“She paid with ready money, not credit. Her name wouldn’t be in the ledger.”
She sighed, releasing the money. It was useless to insist. Thanks to Piers’s quick payment, the shopkeeper was a blind alley. Even if he did recall the lady’s name, he would never divulge it now—not when doing so could mean losing a guaranteed sale.
As the men concluded their transaction, she felt hope draining into her boots. She couldn’t leave this shop without new information. That would mean she’d sniffed beaver glands and whale bile for nothing. Inconceivable.
“Do you recall anything about her?” she asked. “Was she older, younger? Tall or small-statured? Did she have a companion along?”
“Now, now. No need to interrogate the man, Miss Highwood.” Piers collected the package, then put the other hand on Charlotte’s back, steering her toward the door.
“I’m not interrogating him. I’m merely asking him questions.”
“That’s the definition of interrogating.”
“You,” she whispered, “are the definition of an interfering—”
“Dark hair,” the shopkeeper called out, as a fishwife tossed a stray cat a bone. “She had dark hair, I think. Beyond that, I couldn’t be certain of details.”
Dark hair.
That was something. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“Thank you.” She gave the merchant a smile. “Thank you so very much for your time.”
“Are you going to thank me for the perfume?” Piers asked as they left the shop.
“I will thank you to stop thwarting my efforts to find the mystery lovers.”
“Mystery tuppers,” he corrected.
“You know, I’m certain he knew the other customer’s name. He just didn’t want to risk losing the sale once you and all your money showed up. And then you started chiding me for asking questions.”
“I was concerned about the time.”
“You were obstructing me. Don’t think I missed your purpose with all that neck sniffing and wrist stroking. Trying to break my concentration.”
“It seems only fair,” he replied evenly. “You broke mine first.”
She stopped in the lane and turned to him. “Could you—just for a moment—cease being so maddeningly perfect? For a minute or two, try to look beyond that allegiance to honor and propriety. Perhaps then you’ll appreciate that I am trying to save you.”
“You can’t save me.”
“Yes, I can. Save us both—from decades of exactly this frustration and bickering. Even you, with your stinting beliefs about love, cannot view this as any sort of ideal—”
She stopped in the lane. “Where is your carriage?” She turned in place, pausing to peer through the draper’s window. “Where are Delia and Frances and my mother?”
“Gone.” His gaze met hers, cool and grave. “That’s the reason I came searching for you. There’s been an incident.”
Chapter Eight
“An incident? What can you mean, an incident?”
As Piers watched, the pink flush of anger drained from her face. He offered his arm, and for once she didn’t fight him.
“I’ll explain everything,” he said.
He steered her across the lane and into the square. There, in calm terms, he related the events of the past half hour. Mrs. Highwood, at some point after realizing her daughter had separated from the group, had suffered a sudden attack of light-headedness in the draper’s shop—one which no amount of fanning or solicitous comfort could assuage.
“Your mother,” he said, “suggested that the Parkhurst sisters had better return her to the manor at once, and then send the carriage to return for us.”
Charlotte shook her head. “Of course. Of course she suggested that.”
“You don’t seem overly concerned for her health.”
“That’s because there’s no reason to be concerned. If there were any true cause for worry, you would have interrupted me at the shop and let me know at once.”
She was rather quick with these things.
Piers had been impressed with her questioning technique in the perfume shop. She lacked subtlety, but she had keen instincts.
When she’d first revealed her little plan, he wasn’t in favor of it—but he’d told himself it couldn’t hurt.
Then she’d burst through his window last night, and now he was reconsidering. Perhaps it could hurt, after all.
In fact, if he wasn’t careful, someone could be gravely hurt indeed.
She balled her hand into a fist. “Now we’ll be unchaperoned together for at least another hour. Frances will be salivating over the gossip.” She moved away from him and sat on a park bench. “We cannot have any appearance of a courting couple.”
He sat beside her on the bench. “Well, I cannot leave you alone. Not unaccompanied in a strange town.”
“Just don’t sit too near to me.” She slid to the farthest end of the bench. “Or look at me. And most especially do not sniff me.”
“Might I—”
“No.” She drummed her fingers on the arm of the bench. “An attack of nerves, my eye. Really, my mother is shameless. Worse than shameless.”
“It seems to me that she is anxious to secure your future.”
Charlotte shook her head. “She belongs in an institution. She’s addled.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“I’m telling you, she’s mad. Barking mad.”
“No,” he repeated, more forcefully. “She isn’t.”
“I should know. She’s my mother.”
“Yes, but she’s nothing like my mother, who did go insane. So, in point of fact, this is a matter where I am well equipped to judge.”
“Oh, Piers.” She slid back toward the center of the bench. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s in the past. It was ages ago now.”
“It’s still horrible.”
“Others have it worse.”
She gave him a look. “It’s still horrible. No matter who you are, or how long it’s been. Don’t pretend you’re impervious. You wouldn’t have mentioned it if it didn’t cause you pain. What happened?”
He kept to the simplest facts. “She was ill from as early as I can remember. Violent swings of passion, followed by weeks of melancholy. After years of suffering, she died in her sleep.”