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He clasped his walking stick a little tighter and out of the corner of his mouth said, “Stop following me.”
Her brow crinkled. “I’m trying to apologize, but—”
“We cannot talk.”
She reached for his arm. A frisson of heat at the pressure of her fingers against his arm pulled him up short, and he faced her just as she planted a hand on one of her glorious hips. “That doesn’t make a modicum of sense. What was the point of dragging me out here in the first place if all you want to do is pretend that you don’t see me?”
“This is supposed to be a clandestine meeting,” he bit out. It annoyed him more than it should that, along with her tardiness, he had to contend with her inconvenient loveliness. When she licked her full lips, he almost growled with the memory of the way she’d tasted of ginger candies when he kissed her last. An infuriating part of him wanted to know if that was still the case.
“A clandestine meeting?” She glanced around. “In the middle of a park? What are we supposed to do, sit on two adjoining benches and try to speak without moving our lips?”
“Yes.”
She threw her head back and laughed, but then she abruptly stopped. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“That is how it’s done,” he said, a touch defensive yet also intrigued. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had laughed at him. Up until a few days ago he’d been captain of a ship, and there was little room for levity when one was responsible for the lives of one’s men.
“Anyone walking by would be able to see our lips moving. Isn’t it quite a bit stranger if we don’t face each other?” she asked.
She had a point—rather a good one too—but he didn’t trust himself to get through an entire conversation with her when she was like this. The last two days she’d been prickly and short with him, but now she seemed to have relaxed a bit. It was this playfulness that he’d found irresistible when they were younger. She’d been a spot of brightness at the center of his dreary life.
“Do you see that bench over there?” he asked, pointing to the green-painted bench next to the one he’d just vacated.
“Of course,” she said.
“Go and sit on it and do not look at me.”
With a shrug, she flounced over to the bench and sank down, folding her gloved hands across her knees with the delicacy of a debutante at her first ball.
He took up residency in his old spot, snapping open a newspaper he’d abandoned half an hour ago.
“You aren’t going to use that to try to obfuscate your lips, are you?” asked Lavinia. He could see her peering at him from the corner of his eye.
“Eyes forward,” he ordered.
“I’m not one of your cabin boys,” she said, but he noticed that she did, in fact, set her gaze on an object somewhere in front of her.
“Thank God for that, for you would’ve run roughshod all over my ship.”
“Thank you,” she said primly.
“That was not a compliment.”
“I choose to take it as one.”
“You’re rather chipper this morning,” he said.
“I’ve decided that since I’ve committed to your cause, I should make the best of it. What happens now?”
Reaching into his coat pocket, he retrieved a slip of paper and slid it across his bench. “Look at this and memorize the address.”
She plucked up the paper and bent her head to read it. “Blair Street. What is this?”
“The location Miss Gibson and I will be operating out of for the time being. The notions shop. Miss Gibson is acting as my sister.”
“I took her for a lover of buttons, ribbons, and trim,” said Lavinia.
“If you need anything from me urgently, you’ll write to the shop.”
