“If you say so,” he retorted. She saw his lips twitch. The cocky man had the nerve to laugh at her. She stumbled on the uneven cobblestones.
Her employee made a sorry specimen in spite of his broad shoulders and great height. He claimed to be a major, but his shabby coat and unkempt hair didn’t look like those of any military man of Nora’s acquaintance.
She chanced another sidelong look.He does appear strong enough. Thank goodness he thought to shave.
In silence, they passed wine bars, a laundry, and some women whose profession Nora chose not to guess.
“How far?” he asked when they turned toward the bridge to Tiber Island.
“Are you unable to keep up, Major?” She searched her mind for another option—any option—to hiring the man at her side. She had none.I need the blasted man. I don’t like the looks of him, but I need him.
“Perhaps you should explain more about our mission,” he said. “The details aren’t clear to me.” His deep voice and the unexpected intrusion in her thoughts rattled her. She took a deep breath.
“Do you remember anything of our conversation last night?”
“Of course I do. You hired me to…”
The oaf can’t remember!
“Interpret,” he finished lamely.
He had been drunk. The obvious signs of morning-after ravages disgusted her. His skin had the sickly pallor of the habitual drunkard, and his eyes were red rimmed. She couldn’t deal with him hung over.
When they reached a small piazza at the foot of the bridge, she pushed him toward a café.
“You’ll think more clearly after some tea and biscuits,” she insisted.
“Coffee,” he corrected, pulling up a chair into the sun and dropping onto it. He didn’t pull out a chair for her.
“I beg your pardon?”
“This is Rome, not London. Coffee,” he insisted.
Insolent rogue!She ignored his ill manners and seated herself.
“Very well, have coffee but also ask for dry bread and water—a great deal of water,” she ordered.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked. She wondered if he was mocking her.
“Morning after sickness. You will feel better with something in your stomach,” she told him.
“Husband?”
He would remember that detail.
“Yes,” she said. Edmund had required a great deal of water to ease his headache—and a great deal of time to steady his unpredictable temper.
The major did as she told him with no complaint. That, at least, weighed in his favor. She began to hope he didn’t resemble Edmund as much as she first assumed.
Nora swirled her coffee, thick and black, in a plainwhite mug and watched her employee wolf down a hard roll. Silence bothered him not a whit. Perhaps he had forgotten her.
He snatched up another roll and bit into it.
“You are alone here.” His sudden words proved her wrong. He hadn’t forgotten.
“Aside from Robert.”
“Robert?” he asked.
