Page 7 of Undercover with the Heiress
He would not be folding for anyone. ‘The focus should be on accuracy. Viscountess Dalton does not need to wake to anotherdebacle. I’ll be neater if I work alone.’ He pulled his pen from his coat pocket, unscrewed the lid, and snapped it over the end.
‘I think the focus should be on the A and the L,’ Elise hesitated. ‘There’s no need for speed or—’
‘I can be correct and work quickly. I can do anything I set my mind to,’ Rosanna replied.
‘You may write any kind of gibberish fast. But will your penmanship be readable? Will potential clients be able to read what you have altered? Or will you be sending them to Albania?’
‘Care to make a wager?’ She’d continued working as they’d been talking and stacked another brochure on top of the small pile. ‘I can complete more than you and be precise.’
‘I don’t gamble,’ he sniped back. He took a brochure and made the small change.
‘Just your pride for the stakes, then,’ Rosanna said. She grabbed another brochure, moved her pen over the page, then pushed it aside.
He should be focusing on the information about Lord Richard. He should be sitting calmly and listening to Rosanna and Elise chat and gossip while he combed through their words for information. He should be keeping his distance.
Yet her little pile grew, and when he paused to study her corrections, they were accurate. She was going to beat him. She’d go into the world believing that she could do anything.
Which was an incredibly dangerous proposition.
For her or the world?
Undecided.
Perfect little rich girl, getting everything she wanted, believing everything about herself that she’d ever been told. Someone had to teach her a lesson.
‘You have a wager, Hempel,’ he said, and pulled a pile towards him. ‘But make no mistake. I will have your pride.’
Chapter Four
Rosanna inspected her nails. She’d be wearing gloves this evening, but if Lord Richard had a ring, she’d have to strip them off, and she couldn’t present the son of a marquess with ink-stained fingers.
Becca, the lady’s maid who saw to the older Hempel daughters, tapped at Rosanna’s waist. ‘Deep breath now. Ready?’
Rosanna inhaled, rolling her shoulders back into her practised posture and drawing in her stomach as best as she could. A slip of boning pinched her waist as Becca tightened the cord. Breathing deeper, Rosanna gripped the edge of her dresser and inspected her shape in the mirror. Her breasts pushed higher over the lace trim when the corset compressed her ribs and cinched her waist.
‘Tighter, Becca. I’d like a more fashionable silhouette.’
‘Pfft. There’s nothing wrong with yoursilh-u-ette. It might not be as fine as some of those ladies who flit about like little birds, but they don’t have kettle drums like you.’
‘Becca!’
The older lady chuckled. ‘If you insist. One more go.’
As Becca tugged the corset cord even tighter, Rosanna checked the back of her hands. Was that an ink spot or a freckle? She licked her thumb and rubbed. The dot smudged, and she wiped until she eradicated it. She should not have let herself become so easily frustrated. At least she’d won and had shown Babbage that she could be both fast and precise. He’d scanned her work with an odd expression—something between confusion and admiration—and tipped his head in a kind of stoic concession of defeat before taking his leave.
Behind her, Becca tied the cords into a bow. When she finished, Rosanna sank onto her stool before the dresser mirror.
‘I’d like my hair styled in this fashion.’ Rosanna pointed at an etching in an open magazine. ‘With the beads and the feathers.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘And I’d like my peridot earrings, the ones with the pearl drops that my sisters gave me for my birthday last year.’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘And don’t tell Mama, but a little rouge.’
‘Yes, miss.’
