Page 21 of Lord of Fortune
Chapter 4
Penn could scarcely believehis eyes. Standing on the other side of the settee, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted, was Amelia Forrest. Her blonde hair was dressed with artful curls around her heart-shaped face, and a lace-edged dove-gray gown encased her thoroughly feminine form. How had heevermistaken her for a man?
He executed a deep bow. “Mrs. Forrest.” He realized he’d done that wrong. He ought to have bowed first to his hostess, who also outranked everyone else in the room as a dowager viscountess. He corrected his mistake and went to where Andy sat. “Lady Spier.”
“Do stop with that nonsense,” Andy said, swatting her hand at him. “You’re family.”
“Family?” Amelia’s question rattled the air.
“Not really. His sister is our missing member, so he’slikefamily,” Selina explained.
“Are you sayinghestole the dagger?” Cassie asked loudly.
Penn looked at Amelia sharply. “What did you tell them?”
Amelia’s shoulders stiffened. “Nothing yet.” She clasped her hands together in front of her waist. “He didn’t steal it, but he found it before I could.”
“You couldn’t have found it on your own,” he said.
Cassie scowled at him. “Why, because she’s a woman?”
Penn should’ve expected Cassie’s reaction—he’d walked right into it. “Because she was ill-equipped and yes, because she’s a woman. I had to dangle from a rope and cut my hand to ribbons to reach it.” He held up his gloved hand, which had hurt quite a bit yesterday but had drastically improved once he’d applied Amelia’s salve regularly. Between him and Egg, they were nearly out of the stuff. His hope that she might provide more began to wither beneath her so-far frosty reception.
Cassie snorted again. “Let the record show that I didn’t agree with including him as proxy.”
Andy threw her sister an overly patient stare tinged with annoyance. “Cate said he had important news to share.”
“Important to whom?” Cassie grumbled.
“You were right,” Amelia said to Cassie. “I do like you best.”
Cassie immediately brightened and adjusted her spectacles as she sat a bit taller.
And now Amelia was aligned with the man-hating termagant. Wonderful.
“What news are you sharing?” Amelia asked.
Penn looked around the room. “Is the meeting in session, then? Did you start without me?”
“I’d forgotten you were coming, actually,” Andy said. “I do apologize. But no, we hadn’t officially started. We were just getting to know Mrs. Forrest.”
“You must call me Amelia,” she said.
Penn wanted to thaw the air between them. He took a step toward her. “Does that include me?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “It does not.”
“Pity,” he murmured.
Andy waved Penn toward the settee. “Do sit.”
“Yes, there’s plenty of room,” Selina said, scooting to the farthest side of the settee. That left the rest of it for Amelia and Penn. To sit next to each other. She looked around, seeming to assess her options. He was certain she was contemplating dragging another chair over to avoid sitting beside him.
Penn moved forward and stopped near her. “I won’t bite,” he whispered. “Unless you want me to.”
“Stop it,” she hissed. She motioned for him to move past her and sit in the middle.
Penn waited for her to sit, and when she did, noted that she sat as close to the end as physically possible.
