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“Neither am I, lass. We’ll figure it out together.” She could feel him come to stand behind her. She wished, against her better judgment, he would touch her.
“We’ll probably die together too!”
“Come now.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and she closed her eyes at the warmth of the contact. “Baron wouldn’t have sent you if he didn’t believe you could do this.”
“Ha! He needed someone who looked Irish and could speak with an accent.”
“And you think Margaret Vaughn couldn’t do it?”
She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
“She looks Irish enough, and she can speak more languages than I can count.”
“Baron probably has another mission in mind for her.”
“Sure he does because she can handle a mission. But a swindle? That takes a special kind of talent, lass.”
She glowered at him. “I actually think you mean that as a compliment.”
“I do.” He moved aside and gestured to the table. “How much did you pay for that cloth?”
She told him.
“And I’ll wager the seller wanted twice that. What about the vegetables for the soup?”
She crossed her arms. “Bargaining for the best price in the market is nothing like ferreting out plots against queen and country.”
“There you’re wrong, lass.” He picked up a carrot and waved it about so the greenery on top flopped. “Say the farmer wants a penny for this carrot.”
“For one carrot? Highway robbery!”
He grinned at her. “It would be at that, but bear with me for the sake of the—what do you call it?”
“Analogy.”
“Right you are.”
“Fine. A penny for the carrot.”
“And you only want to pay a ha’penny. The farmer doesn’t know what you’re willing to pay. You offer him a farthing. He says no, he wants three farthings, and you settle on two.” He touched her nose with the carrot greens. “Your ha’penny. But in this analogy, you’re the farmer.”
“I’m the farmer?”
“That’s right. Innishfree doesn’t want to pay for your carrots, but if you compromise enough, if you show them what lovely carrots you have, they’ll buy.”
She blinked slowly. “I don’t think you understand, Callahan. I don’t have any carrots.”
“Yes, you do, lass. We both do. We just don’t know what they are yet. Tomorrow we start to find out, and when we know what they want, we offer it to them. And they’ll pay.”
“With a penny?”
He leaned close. “With information,” he whispered. She swallowed, unnerved to have him so close to her.
“You really are a swindler,” she whispered back.
“Now who’s the one giving out compliments. Go to bed before all your flattery goes to me head.”
“But the dishes—”
