Argh.
Susan smiled at the townsfolk as if she were the Queen and they the peasants—er, constituents—who’d come to greet their mistress. She added a little wave of her gloved fingers. Perhaps if she acted normal, if she acted like one of them, they would get bored. They’d return to their usual pastimes and all this would blow over.
Except she didn’t know how to act like one of them. Shewasn’tone of them. Thank God.
Dejected, she brushed past the crowd and wandered into the Shark’s Tooth. As nonchalantly as possible, she ordered a round for all three patrons too drunk to make it outside to stare at her. Susan couldn’t afford the tab anyway, so who cared how expensive it got? She crossed into each establishment one by one, ate a meal on (suspect) credit, and carefully, casually, just-so-happened to end up right outside the Dress Shop of Iniquity.
Rather than go inside and alert the demonic duo to her presence, she collapsed ever so softly against the back of the building, just beneath the open window, and fanned herself as if catching her breath from all that shopping.
(It was a new fan. French, too, by the look of it. Hand-painted and quite lovely.)
Voices floated down from overhead. Boring voices. Voices that discussed this ream or that yard, or what grade of thread was better for such-and-such stitch.Yawn. Had she solved the mystery yet? Susan debated just going in and asking. Or buying up all the illegal cloth on her false credit and telling the hapless magistrate, “What silk? I didn’t see any French silk....”
She wondered how long she could reasonably stand here, cooling her décolletage with her no doubt treasonous French fan. Perhaps she should come back later. Much later. Likenever.
Between the disastrous slip of the tongue regarding the chicken shed and the even more disastrous attempt at relaying messages from the dead, the last thing she needed in light of the current social climate was to get caught spying again.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing, woman?”
Susan yelped and dropped her new fan in the sand.
Mr. Bothwick. Solid as a rock.
Not dead, then. Either he’d managed to get away… or he was in league with the Others. Whoever they were.
“Nothing.” She snatched her fan back up and recommenced making furious use of the device. “Why aren’t you buried in the rock garden?”
“I created a distraction.” He stared down at her as if tempted to throttle her and toss her in an unmarked grave himself. “Are you eavesdropping on Miss Grey and Miss Devonshire?”
“Nooo,” she protested weakly, fanning faster. “Why would you think that?”
He snatched the fan from her fingers, snapped it closed, and tossed it backward over his shoulder. “Everybodythinks that.”
When she glanced around his wide shoulders, her stomach curdled.
Apparently, whilst she’d been hiding behind her new toy and straining to overhear fascinating statements like,I don’t know, Dinah, perhaps the mauve would be nicer,the townsfolk had been creeping in. They now surrounded her in a wide, tense circle. Some held... rocks?
Chapter 26
The angry mob was edging closer. Tightening rank. Susan had the uneasy feeling a stoning could break out at any moment.
Miss Devonshire’s threats were certainly fast-acting.
Mr. Bothwick grabbed Susan’s upper arm hard enough to leave a five-fingered handprint. He jerked her out from beneath the window as one might tug forth a rag doll.
“Can you explain what the devil you’re doing here?” he demanded, voice low.
She nodded frantically.
“Is it something we can discuss in front of others?”
She shook her head emphatically.
His eyes narrowed. “Is it agoodexplanation?”
Susan nodded a bit more frantically.
Mr. Bothwick hesitated, clearly battling inner demons. He scowled at her, displeased with whatever he’d decided. He gave a resigned sigh, pulled her into the wall of his chest, and whispered, “Lesser of two evils.”
