ills were plaguing them. But surely her sister would have known better than to completely tear asunder her reputation by deciding to live with a man she was not related to.
Or maybe not.
Joanna was nothing if not stubbornly impulsive, and when she fixed her heart on something, she often lost her head.
But to have become a private detective’smistress…
That surely went beyond the pale, even for Joanna.
“It appears I’ve arrived not a moment too soon,” she said grimly. “Can you direct me to Mr. Kincaid’s residence? I’ve never been there before.”
Mrs. Benedict nodded. “It is not difficult to find, nor is it far. Just follow this street out to its end, turn left, and…”
“Someone–someone is atthe door,” Joanna gasped as the unmistakable sound of a fist knocking on wood carried up the stairs and into the bedchamber where she laid sprawled on her back across the mattress.
“They can come back later,” Kincaid murmured against her flesh. “Afteryou’vecome. For the second time.”
“It would be the third, actually, and they sound quite insistent.” Tightening her grip on the wooden spindles that comprised the headboard of their very large bed, Joanna pulled her naked, slender body upright. Her hair spilled across her shoulders in a riotous curtain of flame. “We should see who it is. Maybe it’s a new case.”
On a sigh of exasperation, Kincaid lifted his head from between her thighs and sat back on his haunches. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You really want to stop in the middle of our lovemaking to go answer the door.”
“Itisthe afternoon,” she pointed out. “Besides, what if it’s another client? Anotherwealthyclient.” She arched her eyebrows suggestively. “It would be our third one this week.”
“Only because you let it slip that I am representing the Duke of Hanover.” Reaching around her, Kincaid grabbed his spectacles off the bedside table and slipped them onto his face. As his eyes came into focus, he used them to glare at her. “You never should have that let slip. Sterling requested my discretion.”
“But Sterling isn’t even in London, is he?” she said lightly. “And it’s not as if I put out an advertisement in the paper. I merely told a few people, who told a few other people. You should bethankingme. In less than a month, you’ve seen more business than all of last year. Which reminds me. I think we should put a sign out front. It would lend an air of professionalism and impress our more esteemed clientele.” She spread her hands apart as if the sign was directly in front of her. “Thorncroft and Kincaid, Private Investigators.”
“If you were a private investigator, which you’re not, your name wouldn’t be first on the sign. Furthermore, that isn’t even your–get back here,” he demanded, grabbing her ankle when she tried to slip off the bed. “I’m not nearly finished with you yet.”
Squealing, Joanna let herself fall back onto Kincaid’s hard chest. But when he began to kiss his way down her neck, she resisted.
Barely.
“They’re still knocking. It must be important.”
“It better be,” he growled.
They helped each other dress, Joanna’s layers of garments taking considerably longer to put on, and went to answer the door together.
“Please pardon the delay,” Kincaid began. “We were–”
“EVIE!” Joanna screeched, launching herself at her sister with such force that they were both propelled off the front steps and onto the stone pathway. “What are you doing here?”
