Lily started. Thatwasher favorite kind of scone. “How on earth did you know that?”
“There were several times when I came up to check on you and Rebecca after tea time, only for you to smile up at me with speckled teeth.”
“Certainly not.” Lily jerked to a stop, eyes wide.
“It’s the truth.”
“Why on earth did you not tell me?” Lily’s cheeks flushed. Of all the mortifying things…
“I thought it rather charming, myself. I didn’t see the harm in letting the seeds remain. If you’d been heading into town, I might have subtly indicated that a glance in the mirror wouldn’t be amiss, but I daresay Rebecca didn’t care.”
“I would have cared,” she argued, her forehead wrinkled.
“Precisely why I didn’t tell you. Why would I disturb the wonderful time you were having reading Rebecca stories or rearranging her dollhouse or whatnot, only because of a few wayward poppyseeds?”
“Perhaps you have a point, but I must insist that you say something if you see me gallivanting around London with poppyseeds in my teeth.”
“Oh, heavens no. I wouldn’t dream of it.” He chuckled, and the sound instantly registered as perhaps one of the top ten most pleasant sounds she’d ever heard in her life. Bradford grinned down at her. “I wouldn’t dare say anything that would interrupt yougallivanting.”
Lily fought the urge to blush, but she wasn’t quite sure why. She shook her head and looked at the ground instead.
He cleared his throat and said, “I fear we’ve gotten well off course of the intended conversation, however.”
Right—somehow amongst their comfort together, Lily had lost sight of the fact that he’d come to London to question her, that they were less friends than they were investigator and suspect.
“Theater,” he said, jolting her from her thoughts.
She frowned up at him. “Pardon?”
“Thankfully, you were correct when you said that neither of us will ever seeMy Dearest Matildaagain. You were also correct when you argued that perhaps the quality of the production differed, though I’m more inclined to think that the northern production was of a higher quality and your taste in plays is simply that dreadful.”
“We are at a stalemate in the discussion, then.”
“Not at all. There’s an easy enough solution—there’s a play running at the Theatre Royal right now. Something about two good brothers. Or perhaps they’re bad.” He frowned. “Actually, I’m not certain what it’s about, only that it’s supposed to be good.”
“According to whom?” she teased.
“Gentlemen in the Know.” He pronounced the words as if they were a title.
“One shouldn’t believe every review one reads in the newspapers,” Lily said archly. “Some say that they’re paid off by the theater owners.”
“And yet we’ll never settle ourMatildadispute in any other fashion. This is the only way I know to ascertain whether your taste in the stage is as poor as your taste in books.”
“My taste in books is excellent.”
His dark eyes slid sideways to hers; he smirked. “You should know that Mrs. Clark is a dreadful gossip. Every time you borrowed one of her novels, I heard of it.”
Thatwas certainly unwelcome information. Lily could do little more than blush furiously in the silence that followed. Thankfully, they were passing the pond right then, and she pretended to carefully examine the swans in order to turn her face away as she tried to remember all the terribly written fiction she’d borrowed.
“So it’s settled, then,” Bradford said. “We’ll go to the theater together, tomorrow evening.”
“Pardon?” Lily blinked.
He sighed as if she were being purposefully dense. “You and I shall go to the theater?—”
“It wasn’t my difficulty hearing the words, so much as comprehending them.”
“Ah. With your terrible preferences in storytelling, I should have deduced as much.” Lily barely refrained from rolling her eyes as Bradford continued, “We’ll both see the same play and share our opinions. This way, I’ll finally be able to know whether your taste is only slightly poor or devastatingly dreadful.”
