Page 21 of Ladies in Hating
The hoarse voice softened slightly. “Aye, is that it, then? Tell me his name, and I’ll help you find him. Thought you were another of those cursed tourists buzzing about like blackflies.”
“Tourists?” The female voice went higher and sillier. “Whyever would there be tourists at a canal excavation?”
“Haven’t you heard, miss?” The man’s voice grew confiding, and, from her hiding place, Cat rolled her eyes. Was it not obvious that the woman was delicately interrogating him? “Thereare ghosts at the site. The whole place is cursed by Saint Botolph himself.”
“Cursed?” The woman’s voice squeaked impressively. “Oh no! My poor uncle.”
Cat held herself very still and tried not to laugh.
“What have you seen?” the woman went on, in a tone of breathless concern. “Do you think this curse a danger to the populace?”
The man described the past day’s events in graphic and unlikely detail, and, as he did, his voice grew gradually louder.
Hell. They were coming closer.
Cat bit down on her lower lip and looked nervously to the left and right. There was no obvious means of egress. Could she brazen it out? Pretend she was meant to be here, sitting in the grass with a notebook open on her lap?
But before she could sort out her next move, the two figures came into view, and every muscle in Cat’s body froze at once.
That honeyed voice—those deceptively innocent questions—
Had come from Lady Georgiana Cleeve.
Her hair was puffed out in elaborate curls, and she wore a tiny straw bonnet on her head in absolute defiance of the season. Her face tilted winningly up toward the burly workman escorting her, and her freckles bracketed a guileless and utterly unfamiliar smile.
Cat went hot and then cold all over.
No.No.It was not possible. How could this be happening? What was Georgiana doing here?
And what would she do if she saw Cat?
Frantic panic clouded Cat’s mind. Georgiana would think that Cat had orchestrated this, somehow, again! She would think that Cat had followed her, was once again stealing from her.Georgiana might turn her over to the local magistrate for trespassing, might—
Spurred by feverish instinct, Cat flung herself down to the ground and rolled underneath the chalk cart.
Oh God. Oh hell. This was a disaster.
“A sonorous voice?” burbled Georgiana, sounding for all the world like someone who did not know what the wordsonorousmeant. “What did it say?”
“Death,” intoned the workman. “Death to all comers.”
A luxurious pair of black half boots strolled past Cat’s face. “Oh no,” Georgiana whimpered. “And my uncle is so lively!”
Cat turned away from the boots, which brought her burning cheek into contact with a sodden oak leaf.
What had happened to her life since she had encountered Lady Georgiana in an alley behind Belvoir’s? How had she come to this point?
And how the devil was she going to get free?
She listened for several uncomfortable minutes as Georgiana rambled incoherent and distracting responses to questions about her uncle. She pondered the other side of the chalk cart, the dozens of chattering workers, and the numerous ways that Lady Georgiana had wronged her.
She had just resigned herself to an afternoon spent among the rocks and mud when a second catastrophe occurred, in the form of a pair of horses hitched to the front of the cart.
Cat craned her head and stared, paralyzed by horror, at eight dusty hooves, clopping sturdily into their assigned places.
The cart was going to roll away. In fact, if she did not move her limbs, the cart was going to roll directly over her.
She moaned softly and pulled her arms and legs into her body.
