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“And we are drawing attention. We will leave now, Cassie. I insist upon it.”
She looked in the direction of the man who ducked behind a small group of women and her shoulders rounded. “I haven’t found this company yet.”
“Tell you what, if you promise not to come here again, I shall look into the company myself. My steward might well know of it, and if not, I can request the records at parliament.”
“You promise?”
“Only if you promise first. No more visits to docks.”
She nodded eagerly and Luke felt his insides shrivel a little. Not only was he indulging whatever this was but he’d wrapped himself up further in her business. Keeping his promise to Anton was going to be harder than ever if he could not create some distance between them.
Chapter Nine
Chastity entered the drawing room in a flurry of skirts. “Luke is here, Little One,” she announced breathlessly.
Cassie straightened then forced her raised brows to lower. “Oh?”
She had not told her sisters he had offered to seek information for her. She doubted Eleanor, Chastity or even Demeter sought the help of the opposite sex when they did their investigations.
“For you, naturally.” Chastity shifted her gaze about the empty drawing room. “You are spending a lot of time together...”
“Because Anton has set him upon me,” Cassie replied swiftly. “He believes I shall get myself into trouble whilst he is honeymooning.”
Her sister lifted her gaze to the ceiling. “Of course he did not trust us to look after you.”
“He can be a little old-fashioned.”
“It comes from being the heir to a dukedom.” Chastity dropped onto the seat in front of the piano and pressed one note. “I suspect he feels it is his responsibility—nay duty—to become old and fusty in time to take over the title.” She pressed another couple of twinkling notes then paused. “Consider yourself lucky I had such a terrible marriage, or he would have swayed you into a similar arrangement before now.”
Cassie shuddered. Should she ever marry it would not be to a man like Chastity’s late-husband. It would be to a man like—
“Luke.”
Cassie blinked. “Pardon?”
“You should go and rescue him. Aunt Sarah has him cornered.”
“Oh yes.” She set the book in her hands aside and rose then pressed hands down her skirts and pushed a curl from her face. A pin fell from her hair. “Oh pooh.”
She caught Chastity’s eye as she bent to retrieve it and ignored it. The last thing she needed was her sister believing her to be somehow enamored with him and wanted to look her best.
Why should she care what Luke thought of her appearance? He might be helping her but he was an inconvenience of the greatest sort, not just because he had appointed himself her guardian but because, well, he kept distracting her. It had been a miracle she had spotted that pickpocket last week and she hadn’t even noticed the man following her. Years spent honing her observational skills and she’d nearly flubbed it.
She stilled at the doorway between the blue room and the hallway to listen to Aunt Sarah regaling Luke with a story of when she bathed in the Serpentine nude. Cassie closed her eyes briefly. How realistic Aunt Sarah’s stories were was hard to tell but she could not fathom how Aunt Sarah had managed to do such a thing without causing utter scandal.
“Of course it was so cold that I think I nearly lost my—”
Cassie swept in. “Thank you for receiving Viscount Whitehurst, Aunt Sarah!” Luke swung her a grateful look. “If you do not mind, I must steal him away.”
She took Luke’s arm and tugged him toward the parlor room, far away from earshot of Chastity or Aunt Sarah and she knew her father and Demeter were in the library at present. She suspected Eleanor to be tinkering in the boot room but who knew with Eleanor? She could disappear for hours to toy with her inventions.
“Oh naturally.” Aunt Sarah winked and Cassie had to concentrate on breathing deeply lest her cheeks redden.
She promptly dropped his arm when they entered the room where he set his hat down on the occasional table near a large fern. Though his hair was slightly ruffled from the abrupt removal of his hat, the rest of him remained polished to perfection—his gold waistcoat peeking out from under his dark jacket, his neckcloth perfectly tied.
She could never be certain if he did it on purpose, but he always managed to have something slightly wrong with him. Today it was his hair, the other day it had been the pin of his neckcloth, sitting slightly off-center.
She only noticed these things because she had taught herself to be observant of course, but it always gave her something to hunt out. What would the little rebellion be today, she never failed to ask herself, and were they deliberate? Given his rakish attitude, she suspected they were on purpose.
