Page 3 of Charming the Accidental Suitor
He jumped back with a gasp that might have been funny if it hadn’t been accompanied by a fighting stance. For one terrifying moment, Felicity was certain she was about to experience her first facer.
But Albright froze with his arm drawn back, his hand still clenched in a fist. His eyes narrowed and then widened as shock and disbelief raced across his features. “Miss McGovern?!”
His outburst sent the birds in the limbs overhead flying and as one Felicity and Albright turned to the open window.
When no head popped out and the melody of gentlemen’s voices continued uninterrupted, Felicity let out a breath of relief.
Only to realize that Albright had done the same.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
At the same time, he said, “Where on earth did you come from?”
She answered first with a simple gesture upward. He followed her movement and eyed the tree limb. Then he eyed her as though she were a strange object never seen by man before.
Sadly for everyone, Felicity was well used to this look. She gave him approximately three seconds to come to grips with the fact that she’d been sitting in a tree. Directly above him. Watching him.
Embarrassment had heat rushing to her cheeks but she ignored it. Curiosity was still burning bright and her embarrassment quickly faded. “What are you doing out here?” she asked again.
“I might ask you the same,” he shot back.
And there. There was that easy smile everyone knew him for. And it was a charming smile. Genuine too.
But it wasn’t the whole story. It was what he wanted people to see. This much she’d understood ever since they’d first met.
An easy smile was the surest way to distract people from looking any further. But that only made her want to look closer. Over the past few months of their brief acquaintance, that was precisely what she’d done.
And so, she was hardly fooled now.
He adopted a casual, lazy stance as if they’d just encountered one another on a stroll through Hyde Park. “Do you often sit in trees, Miss McGovern?”
“Please don’t call me that,” she said. “It’s Felicity.”
Miss McGovern only reminded her of her parents and her duties and all the things she spent large swaths of time attempting to forget.
“Do you often sit in trees,Felicity?”
“Yes. Do you often eavesdrop on my uncle while he’s conducting business, Lord Albright?”
He had the good grace to wince. “I was not eavesdropping.”
She didn’t bother to argue. They both knew he was. “What I’d like to know is, are you here spying on my uncle…or Mr. Everson?”
The flicker in his eyes was brief. But again, Felicity had learned to look past his smiles and so she caught it. “Ah. Mr. Everson then. I thought so.”
His brows drew down. “Pardon?”
But she did not pardon. Her mind was racing now that she’d confirmed her hunch. “Does this have something to do with that smuggling business on Jane’s property?”
He gaped at her, and satisfaction coiled in her like a snake.
She didn’t relish being underestimated, but it was awfully amusing whenever it occurred. “Oh come now, Albright. You can trust me. Jane told me all about it, so I know that you’re conducting an investig?—”
“Eeep.” The squeak occurred because Albright had surprised the life out of her by clapping a hand over her mouth.
Regret filled his eyes but he didn’t move his hand, and Felicity was absurdly aware of the fact that a man was touching her. Not harshly. If she wanted to pull away, she could. But she found herself curious to see where this would go so she held still and met his gaze.
She was keenly attuned to the rough calluses against her soft skin, and of the scent of leather and a spicy cologne that filled her nostrils.
