apparent reluctance, but did not let her eyes drop from his. They were standing so close that she had to tilt her head back at what must have been an uncomfortable angle, yet she made no move away from him. Nick was suddenly struck by the fancy that she was attempting to hold his attention away from something else, something she was desperate to hide from him.
He broke the eye contact, abruptly stepping back and sweeping the room in a comprehensive glance. Nothing.
‘Satisfied that I have not been stealing the silver?’ she enquired icily, stooping to pick up her bonnet and tying the ribbons with a jerk. ‘The truce did not last long, did it, my lord?’
‘The truce will last just as long as I am satisfied you are hiding nothing that will embarrass or harm my aunt,’ he replied, trampling firmly on a desire to rip open that bow, toss the bonnet to one side and kiss the anger off her face. Then the image of those green eyes fluttering closed in passion, that firm mouth softening beneath his, that delicately curved body yielding in his arms crashed into his mind with the force of a blow and he turned abruptly on his heel to hide the shock of arousal.
‘I will ring for Rainbird. I regret that I am unable to drive you this afternoon, but he will call you a cab.’
‘Thank you, my lord. Perhaps before you leave you would be so kind as to give me the direction of the bank you were going to recommend to me. I have no need to take you up on your kind offer to escort me—Miss Scott will do so, I am sure.’
Nick strode to the bureau and, pulling a sheet of paper towards him scribbled a few lines. When he turned, Talitha was standing closer to him, her hand held out for the note. ‘Miss Scott? Ah, yes, the governess.’
‘Indeed. My friend to whom you were introduced this morning. Doubtless your investigations will have unearthed the full list of her extremely respectable clients. Lady Parry has been so kind as to say that all of my small circle of friends are welcome here while I am staying with her.’ She tucked the paper into her reticule and added, ‘In addition to Miss Scott, there is Mrs Blackstock, the lodging-house keeper, and her niece Miss Blackstock, who is an opera dancer.’
‘Are you attempting to provoke me, Miss Grey?’ Nick was conscious that his strong desire to kiss Talitha Grey until she was whimpering in his arms was rapidly being replaced by the need to shake her until her teeth rattled. ‘An opera dancer?’
‘Certainly, my lord. I am surprised your researches did not uncover that fact,’ she replied placidly, slipping past him as Rainbird opened the door. ‘Possibly you know her as Amelie LeNoir. Thank you, Rainbird. Good day, my lord.’
Nick threw himself down in the nearest armchair and stared at the closed door. Damn it! A little milliner with gilt hair and green eyes and a secret had undermined his self-control, his carefully maintained lack of emotion and his utter confidence that he had his world, and that of each of his dependents, firmly where he wanted it.
And no bad thing either, he told himself, his sense of humour returning as rapidly as it had left him. Bear-leading his cousin, assisting the failing Miss Gower, ruthlessly checking up on his aunt’s new protégée—he would turn into a sanctimonious straight-laced Puritan if he carried on like this. You need some fun, Nick Stangate, he told himself. Whether having Miss Talitha Grey in the Parry household would prove to be fun, exactly, remained to be seen. It was certainly not going to be dull. And if that young lady thought she was going to keep any secrets from him for very long, she was seriously mistaken.
That small stiletto thrust about the opera dancer had been neatly delivered, he thought appreciatively. Presumably it was intended to repay him for the remark about buying hats, which she had risen to all too easily.
Amelie LeNoir. Could she really mean that she was friendly with an opera dancer? Presumably, if she was the niece of the lodging-house keeper, she shared the same house—unless she was in some man’s keeping. No, even Miss Grey would not openly profess friendship with a kept woman. A virtuous actress would be a novelty—and possibly a means by which to tease Talitha Grey.
In a very short time he was becoming addicted to the stimulus of provoking the flash of green fire in those wide eyes. He would seek out Miss LeNoir and in the meantime he must have a word with his enquiry agent. Neither Miss LeNoir nor Talitha’s secret had featured in the expensive reports that had arrived at regular intervals, systematically setting out Miss Grey’s career from respectable gentry childhood through reclusive poverty with her dying mother to hard-working self-reliance. Lord Arndale disliked incompetence almost as much as he disliked not being in command of all the facts: Mr Gregory Tolliver was going to have some explaining to do as to why a Society matron knew his target’s secrets and he did not.
Chapter Seven
The next day Zenna accompanied Tallie to see first Mr Dover the solicitor and then to Martin and Wig-more, the bankers Nick Stangate had recommended. Tallie found herself expected at both sets of offices and at both of them found herself making decisions and issuing orders, which, if she gave herself time to think about it, seemed the stuff of fairy tales. Eventually they emerged blinking into the watery sunlight on the corner of Poultry and Queen Street, an obsequious clerk at their elbow to hail them a carriage.
‘We were received with the most gratifying degree of attention,’ she observed to her friend once they were alone and the cab was crawling down Cheapside towards St Paul’s. ‘But I still cannot believe that I was sitting there, making decisions about bank deposits and gilts, and being lectured on the absolute necessity to make my will.’
‘You and your money were what was receiving the attention,’ Zenna retorted. ‘What a lowering thought that men who would have scarcely noticed us yesterday hung upon your every word and wish today, simply because of your acquisition of wealth.’
‘That is the way of the world, I suppose.’ Tallie looked sombre for a moment, then smiled wickedly. ‘But reprehensible though it may be, I fully intend to enjoy it—we have been prudent and sensible too long, Zenna. We deserve a holiday!’
‘We? But I have my plans for the school to draw up and house-agents to see, as well as my pupils to attend to,’ Zenna protested.
‘You cannot do both, not efficiently at any rate. Zenna, why do you not give notice to the parents of your pupils and concentrate on the school. No, hear me out.’ She raised a hand as Zenna opened her mouth. ‘This school is an investment—a joint investment—is it not? Then I should be investing in your time to set it up, and you should be concentrating on house-agents, and interviewing teachers and drawing up a curriculum and so on.
‘Stop frowning, Zenna!’ She laughed at her friend’s dubious expression. ‘I understand all your scruples. We will talk to Mr Dover and ask him to draw up a partnership agreement, then all will be set out and fair. Now agree, do, because I have lots of other plans I want to discuss with you.’
‘Very well,’ Zenna agreed with the air of someone being persuaded to do something they wanted to do, but felt they should not. ‘I will be guided by Mr Dover, he does seem a very rigorous lawyer and will make sure I am not taking more than my fair share in this agreement.’
Tallie nodded decisively. ‘And I have had another brilliant idea for investing my money. It concerns Mrs Blackstock. What if I should buy a town house or two? She could run them as select boarding-houses. I am sure she would soon be making a handsome profit for me and thereby a good income for herself.’
‘An excellent
