and ruin. “Islington said to come back tonight.”
“Will you?” Daniel asked quietly, sensing if not fully understanding that she was somehow conflicted over that decision.
“Yes.” She offered him a reassuring smile, hoping her answer would convince Daniel a return visit was all it would take to secure the help they needed. Maybe she was even trying to convince herself Islington would say yes. He’d not promised her anything. Still, what choice did she have? He was the only investigator she had. With the winter roads, it would be spring by the time she corresponded with an investigation company in a larger city and arranged for someone to come. Spring would be too late.
Islington was her only choice. Up until this afternoon’s meeting, she’d liked to think he’d been serendipitously dropped into her lap just when she needed him — well, not him precisely, but an investigator. Now, she wasn’t sure serendipity had anything to do with it. The only investigator she could get her hands on was a notorious seducer. Nonetheless, she had to go back. If she didn’t, she’d never know what Islington’s decision was. If she didn’t go back, the failure to engage an investigator would be on her shoulders. But if she went back and Islington refused, she could be content knowing she’d made her best effort and the fault lay with him.
There. She’d made her decision she told herself firmly. She would see him again tonight. Going back was the only choice, the right choice for her family and the mill. The tremor of excitement the decision elicited had to do with the satisfaction of a decision made, the idea that she was moving forward, making progress. It had nothing to do with a pair of blue eyes that undressed a woman in a glance and a mouth that inspired the most decadent of daydreams. Nothing at all. It was ridiculous to think it did.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of! Are you serious?” Logan gave Hayden a disapproving stare over the foaming head of his ale, the taproom noisy around them. “You’re actually thinking about taking on a case right in the middle of racing season? You haven’t taken on a case for five years and now you suddenly have an itch to investigate?”
“He’s got an itch alright.” Carrick mumbled into his mug.
Logan shot his disapproval in Carrick’s direction. “If I’d known she was the one to scratch it, I would not have brought her. I thought she was like all the others.”
Hayden stifled a smile. Logan would not take to being teased at the moment. He knew what Logan had thought. He’d thought it too. But Miss Jenna Priess had sought him out on far different ‘business’ than the usual. The taproom was loud and boisterous around them, the crowd in a good mood after the excitement of the racing that morning, followed up by a winter fair in what passed for the village green in the white months. It was a night for celebration. It was not a night for quarreling with one’s best friend. What Logan needed right now was pacification.
“It’s not a case.” Hayden offered. Hardly. A case implied briefs and files and research, interviews with people who knew the victim. This was not a case. Nor was it going to turn into one. “I’m going to make a couple of inquiries. If I’m lucky, I’ll have a few leads for her to follow on her own. With the right information, she can probably find someone to wrap it all up without my help.” It was the same argument he’d made with himself that afternoon. An afternoon, he noted, that he had not spent rolling in bed with a lovely woman, but thinking instead. What he’d come up with was a compromise his conscience could live with and that was it: get her some leads, nothing more.
His argument had been more successful on himself than on Logan. His conscience had been appeased but Logan was not. Then again, Logan hadn’t been in the room with her, hadn’t seen the emerald fire in her eyes when she’d talked of her predicament. Logan hadn’t heard her sincerity of tone when she’d spoken of her father, he hadn’t been subjected to the idea that he was in the presence of a good woman who wanted something more from him than celebrity sex.
Logan leaned across the table to be heard over the din of the tavern, his tone earnest. “Hayden, we have money invested and obligations to keep. I don’t know that there’s time for this and we can’t back out. We are centered here for the winter but we have visits to make elsewhere. The Derwentwater merchants want us to see their lake, there’s Morecambe’s ice festival and Keswick after that. I can’t pay them back if we don’t show up. The festivals are already planned,” Logan reminded him. “We have to keep those commitments. I need your head in the game.”
Obligations meant more than just showing up. People expected a show. Once word of today’s antics on the ice made the rounds, the expectations would be doubled. Hayden Islington was expected to win and do it in grand fashion. Merchants and earls didn’t sponsor events centered around losers.
“I know.” Hayden reassured him. “It’ll be fine. Who knows, she might not even come back.” She’d been bristling when she’d left him and disappointed. Hayden regretted the last. Bristling was one thing. He’d had women mad at him before but not disappointed. He didn’t like to disappoint a woman no matter what the circumstances.
The door to the taproom opened, bringing a gust of cold winter night air into the warmth of the inn. The three of them looked up in reflex. Hayden froze. Carrick let out a whistle. “Well, I’ll be damned. I guess she came back after all.”
And in style. Jenna Priess was looking gorgeous and far too well put together for a place like this in her rich cloak, her hood thrown back, her chestnut hair gleaming as she searched the crowd for him.
Logan gave him a stony glare. “Of course she did. Hayden’s irresistible, as he well knows.” Even at his worst, apparently. He had been rude and audacious but Jenna Priess hadn’t scared. Hayden offered Logan an apologetic shrug.
Logan shook his head. “How can I compete with that? You always were one for a pretty face. Hayden, don’t think we’re done talking about this.”
“Just for the duration of our stay, Logan. No more, I promise.” Hayden grinned.
Logan looked skeptical. “I will hold you to it. Ice doesn’t wait. I can’t simply reschedule us for a later date.” They all knew that whatever was in the bank when the ice melted was what they lived on until the ice froze again. “Timing is everything.”
Damn right it was, with ice and with women. He’d better hustle if he meant to keep this one. Miss Priess had ventured no deeper into the room and now her face wore a resigned frown. Unable to locate him amid the crowd, she was starting to second guess the wisdom of coming. If he meant her to stay, he’d have to move quickly. Hayden shouldered his way past tables and bodies. His hand came down over hers as it pushed on the door. He was just in time. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He murmured.
She startled, taking a moment to recognize him in the unfamiliar setting. “Do what?”
“Leave.” He smiled, just for her, his flirtation rewarded with competitive sparks in her blue eyes.
“And why is that?”
He raised her hand to his lips, his eyes holding hers. “Because what you’re looking for is right here.”
“You never stop do you?” She rewarded him with a laugh, some of the earlier tension going from her face. He felt uncommonly proud at being responsible for it, for making her laugh. He wondered
