Page 2 of Plucked By the Orc

But he had no intention of becoming an object of fun or risk embarrassment. So he only nodded at the iris clinging to her poke bonnet. “A tad on the nose, isn’t it?”

“Who’s to say?” Miss Gabbert eyed the gold buttons on his greatcoat, embossed with the same chevrons that graced his family’s English coat of arms. Then she lifted her chin to take inthe fabric of his cravat. “I don’ imagine it’s a name you ‘ear much ‘ob-knobbin’ with ‘yer lot.”

“Mylot? Madam, my family and I are the only orcs in London.”

Was it his imagination, or did this brash Miss Gabbert actually blush? “I didn’ mean it like that. Not orcs. Your lot meaning the ‘igh society and all.”

So she thought him a part of theton. He supposed he was a part of it in his peculiar way, though he didn’t take the assumption as a compliment.

“At any rate, Miss Gabbert, I do apologize.” Hedoffed his top hat, specially tailored with inner folds to disguise his horns, then swept it in a half-circle and bowed before her. He’d hoped for the gesture to appear ironic but hadn’t the human talent for such tomfoolery. “But it was only an accident.”

When he righted himself and settled his hat back over his horns, he found Iris Gabbert shivering in her pelisse. It occurred to him that the thin outer garment couldn’t properly protect her from the chill of a February evening, and the realization touched his heart.

From his vantage point, which was a good head higher than even the tallest human gentleman, he noticed ladies avoided touching Iris Gabbert as they had avoided touching him. As though Miss Gabbert’s apparent destitution might rub off somehow. As for the gentlemen, Duncan had assumed her beauty and remarkable eyes would distract them. However, they saw no further than her worn garments. Duncan thought they would have trod right over Miss Gabbert had she landed on the street with her flowers.

It would never have been this way in his world. He must remark upon the scene tonight in his book. Which he really needed to get home to, for it would do neither his reputation nor hers any favors to linger in one another’s company any longer.

If she cared about her reputation. Duncan realized that for all he had studied theton, he knew comparatively little about the other residents of London. The sort that weren’t invited to late-night balls in the wintertime and garden parties in the spring.

“Naturally, I shall compensate you fully for your loss.” Leaning on the fine Orcan silver knob of his walking stick, Duncan withdrew his billfold from the pocket of his trousers. He waved at the ruined flowers. “How much do I owe you for the basket?”

“It weren’t about that. I ain’t lookin’ for charity. An apology is all I was wanting.”

“Come now,” Duncan urged. “It’s hardly charity but rather a fair recompense.”

“No. Thank you all the same.”

There was a quiet dignity to those words, as polite in their way as any from the more “cultured” women he’d met. She tucked an unruly chestnut-brown curl behind her ear. He found himself entranced by the gesture. He should have been well on his way, but he didn’t care to leave her just yet.

Then again, he could chalk that up to simple curiosity, surely. Nothing more.

Iris bent down to gather the fallen blossoms.

“At least let me help,” Duncan said, brushing against her shoulder as he helped her collect the flowers and put them back in the basket.

“I’m not needing ‘elp nor nothin’ else, thank you very much.”

“Noranythingelse. And we all need someone’s help every so often. ‘No man is an island’ and all that. No woman either, I should say.”

“And no woman has time to be wastin’ quoting poetry with a stranger,” she told him. “Not when there’s business to be done.”

“You know poetry?” he said, surprised she’d recognized the quote from John Donne.

She let out a grunt that was perhaps meant as a laugh, though he wasn’t certain. “I’d wager you weren’t expectin’ a girl reduced to selling flowers to carry on a proper conversation, and what have you.” She affected a plummy accent, which he soon realized was meant to resemble his, and put a hand to her chest. “As I live and breathe.”

“I never said you were ‘reduced’ to anything.”

Why on earth was he standing here bickering with this woman? He had informed his butler that he should be retiring for the evening by ten, and it was now … Duncan tucked his billfold under his arm and reached into his greatcoat to retrieve his pocket watch from its fob. Nearly a quarter past the hour.

Duncan Higgins found tardiness completely unacceptable, and yet he lingered still. “Your manner of living is not mine to judge.”

“But I imagine findin’ a literate girl sellin’ flowers on the streets comes as a surprise to a gent such as yourself.”

She eyed his timepiece with such keen interest that Duncan suddenly wondered if she had pinched similar items from unsuspecting passers-by.

“There.” She wagged an accusing finger in his direction. The loose woolen gloves were far too large for her slender hands. “I caught you, I did. You whipped that fine bauble away fast enough once you noted me lookin’ at it.”

Duncan had indeed clasped the watch tighter and slipped it back in place in his pocket. Whether that was because he was done reading the time or because he feared she might snatch it and run away, he couldn’t say. Which left him with the unsettling feeling that he was not better than thetonafter all.

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