“Home, Coachman!” Hugh bit out, batting on the hell cart’s roof with his brass-topped cane.
She grabbed the cane from him and batted again. “No! Wait, Coachman!”
Hugh thinned his lips. “I’m not dealing with such a terse monosyllabic blackguard.” He grabbed back his cane. “Home!” And batted once more.
“No! Wait!” Amelia yelled. “What did he say?”
“Say? He’s less chatty than a deceased pallbearer and if he thinks you’re going up there alone, he’s very much mistaken.”
Amelia blinked. “He wants…me?”
“Yes. No. Home!”
“No! Wait! I’ll go.”
“You bloody won’t.” His eyes narrowed, pierced her. “He’s a damnable Prince of Darkness.”
“Oh, Hugh, he’s just a man.”
Amelia removed her bonnet and smoothed her chignon. Unfastened the top two buttons at her collar and–
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I can’t go like this. I look like a governess.”
“Good,” he groused. “Home!”
“Wait! And–”
The wrinkled physog of the coachman appeared at the window. “I’m goin’ fer a pie. Yer let me know when yer both know, eh?”
“Well, that settles it.” And Amelia pinched her cheeks to blush.
“Stop doing that.”
Hugh closed his eyes, nostrils flaring, and a sliver of curiosity crept through Amelia’s veins. Was he merely concerned for her welfare or…jealous?
Surely not.
But just in case, she nibbled her lips to red and consulted her timepiece. “If I’ve not returned by the hour, come get me.”
His nostrils flared once more, jaw taut as a fiddle string. “Have you the Duck Gun?”
“No. But I have Miss Appleton’s tome.” She suppressed a smile. “I could hit him with it.”
And before he could retort, she dashed from the hackney, carpetbag in hand.
At her approach to the crimson portal, the doorman ushered her through with a flourish of hand and doff of hat.
The scent of decadence assailed her, but Amelia did not pause in the vestibule and no one halted her.
She marched on, kept close to the wall.
No one turned. No one raised their eyes.
Passing the roulette table, said to have been…procured from thePalais Royalin Paris, the croupier glanced up.
Uttered not a word.
