Lord Andrew sat across from Amelia. “What is that about?” His gaze dipped from her eyes to her body for just an instant.
Had he looked at her décolletage? She heated. Every word she’d ever known dropped away, and she took a large swallow of her ale. “What do you mean, my lord?”
“That gown. It’s pink.”
Pink? Pink! He’d been looking at the pink. Not at her at all. Was the ale deep enough to drown herself in? She finished it off to stop herself from trying. “Ah. Yes. Fiona lent it to me. Very kind of her. I quite like the color. She says it suits me.”
His brows drew together. “It’s not your usual shade.”
Did that bother him? She’d never even tried to wear color around him. It hadn’t seemed the thing to do in a professional capacity. She’d followed his example and worn only the dullest shades—grays and blacks and deep blues and browns.
“Do you think it inappropriate?” she asked.
“I suppose not for a wedding, but…”
The most irritating unfinished sentence in the world. “But?” she demanded.
“It’s notyou.”
Rubbish. She waved for another ale. The barmaid would be kept busy this day. How did this man knowherwhen she pretended to be him? Pretended, at least, to run his agency on her own. And since he had always been a fastidious sort—even on short acquaintance she’d been able to tell this—she’d copied his mannerisms and tendencies, hoping to keep her job as long as she could by pleasing him as best as possible.
She’d certainly achieved what she’d set out to do.
And lost something along the way.
“It is me, and I like it. I think I look nice in it. Do you think I look nice in it?” Oh. Had she asked him that? The ale must have control of her tongue.
His mouth opened slightly, and his eyes searched the room from one end to the other before finally landing, wary still, back on her. “You are presentable for the circumstances.” But he didn’t look at the gown. Didn’t look lower than her eyes. A lovely sign of respect.
She hated it. What good a low bodice if no onelooked? The sisters-in-law were wrong. No use revealing a thing to this man.
“The gown is neither here nor there, Mrs. Dart.”
Mrs. Dart. He always used the fake title even though she’d never been wed. She understood the necessity for it. She could not keep her position without some pretense of experience, maturity. But she felt it built a wall between them, too.
“It certainly seems as if the gown is both here and there,” she replied. “You are overly bothered by it.”
“It is my mother’s or one of my sisters-in-law’s doing, so let us put the unfortunate matter of the gown behind us and focus on the business we’ll be doing in London tomorrow.”
The barmaid finally answered her call and placed a lovely full tankard before Amelia. She blessed the woman who scurried off as silently as she’d come.
Lord Andrew frowned at the libation.
“For heaven’s sake. The ale displeases you as well?”
“I need your mind clear, Mrs. Dart. For business matters.”
“It is your brother’s wedding. Surely those matters can wait. Have a drink. Converse with your family.”
“No.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a square of folded paper which he placed before her. The tip of one corner landed in a droplet of ale that had splashed onto thetable, and the paper darkened. Lord Andrew’s face darkened, too, and he snatched it up quickly, patting it dry on his jacket sleeve before holding it out to her, the paper now hovering from his fingers high enough above the table to remain safe. “Here. I know what I think best, but I thought you might have further insight. You work more closely with the families than I do, after all.”
She took the paper and unfolded it. “What am I looking at?” A list of names, that much she could tell. Women’s names.
“Possible financial backers for the expansion.”
“They’re all women. And… unmarried women.” She lifted her gaze from the paper to him, hoping to find some answer on his face. She knew better, and his emotionless expression gave her exactly what she’d come to expect from him—nothing. “Are you asking them to make charitable donations to the agency? It would be better to make such requests of women in control of their own funds. Or men. Unmarried women…” She shook her head. This man should know these things. He should. He did.Shewas the one refusing to see something.
“Unmarried women need to be married.” He said the thing she’d been keeping in the dark. “You’ll notice they are all wealthy families. With no titles. It will be a marriage of convenience for us both.”
