LITMIR.BIZ

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boy, no more than twelve, headed for the alleyway beside the mansion.

      “Harry will go to the servants’ entrance and someone will feed him a cake or something. It’s all arranged. We’ve no need of a prepubescent chaperone, Miss Foster. We’ll be far from alone in the park.”

      “Yes, I’d wondered about that. We’d look rather silly having to speak across my maid, plopped between us, her hands clapped to her ears. I really must read that book.”

      “Whatever book it is, yes, please do tend to the task posthaste. I know you’re fresh from the country, but hasn’t your sister explained anything to you?”

      “She’s been rather fully employed weeping into her pillow,” Dany said, at the moment not caring what the baron thought of her, or her sister. It was enough that he was here, apparently still willing to play the hero for them. Why, she’d nearly forgotten all about his green eyes. Nearly. “Which brings us to our new problem. The butler’s wife believes the countess may be increasing.”

      He made an expert but not showy turn into Hyde Park, having executed the tricky maneuver of inserting the curricle into the line of various equipages without muss, fuss or banging wheels with anyone. The man was not flamboyant, not in his speech, his dress, his deportment. He was the unlikeliest hero she’d ever imagined in her daydreams. He was simply a man who stood up when necessary, and did heroic things. Perhaps it was not only his eyes...and blond locks, and strong chin line, and...and all the rest that drew her to him. She’d like to think so, or else that would make her no more than one of the giggling, sighing throng of females who probably chased him everywhere. How he must hate that!

      “Really. Increasing what— Oh. Miss Foster, I don’t think this is anything you and I should be addressing. I’ll correct myself. I know it isn’t anything we should discuss. But since I have no doubt you’ll address it, anyway, is there a problem of...timing?”

      “Oh, good. I was wondering how I might gracefully get around that part. Yes, I think so. Probably only Mrs. Timmerly knows for sure, since I believe Mari only just figured everything out today. So you see, my lord, it is now doubly important we seek out this blackmailer and recover her letters. Oliver must never know, can never so much as think he may have been, um...”

      “Usurped? I can think of other words, although I’d rather not.”

      She refused to blush. “I suppose that’s as clear as we need make that, thank you. I felt you should know, since we are working together.”

      “We are? I don’t believe I’ve agreed to a partnership of any kind.”

      Apparently men could be maddeningly thick. “Do you really have a choice?”

      “I don’t? Please, enlighten me.”

      “Yes, I should. In the interests of fairness, I feel it only fair to add that I don’t like you. I may admire you, and even find you somewhat attractive, but I don’t like you. You clearly resent that I’ve come to you for assistance, and you enjoy making me feel uncomfortable.”

      “Tit for tat, Miss Foster. I haven’t had a comfortable moment since you threw yourself at me in Bond Street.”

      “I did not—oh, now you’re smiling. I probably should look at you more often.”

      “And be in my company far less,” he shot back. “What are you looking at, anyway? Clearly you aren’t paying attention to our fellow travelers on this road to nowhere, or you would have commented on something by now. There are many finely feathered birds taking the air today.”

      “There are? Oh, goodness—is that man on the large gray actually sporting a parrot on his shoulder? How bizarre.”

      “You have no idea, Miss Foster. One day I might tell you a rather amusing tale about the tethered and caged birds still being seen around Mayfair by those not clever enough to have realized the joke. Our feathered friends are no longer in fashion.”

      “Yes, you do that.” Dany really didn’t much care either way about fashionable or unfashionable birds. “But no, I suppose I’m not really paying attention, am I? I suppose I thought the experience would have more to it than following everyone as they follow everyone else. What is the point, do you know?”

      “The point, my fine country miss, is to see. And to be seen. You, for instance, are being seen in the company of the hero of Quatre Bras and a dozen wholly fictitious escapades of derring-do here in London. Even now, people are whispering to their companions. Who is she? Did he rescue her? Is she an heiress? Should we stop and ask, or would the hero take offense at our blatant curiosity? What to do, what to do.”

      “That’s ridiculous.”

      “Most things are, Miss Foster. But remember, this was your idea.”

      Dany thought about that for a few moments. “You’re right. It was my idea. I thought it would be interesting. I thought I would get to show off my new bonnet, which I couldn’t do because I cut my hair and now even this shako had to be stuffed with paper so it didn’t fall down over my ears. I used to have tons of it, you know.”

      “Paper? Or hair?”

      “Hair, of course. I grew it for years, on my mother’s orders. Do you have any idea how much trouble hair can be?”

      “Not exactly, no. Is it as much trouble as having to stuff your bonnets with paper?”

      Dany looked at him and grinned. “The bonnets are temporary. The hair was permanent. Or at least it was. By and large, I think what’s left is rather fetching. Certainly different.”

      “Ah, yes, different. I believe that relieves me from having to ask why in blue blazes you hacked it all off. The color wasn’t enough?”

      “You don’t care for the color?”

      “Over the centuries, man has learned there is no safe answer to that sort of question, so I’ll pretend you didn’t ask it. Look here, Miss Foster, this is getting us nowhere, and we’ve much to discuss. For my sins.”

      His voice had rather trailed off on his last few words, but Dany heard them. “And what sins did you commit? I know I didn’t commit any. Well, at least not connected to the pot my sister is boiling in at the moment. I’m not declaring myself free of failings.”

      Cooper exited the park as neatly as he’d entered it, putting the curricle back out on the street. “I hope you won’t mind if I don’t chivalrously exclaim that you could never be anything less than perfect.”

      “And now I’ll ignore that. You know, my lord, I believe we’re beginning to understand each other.”

      He kept his attention on his horses, but she did notice that his right eyebrow elevated in possible surprise. Certainly not in humor. “Does that prospect frighten you as much as it does me?” he asked as he took the bays into a turn down a rather narrow street.

      “I don’t know. At least neither of us has to waste our time or words in attempting to be polite. Which, you must admit, can only be considered a good thing, because we really don’t have time to waste on conventions and silly rules of Society. Oliver will be home in less than a fortnight.”

      “I agree on the need for speed. The blackmailer’s next communication could arrive at any moment.”

      “Yes, which means you need to reconsider the vantage point of my bedchamber. Where are we going? I’ve no fear you plan to compromise me, but if you have a destination in mind I suggest it not be Portman Square, as we still have much to discuss.”

      “More than you could imagine, Miss Foster,” he said, pulling to the curb in front of a rather ancient-looking church stuck between a haberdashery and a tobacco shop. He set the brake and looped the reins around it. “Stay where you are until I come ’round and help you down. I only say that because you haven’t read the book yet, whatever book that might be, and shouldn’t attempt a descent on your own.”

      “It’s not as if I couldn’t

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