The young lady was, quite simply, an anomaly.
"Sir?" The innkeeper looked harried as he approached. "Apologies, sir, but do you happen to know the young lady by the fire?"
With a start, Kit realized he'd been caught staring. Blast. Was this innkeeper going to give him a lecture about ogling young ladies, or?—
"If ye do, I'd be grateful if you could get her attention, my lord."
Kit blinked. "Pardon?"
The innkeeper gestured to the door. "Her carriage is ready and the coachman says the horses won't stand much longer, but I can't seem to—" He threw his hands up. "She's been talking for the better part of twenty minutes and I haven't found an opening."
Kit glanced back at the girl, who had launched into what appeared to be a second rehearsal of her speech, this time with hand gestures.
"I'll see what I can do," he said.
He crossed the room and positioned himself at the edge of her table with his most pleasant expression and waited for a pause in which to speak.
No pause came.
"—but then I'd have arrived with no warning, I want him to have had time to think— But no, I believe I was right in the first place because he's not good at speaking on the spot, he's much better when he's had time to?—"
Kit opened his mouth.
"—consider his words, which is one of the things I love about him, actually, because it means when he does speak it's always exactly what he means, unlike most people who just say whatever comes to mind."
Kit's mouth remained open as she continued.
She was magnificent. That was the only word for it. She was talking at a speed that would leave most auctioneers breathless, her hands were conducting an invisible orchestra, and she had no idea he was standing there. None. He was two feet from her table and she hadn't so much as glanced in his direction.
And he didn't interrupt. Perhaps he should have. But he found that he didn't want to break whatever this was.
"—so I'll simply tell him the truth and trust that it's enough, because it should be enough, shouldn't it? If you love someone and you fight for them and you win, that should be enough. Mary, shouldn't that be enough?"
"I should think so, miss."
"Yes." She pressed her palms together, and her whole face seemed to glow with pleasure. "Yes. It will be."
And then, with no warning—she turned.
Kit was standing there with what he suspected was a thoroughly smitten grin. And his mouth was… Yes, his mouth was still open. He'd been caught gaping like a fool.
He recovered quickly, softening his grin into something more appropriate. The smile he flashed at every ballroom in London. It was a charmingly self-deprecating smile.
It was also, admittedly, one of his more flirtatious smiles.
"I beg your pardon for the interruption." He lifted his lips on one side to flash the dimple for which he was quite well known. "I never like to interrupt a beautiful lady when she's speaking, but your carriage is ready, and the innkeeper?—"
"Oh!" She blinked at him as if he were a piece of furniture that had rearranged itself unexpectedly. "Oh, thank you. Mary, the carriage. Come, we mustn't keep the horses waiting, James will be?—"
She didn't finish. She was already on her feet, in motion, pulling her maid in her wake.
Kit stood with the remainder of his charming sentence still sitting on his tongue, undelivered, while the girl in the blue traveling dress swept past him.
She didn't give him a flirtatious smile of her own. Actually, she didn't even look back.
Kit's mouth finally snapped shut as he realized he'd been gaping after her.
The door of the inn banged shut behind her. The merchant's wife, who had witnessed the entire scene, was watching Kit with undisguised delight.
