Page 8 of Lady Be Good (Wynette, Texas 2)

“I’m not bald! Why would you think such a thing?”

“Every time I see you, there’s a hat glued to your head. It’s a natural assumption.”

“I like hats.”

“I guess they can be quite a friend to people with hair loss.”

“I don’t have—” She rolled her eyes, then tossed her hat aside. “You have a peculiar sense of humor, Mr. Traveler.”

He gazed at a fluffy corona of butterscotch curls. They were so soft and pretty that, for a moment, he forgot what a pain in the butt she was. The moment passed when she spoke.

“We need to discuss our agenda for tomorrow.”

“No, we don’t. You gonna drink that beer or just hold it? And my name’s Kenny. Anything else makes me sound like a schoolteacher—no offense.”

“All right, Kenny. And please, just call me Emma. I never use my title. Technically it’s not a title, but what’s called an honorific.” She tilted the longneck to her lips, took a healthy swig, then set the bottle on the edge of the hot tub without so much as a shudder.

“Now, see, I don’t understand you not using it,” he said. “Having a title has got to be the only good thing about being British.”

She smiled. “It’s not quite so bad as that.”

“How’d you get it?”

“My father was the fifth Earl of Woodbourne.”

He thought that over for a moment. “Seems like an earl’s daughter—and stop me if I’m getting too personal here—but I’m surprised a member of royalty has to worry so much about counting her shillings.”

“I’m not royalty. And a large portion of the British aristocracy lives in genteel poverty. My parents were no exception. Both of them were anthropologists.”

“Were?”

“My father died when I was a child. And then when I was eighteen, Mum died on a dig in Nepal. She wasn’t happy unless the nearest telephone was a hundred miles away, so there was no way to summon help when her appendix ruptured.”

“You must have grown up in some pretty isolated places.”

“No. I grew up at St. Gert’s. Mum left me there so she could work.”

Lady Emma didn’t sound bitter about it, but Kenny couldn’t think too highly of a woman who’d left her kid an orphan so she could spend her time running all over the world. On the other hand, if his mother had spent more time running around and less time coddling him, his childhood would have been a lot easier.

Come give Mommy a kiss, baby doll. My beautiful baby. Mommy loves you best. Don’t ever forget that.

“Any brothers or sisters?” he asked.

“Just me.” She settled deeper into the hot tub. “I’m anxious to start in on my research tomorrow, and I’d also enjoy a little sightseeing, but before we do any of that, I need to visit a shop where I can buy some new clothes. And would you happen to know the name of a tattoo parlor?”

He choked and sent a spray of beer right up his nose. “What!”

She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and regarded him earnestly. “My first choice would be a pansy. But I’m afraid the color might make it look like a bruise, which wouldn’t do at all. There are so many flowers I love—poppies, morning glories, sunflowers—but they’re all so large. A rose would be safe, but they’re a bit of a tattoo cliché, don’t you think?” She sighed and returned her sunglasses to her nose. “Normally I make decisions easily, but this one is giving me trouble. Do you have any suggestions?”

For the first time in his life, the power of speech deserted him. The experience was so disconcerting that he slid under the water and stayed there for a while to collect his thoughts. Not long enough, though. Before he’d halfway run out of breath, she started thumping him on the top of his head. It annoyed the hell out of him, and he was scowling when he came up. “You want to get a tattoo?”

She had the nerve to smile. “I hadn’t realized there’d be this much of a language barrier in the States. And the next time you’re going to dunk your head like that, you might warn me. I presumed you were drowning.”

He could feel his blood pressure rising, which made it ri

se even more. “It doesn’t have anything to do with a language barrier! It has to do with the fact that somebody like you has no business getting a tattoo!”

For the first time since he’d met her, she grew completely still. For a moment she did nothing, then one hand emerged from the bubbles and slowly removed her sunglasses. She set them on the side of the hot tub next to her beer bottle and gazed at him with those honey-brown eyes. “What exactly do you mean? Somebody like me?”

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