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“I’d heard you’d gone to Cornwall.” Grace’s voice was pure and sweet. She could make a magistrate sob with a song.
Kit met her gaze. She’d lifted her manicured brows.
“But seeing you…” She twirled her parasol, allowing a theatrical pause, rosebud lips pursed, hand pressed to her shapely bosom. Kit realized that Deighton, Prescott, Egg, and several grinning sailors were hanging on her every word. “It is quite the surprise.”
“I hope a pleasant one.” Deighton stepped forward eagerly. “If not, but make it known, and I’ll remove him from your company, and mine. I only fraternize with gentlemen.”
Grace perused Deighton’s person, from his monogrammed club cap to his canvas shoes. Her eyes swung back to Kit.
He caught his breath.
She smiled at Deighton. “No need to trouble yourself. Mr. Griffith is a perfect gentleman.”
Kit exhaled through his nose.
“And you are?” Grace asked, still smiling. Kit glanced at Muriel. She was looking at Grace, her expression well-disposed and curious.
“Colin Deighton,” said Deighton.
“Roger Butterfield!” cried Egg, at the same time, jostling Prescott, who’d also stepped forward.
“My wheelmen.” Deighton glared as he acknowledged them.
Kit stopped tracking the introductions and explanations. His eyes had wandered up the street again. No Annie Groombridge. But there was Charlotte Tempest-Smythe, exiting a shop. Miranda Ellis followed. They headed his way.
Bugger.
“The hook! Dash it, man. The hook!” Butterfield began to shout again as the crowd erupted. Kit’s head whipped around.
Kemble’s opponent had forced their conjoined hands back to center.
Deighton rushed toward the post, clapping his arm around Butterfield’s shoulder. Together, they bellowed insulting encouragement as a contingent of seamen in wooden clogs tried to drown them out by stomping the cobbles.
“Mr. Griffith.” Grace drifted closer, addressing him alone, in a low, intimate tone. “But I can’t call you mister. It’s so…formal.”
He hardly cared what she called him, or how she needled him, now that he felt assured she wouldn’t let the wrong thing slip.
He shrugged. “Kit, then.”
“Kit.” Her eyes twinkled. “The surprise is pleasant. You’ve been missed at our salons. We wish you’d come back.”
His smile had a cynical edge. “I doubt that’s the prevailing opinion.”
“Oh, don’t let Annie sour you.” She leaned even closer. “Henrietta hosts the salons now. She would be delighted by your presence. I’m sure she’ll tell you so herself.”
“Lady Chettam’s here?” Kit’s gaze flew up the street. Miranda and Charlotte had stopped to talk with a third woman he didn’t recognize.
“I left her just now, at the curiosity shop. We’re staying the week at the Falmouth Hotel. Henrietta. Myself. Amelia, Octavia, Rosanna, Miranda, Charlotte, Dorothea. Have you met Dorothea? You’ll adore her. Who else? Hester and Celeste, of course. Virginia. You remember Virginia Potter? She’s got a new mash. The girl looks exactly like Maggie, but you mustn’t say so. We don’t mention Maggie in front of either of them. Maggie is not here. Neither is Annie. Hardly any of us have seen her in months. I haven’t. I moved out.”
“And moved in with Lady Chettam,” Kit guessed. It made a certain—dramatic—kind of sense as Grace’s next move, leaving the grande dame of the Hesperus Ladies Club for her rival. Annie Groombridge and Lady Chettam had feuded before, over lovers, and over precepts, and the club had remained intact. But Grace was special. Annie had been besotted. “Is that why Doris and Mrs. McLaren aren’t with you? There are factions?”
Grace sighed. “Some people are being silly. But everyone here is lovely, and that’s what matters. You must pay us an evening visit.”
Kit hesitated. “We’re leaving early in the morning.”
“I wasn’t asking you to stay until morning.” Grace peered up at him through her lashes. “Would you?”
The coquettishness was deliberately overdone.
