Page 56 of Lady and the Scamp

“I don’t see how that applies to us.”

“The bad news is I can’t find any drivers willing to take us back to London in this weather.”

She began to protest, but he held up a hand. “I thought about arguing, but I took a look at the streets and they’re flooding. The river is over its banks in some areas. I’d rather not be stranded out on the road. We can leave in the morning.”

“What if the rain persists through the morning? The queen will be wondering where I am.”

“You have all night to think of an excuse. With all you have been through the past few days, I doubt she expected you to wait on her.”

Perhaps Victoria wouldn’t have expected anything of her, Emily thought, but the duchess would have expected Emily to do her part and would have sought her out. No doubt she had wasted no time in informing the queen that Emily was missing. She should have left a note or at least told Lady Jocelyn she was going out.

“And I suppose the inn has only one chamber,” she said, pretending to mind.

“I was fortunate to get it. The man who came in after me will be bedding in the stables.” He cleared his throat and ran a hand through his wet hair. “I can bed in the stables as well, if you’d like.”

“That’s not necessary.” She held his gaze for a long moment, but before she could tell him the direction of her thoughts before he’d returned, he pulled a damp notebook from an inside pocket then fumbled for a stubby pencil.

“What’s that?” she asked, sipping her tea.

“Notes.” He opened the book and sat across from her. She peered across the table and tried to glimpse the writing. Heturned the book so she could see more easily. “It’s coded,” he said as she frowned at the neat but unintelligible scrawl.

“What else do you learn when training to be a spy?” she asked.

“How to avoid questions like that,” he answered. “Now tell me more about this footman. You can’t remember his name?”

“I can’t. He didn’t wait on me, and he didn’t even wait on the queen that often. I had the feeling he was brought in when one of the queen’s regular servants was ill or had a day off. I have more a sense of him...lurking.”

“Lurking or simply waiting to serve?”

“Well, at the time I’m sure I thought he was waiting to serve, but now it seems more like lurking.”

“Of course. Do you remember him being present when you discussed riding in the park that day the queen was fired upon or before we went to Richmond?”

She shook her head. “I don’t. But other servants at the palace would remember when he had been called to step in and if he behaved at all unusually.”

“I’ll question them when we return.”

“Won’t they wonder at you asking them questions like that?”

He shrugged. “Let them wonder. I needed to conceal my identity from you, and now that you’ve been exonerated, I’m not so concerned who else has questions. Once I have the footman in custody, I’ll be gone, and the questions won’t matter.” He seemed to realize too late what he’d said, and his gaze lifted to meet Emily’s. “I’m sorry. I meant—”

She took a shaky breath. “You meant what you said. This is a mission, nothing more. And when it’s done, you’ll be called to another.”

“That’s generally how it works, yes.”

“Then our time together is short. We should make the most of it.” She stood, and he scrambled to his feet as well.

“I don’t understand. I rather hate to point this out, but shouldn’t you be angry with me?”

She waved a hand. “I realized I was wrong.”

“You were?” He looked like a man wearing new boots and carefully negotiating his way through a manure-filled cow pasture.

“Not about everything. I’m still angry that you ever suspected me of wanting to kill the queen, but I understand now why you couldn’t tell me who you really were. I don’t like it, but I understand.”

“Then you forgive me?”

“If you forgive me.”

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