Scandalous Regency Secrets Collection - Louise Allen

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but bleated, keeping one eye on Dany’s hand, as if she was about to make the ring disappear. “You understand that the emerald was only inserted into that setting to, well, to display the stone. That’s not a complete ring. You’ll wish now to choose a setting worthy of the stone. May I suggest diamonds? A veritable cushion of them, wrought into rosebuds on either side of the stone, raising it a full half inch above a heavily engraved band. I have just such a setting.”

      “Absolutely not. That will just muck it up,” Dany said, closing her fist. The ring was going nowhere!

      Coop took her hand, and she unclenched her fist. “Are you sure, Miss Foster? It’s beautiful, no doubt, but it is rather plain.”

      “I’m being considerate. It’s probably the least expensive stone in the drawer,” she whispered as Birdwell flew off, probably to bring them the setting he favored. “Besides, you said I could choose, and I do like it.” She looked up into his eyes, but couldn’t read them. “Please?”

      He bent and kissed her knuckle, just below the ring. “And there it stays until the day you take it off, mostly probably to fling it in my face.”

      With that, he turned to the approaching Birdwell and said, “Miss Foster and I have decided. The ring goes with us today.”

      It was only then, watching the proprietor’s face as various emotions flitted across it, that Dany realized that the man was caught between elation and his reputation, should anyone know the unadorned, rather outré ring had come from his shop.

      Apparently elation won the battle, and he ordered the man mountain to take the drawer away as if its inferior contents offended him.

      She looked down at the stone once more. It was large. It was deeply green, and very likely without flaw. Birdwell had said he’d only put the gem into the plain setting in order to display it. So it wasn’t the ring that could cost the earth, but this single, solitary stone itself.

      Oh, dear.

      “Um,” Dany whispered, tugging on Coop’s sleeve. “You might want to ask him the cost. I may have...misjudged.”

      “Just now figured that out, did you?” Coop whispered back. “But don’t worry. My crafty mother already arranged for a discount, so you’ve probably only halfway bankrupted me.” He grinned at her. “And as that same mother used to warn me, you may want to close your mouth now before a fly wanders into it.”

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      DANY WAS STILL sunk in a sulk as she and Coop walked along the Bond Street flagway. What a mess she’d made, believing herself to be so brilliant.

      But she did love the ring.

      Not that it was hers, not really.

      Although it could be.

      But only because Cooper Townsend was a gentleman, and a man of his word. A hero, who insisted he was not a hero.

      Not that she’d hold him to their supposed compromise and proposal. They would find the blackmailer. Coop would give him a good thrashing and suggest an ocean voyage, perhaps to India. She’d worry that another man might eliminate the blackmailer in a more permanent way, but not Coop. Still, the man would get the message! They would retrieve and then promptly burn Mari’s letters; the damning chapbook would never be published; and Coop’s secrets would remain safe and his head continue to ride secure on his neck, the Prince Regent or whomever never the wiser that some deep dark secret was nearly spilled all over London.

      And then it would be over. Coop would go his way, and she would go hers.

      Maybe they could remain friends...

      Suddenly she wasn’t walking anymore, because Coop had halted, nearly pulling her to a stop when she continued on, not noticing.

      “Whoa,” he teased. “Are you ready?”

      She looked up at Coop, realizing she’d been concentrating her gaze on the flagway and the tips of her shoes each time she took a step, just as if fascinated by the sheer action of locomotion. How far had they walked? A block? Six? Were they even still on Bond Street?

      “Uh, um, where are we?”

      “I’m standing a short distance from Mrs. Yothers’s dress shop. I don’t know where you are, although I will say you’ve been the object of some curiosity from passersby, as you so neatly cut everyone dead while I was apologetically tipping to my hat to all and sundry.”

      Dany looked to her left and right, feeling her cheeks flushing. “I was...woolgathering?”

      “Circling the moon might be more to the point. Not that I’m complaining. I find I like a peaceful woman.”

      “Then you’ll have to look elsewhere, my lord,” she shot back, still angry with herself, “for I’m feeling far from peaceful. It’s my own fault, I know that. Only Mari should be Mari. I should be myself. As myself, perhaps I would have realized the stone was too extraordinarily beautiful to be less than— Stop smiling. I’m serious about this. I’ve bankrupted you.”

      “You’re forgetting Minerva’s discount.”

      “Yes, your mother. But I’m afraid I don’t understand a Minerva discount.”

      “Birdwell, and several others, realized that being able to say they’ve won the custom of the hero of Quatre Bras could do wonders for their business. If they didn’t realize it, Minerva pointed the fact out to them. And before you say anything else, yes, I was appalled when I learned what she’d done.” He smiled at her. “Admittedly no longer quite as appalled as I was before you set eyes on that emerald, as she wrangled a fifty percent discount from the man. Now, are you ready to step inside and be delighted to see your new friend Clarice? We’re already late, which means it might be Rigby who’s in danger of being bankrupted.”

      “You still haven’t told me what this is all about, and why I’m meeting her.”

      “I know. I want you to be surprised, and react genuinely. Don’t worry, Clarice knows what to do.”

      “But it’s better that I don’t?”

      “See that? I was certain you’d understand. Good girl. Shall we?”

      Dany was close to grinding her teeth. “Do I have a choice?”

      “You’ll always have a choice, Dany,” he said, suddenly and unexpectedly serious. “That’s a promise.”

      “Oh. Oh, my,” she said, attempting to catch her breath. “I wasn’t expecting that.” Then she wrinkled up her nose, realizing what she’d said. “That is, I mean...” she rushed to say. “I mean, we’re talking about...about the— What are we talking about, Coop?”

      “I’m not sure,” he said, tipping up her chin. “I just suddenly felt a need to say the words. And perhaps to bring my mind back to the matter at hand, as you’ve managed to distract me from our mutually pressing problems. How do you do that?”

      Dany wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I don’t know. I don’t set out to do it. Is there anything special that, um, that distracts you?”

      “You,” Coop said, a rather rueful half smile causing her to catch her breath. “I could enumerate at some other time, with much less of an audience, but for now? For now, Miss Daniella Foster, you. Just you, being you.”

      “Oh.” Her voice was nearly inaudible. Her world seemed to be tipping on its axis, and she felt her body begin to move toward his, drawn to him by the intensity in his eyes. Nor did he seem unaffected, or even aware of where they were.

      Wasn’t that...interesting.

      “There you are! You’re late.”

      Dany shook her head as both she and Coop turned to see Rigby coming toward them from the direction of the dress shop,

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