Page 9 of The Wallflower Manifesto
Just how richwasFreddy, exactly?
Well, how rich had he been, anyway, before his wife swiped his estate out from under him? In Abe’s experience, a person did notgarner this much public interest without a sizable treasure hoard hidden under her skirt, no matter how attractive or charming.
Lady Bentley was certainly still a good-looking woman, despite being old enough to have a fully grown son. Beauty, wealth, and social weight would of course always stir up a few hopeful swains from the sidelines, but this woman was being swarmed. Perhaps landed widows were a hotter commodity than Abe had realized.
Maybe the son would understand the mother’s secret fan signals. If not, Abe would have to find a lady of breeding to decipher them for him, and for that he’d most certainly need to write down the nuances of what she was doing before he’d forgotten them.
Absently, he mimicked the movement with small gestures of his own. Languid fanning at the collarbone, closing the fan in the left hand, tapping the right cheek, open again to the left.
“What on earth are you doing?” demanded a hushed and throaty female voice, so close to his ear he could feel the warmth of her breath. “Stop that at once!”
Abe turned, two fingers still resting on his cheekbone, to find himself facing a furious pair of rather pretty brown eyes, blazing just now like someone had lit a fire behind them. He blinked, forcing himself to take in the rest of her, to attempt to identify the pursed rosebud lips or the gleam of glossy brown hair curling around the curve of her cheek.
She was wearing a creamy ivory lace and a pale green satin, rich fabrics draped fetchingly over a generously lush figure, which, sadly, he could not allow his eyes to linger upon for the sake of good manners.
“Oh,” he said stupidly, failing to place the creature, delightful as she was. “Hello?”
“Mr. Murphy,” she hissed, going so far as to reach up and slap at his wrist so he’d drop the mimic of a fan he was holding to his face, which he did with a self-conscious snort of amusement that she did not appear to share. “What are you doing here?”
“Enjoying the opera?” he suggested, unable to help scanning her fully once more, desperate to place the lass. “And you?”
She recognized him, after all, which was unfair. He was certain he’d have remembered such a morsel, had they had dealings in the past.
Her cheeks reddened, an outrage that had rather more of a flattering effect on her visage than he imagined she’d prefer. “You are most certainly not here to watch the opera, and we both know it. Did Silas send you? I confess I’ve reached my capacity for allowing you to follow and harass those dear to me!”
“Oho,allowingme?” he repeated, grinning.
He knew her now. It took that last accusation to place her, but there was no mistaking it. She’d been there, at Silas’s wedding last year, holding Freddy’s errant wife in her arms like she’d protect the little minx from any evil that dared step over the threshold.
When Abe had revealed that Freddy himself was just outside the house, waiting in a carriage to reclaim said wife, he’d thought this girl was going to lay him flat at daring to even suggest such a thing.
She was, he thought, the prettiest bodyguard he’d ever seen.
“You’re the sister,” he remembered with some satisfaction. “The new countess’s sister. Miss Yardley, is it? Who are you protecting this evening?”
She hadn’t been so well turned out on the occasion of their first meeting, he noted. Her dress had been dowdy and shapeless, her hair pinned simply, even though it had been a wedding. If she’d been dressed like this, he might have let her punch him.
“Shall I go over and tell the dowager countess that you’re following her?” she snapped, dark brows rising, hands landing on her shapely hips. “It seems preferable to letting whatever you’re up to play out.”
“You can if you like,” he said with a shrug, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the column at his back. “But if you do, you’ll never know what I was up to in the first place. Hand to heart, Silas Cain has no involvement in my presence here.”
Her eyes narrowed, that lovely cedar color sparking with ire, but he could see he’d knocked her off balance, even if only a little. “Youarein Mr. Cain’s employ, are you not?”
“Occasionally, but work from the barrister doesn’t keep home and hearth. I’ve an entire business ’round investigations, love, and he’s only one client.” He tilted forward a little, beckoning her closer, and despite herself, she leaned toward him. “I’m on the tail of a jewel thief, as it happens.”
She was silent for a moment, her posture straightening and her lashes batting at him once, then again. “That is absurd.”
He flashed her his teeth. “Aye, well, the truth often is.”
She considered him, her breath coming shallow and irritated as she chewed on what she might say next. The very concept ofwhat he’d suggested seemed to annoy her. “A jewel thief,” she repeated, dry as a stalk of hay.
“Same one that terrorized thetonlast Season,” he confirmed. “This is the type of venue that’s ripe for the plucking, wouldn’t you say? And it’s best to start looking early if the fiend is going to return.”
She glared at him as though if she looked sharply enough, she could tap right through his skull and find the truth hiding behind it.
He had the sudden, troublemaking urge to invite her closer, so that she may proceed with her examination at her leisure.
As though she could read this thought, her glare seemed to shift, something akin to bafflement weaving its way into her stern little facade.
