Page 85 of A Wicked Game

She turned away and pretended to listen to their hostess, Lady Bressingham, as she described the many ailments afflicting her long-suffering Pekinese dog Fluffy-Woo.

The animal was as overstuffed as the red velvet cushion on which he reclined. Harriet bit her lip and refrained from suggesting that most of Fluffy-Woo’s problems could be solved by feeding him less and exercising him more.

She gulped down her half glass of lemonade and tried to look regretful. “Oh dear! I seem to be out of lemonade. I’m quite parched this afternoon—must be the heat. Do excuse me, Lady Bressingham.”

The older woman nodded regally. “Yes, you’re quite right. It is unseasonably warm.”

Harriet was about to make her escape when Lady Bressingham caught her arm.

“Oh, Miss Montgomery. Before I forget! Anne Melville showed me the most amusing map you’d drawn for her when I went for tea the other day. TheMap of Loveor some such thing? I don’t suppose you have any more copies, do you? I’d love to send one to my sister, down in Kent.”

Harriet’s smile was more genuine this time. “It’s titledA Map of the Heart, and yes, I was planning to do a limited print run. I can reserve you one. Do send someone or call into the shop yourself whenever you have the time.”

Lady Bressingham was the third person who’d asked for a copy in two days.A Map of the Heartseemed to have universal appeal, at least with the female half of the population.

Harriet started toward the house with an inward shake of the head. Everyone, in a sense, was a mapmaker. True, not many of them physically drew the maps they created, as she did, but every human made a mental map of theirown, dotted with personal points of interest. Significant events were forever associated with certain physical locations:Here’s where I lost my shoe. Here’s where we cried. Here’s where we fell in love.

That was why Maddie’s garden was no longer just a neat black rectangle in Grosvenor Square. It was the place where Morgan had first kissed her, in a tunnel dripping with blooms. She’d never see Squeeze Gut Alley without recalling the way her heart had pounded at the hungry look on Morgan’s face when she’d demanded kiss number three.

And she’d never be able to look at Paradise Court without a crushing sense of sadness and loss.

Unable to help it, she glanced back to search for Morgan in the crowd, but he was gone. She turned back and skirted an oak tree, irritated at her uncharacteristic melancholy, only to come face-to-face with the man himself.

She skidded to a stop with a startled, “Oh!”

His lips twitched at her obvious surprise.

She tried to think of something witty and cutting to say, but her brain refused to cooperate. Instead, she simply stared at him, her chest aching with longing.

A million words hovered on her tongue.

I was wrong to refuse you.

Ask me again.

I love you too.

Morgan, though, didn’t seem to require conversation. He simply caught her wrist, unfurled her fingers, and pressed a folded piece of paper into her palm. Her treacherous heart leapt at even this simplest of touches, and her skin burned where he’d brushed it with his own.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he merely flashed her another of his cheeky, utterly confident grins, bowed, and strode away.

Harriet unfolded the paper and frowned down at it in confusion. It was a copy of her own map of central London. A particular area had been circled in pencil—in very much the same manner as she’d circled Squeeze Gut Alley when she’d sent her challenge to Morgan.

Her pulse began to thump with renewed excitement.

Was this achallenge?

She brought the map closer to see where, exactly, he’d chosen as their field of battle, and her brows drew together as she saw the location. Mystified, she turned the paper over, and found Morgan’s unmistakably masculine handwriting scrawled across the back in ink the same deep blue as his naval uniform jacket.

Paradise Court.

Tomorrow. 7pm.

I’ll send a carriage for you.

M.

What did he mean by this? How could she attend a rendezvous at a place that only existed in her imagination? Did he mean to show her the wall at the bottom of the Duke of Evesham’s garden?

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