A Kiss Away From Scandal. Christine Merrill
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of winter wheat and, though she’d often thought grey eyes seemed cold, his were warm and inquisitive, especially when paired with that slightly sardonic smile. ‘I did not notice his looks,’ she lied.
‘Are you ill?’ Her grandmother reached out to touch her forehead.
Hope shook off the hand. ‘Merely circumspect. My parents would have thought it most unchristian of me to evaluate a man on appearance alone.’
The older woman gave a disapproving tut. ‘When we encouraged your father to read for the church, we had no idea he would take the whole thing so seriously.’
Both her parents had been more than serious on the subject of morality. They’d been paragons of it, and died together, nursing their village through an epidemic. Then, Hope and her sisters had come to live with their grandparents and a whole new and comparatively decadent world had been opened to them. ‘They would have wanted me to marry sensibly,’ Hope replied. ‘There is nothing sensible about Mr Drake.’
‘A flirtation, then,’ her grandmother suggested, with no thought at all to Hope’s reputation. But then, as she frequently reminded them all, things had been different when she was a girl.
‘Young ladies do not engage in flirtations,’ Hope reminded her. They especially did not do it with employees of their families and she did not think Mr Drake was helping them out of the goodness of his heart.
‘I am not suggesting that you dishonour yourself,’ the Dowager added with a flutter of her lashes. ‘But it would not hurt you to smile when you see a handsome man. It would not ruin you to laugh with him. The world will not end if you let him steal a kiss.’
‘Actually, it might,’ Hope said. ‘Suppose someone learned of it? I would be shunned from polite society and Mr Drake would not be welcome in the homes of the men who employ him.’
The Dowager sighed. ‘Young people nowadays have no spirit at all.’
‘Gentlemen do not marry girls who have too much spirit,’ Hope replied.
‘All the more reason not to marry a gentleman,’ she supplied. ‘Of course, it is possible that the new Earl will not be one. He is American, after all. Lord knows what barbaric habits he has developed.’
‘He is probably married,’ Hope said, glumly. It would be just her luck if he turned out to be a married man who hated the English.
‘Then, perhaps you should look elsewhere. As I reminded you before, Mr Drake is a very handsome man.’
Hope offered a weak smile in response. At times like this, she was never sure if her grandmother was joking, addled by age or simply lost to all propriety. But she had lived with the Dowager far too long to be surprised.
‘Mr Drake has no interest in me, beyond the task set for him by Mr Leggett. There will be no lingering glances, no stolen kisses and definitely no marriage. We will find what missing items we can, he will collect his payment and that will be the end of it.’
‘If you say so, my dear.’ The Dowager shook her head in disappointment. ‘But in my opinion, you are wasting an opportunity.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ Hope replied with an adamant nod of her head.
So far, the Strickland family was everything Leggett had promised they would be: intelligent, maddening and beautiful. Though of those attributes, the best the Dowager Countess could seem to manage was two out of three.
Judging by her granddaughter, she had been stunning thirty-odd years ago, and was still a handsome woman. But from the dearth of information she’d provided about the problems she’d caused, it was clear the Earl had not married her for her mind. When Gregory had tried to question her upon arriving at the town house, she had deliberately changed the subject, wanting to know more about him than he had cared to share while revealing nothing at all about the shops she had frequented or the things she’d sold to them.
Then, there was Miss Hope Strickland, who was currently sitting beside him in a rented carriage on their way to a pawnshop. She was simmering like a soup kettle with the desire to finish her part in the search as quickly as possible so she might never lay eyes on him again.
And a very pretty kettle of soup she was. Chestnut hair, large brown eyes and a pert nose accented the sort of soft, curvy body a man longed to hold. But the set of her beautiful shoulders and the straight line of her eminently kissable lips had assured him of the unlikelihood that anything would happen between them. She was the granddaughter of an earl and had heard the common ‘Mister’ before his name and dismissed him out of hand.
Likewise, he had noted her grandfather’s rank before even meeting her and had come to the same conclusion. He was not the sort of fellow who dallied with female clients, especially when there were titles involved. When one was a living example of what might happen when such niceties were ignored, one did not take them lightly.
At the moment, Miss Hope sat beside him silent, cloaked and veiled, as if his very presence brought a risk of contagion. Her desire for anonymity made perfect sense. But there was something annoying in the way she had demanded it, as if she had not trusted him to protect her unless ordered to do so. It left him with the urge to strip off one of her gloves and touch her bare hand, just to see if she melted from upper-class perfection to a wailing puddle of mediocrity. Or at least tug on the curl that had been bouncing at the side of her face yesterday. This morning, it had been held in place by not just one but two hair pins, as if she was punishing it for being unruly.
Hope Strickland was the sort of woman who liked both people and things to be orderly, proper and predictable. He would likely be a great disappointment to her. Hopefully, they could manage to put their differences aside while working together. Until the matter of the entail was settled, they would be near to inseparable.
He glanced towards her and away again, hoping she had not noticed his interest. It felt as if, somewhere deep inside his head, an alarm bell was ringing. They should not be alone together. It was dangerous to her reputation and to his...
Something.
He wasn’t sure exactly why, but he knew in his bones that he shouldn’t be alone with her and it had nothing to do with society’s expectations of virtuous young ladies. He had no worries about self-control, either hers or his own. But the silence in the cab was wearing on his nerves. It made him want to converse, even though she had made it quite clear she did not want to speak to him.
He should never have requested her help. It was not as if he had to find the exact items again. He merely needed a good approximation. The American Stricklands had not spent the long years away pining for the candlesticks they meant to retrieve today. One set would be much like another to the new Earl, as long as he did not note an absence of light in the dining room.
But what the devil did the Dowager mean by an ‘oddment’? It was the only word he had deciphered in the line of scribbling near the bottom of the list. And how was he to decide which ‘blue painting’ was the correct one? Only a member of the family could guide him through the inadequate descriptions provided to him and Miss Hope Strickland was the only one willing to help.
But since she had done so begrudgingly, he had a perverse desire to see her discommoded. That was why he had chosen the worst shop on the list as their first stop. There would be almost no chance at success for it traded in the saddest of merchandise, not the sort of things likely to be found in one of England’s greatest houses. While he knew that there were better hunting grounds ahead, she would leave the shop coated in the miasma of despair that seemed to hang about the financial misfortune of others.
The carriage stopped in front of a plain door in St Giles, marked with the traditional three balls that indicated its business. He exited, offering a hand to Miss Strickland to help her to the street, while keeping a wary eye out for the cutpurses and beggars that would appear to harass the gentry.
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