Leslie Lafoy Read Online Free Page B

the particulars of his time with Mignon couldn’t remain private. Not given the realities of why she’d left the theater with him and why Isabella Dandaneau had marched into his life in her cousin’s wake. Expelling a long, slow breath, Barrett resolved to handle the circumstances with as much dignity and decorum as possible. “Initially, yes,” he replied tautly.
    The arch of her brow and the cynical shadow to her smile told him that she knew exactly what had transpired the instant he’d closed the carriage door that night. Precisely why he was embarrassed by that …
    “Still, it bears searching,” she announced jauntily, turning on the seat and skimming her fingers along the seam where the bottom cushion met the back one. “She could have hidden the map in the moments before putting you on your back.”
    Barrett watched her as yet another realization took up residence in his brain. He had two choices: he could either focus on the trampling of his sense of propriety and wiggle in acute discomfort, or he could ignore all that and concentrate on understanding the spiderweb in which he’d become ensnared. Since the latter of the two courses actually offered him a glimmer of hope for influencing the outcome of the disaster, he concluded that there really wasn’t much of a choice at all. And given that, he needed to gather as much information as he could. Mignon and the map were the keys, Isabella the logical—the only—source of what could be learned.
    “You truly didn’t like your cousin, did you?” he asked, beginning his quest.
    Shifting about to continue her exploration, she replied, “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been mistaken for her and been groped, mauled, and all but raped.” She moved her search to the space where the lower cushion met the walls. “And as you might well imagine from that bit of information and your own experience with her, her behavior wasn’t exactly a sterling contribution to the family reputation.”
    He could have surmised that much on his own. But the fault didn’t lie in Isabella’s answer; it lay in the question and his approach to the matter. Frowning, he silently cursed the mush his brain had become since the constables had appeared at his door. In a great many respects, it felt as though the better, more capable part of it had packed its bags and departed with the detectives.
    She’d finished examining the seams of the lower cushion and was almost done with her inspection of the seam between the upper cushion and the back wall when he temporarily abandoned the attempt to chart a sounder course and drawled, “Find anything?”
    “No,” she admitted, turning back to sit squarely facing him. “I’d like to search your seat, if you wouldn’t mind.”
    She was thorough; he had to give her credit for that. And apparently, judging by the direction of her thoughts, she wasn’t the least bit priggish either. Shrugging his assent, Barrett moved to her side of the carriage, easing her hoops and skirt aside to avoid crushing them as he did. Oddly, the courtesy seemed to fluster her. Her gasp was tiny and quickly strangled, but he heard it nonetheless. The sound prompted him to glance at her just in time to catch a glimpse of widened eyes and slightly parted lips.
    Even as he was thinking about how delectable she looked, she slipped the mask of cool composure back into place and gracefully, ever so nonchalantly, transferred herself to the seat he’d just vacated. Barrett watched as she began a systematic search of the cushions and added persistent to her list of more favorable qualities.
    Not, he had to admit, that he’d seen anything in her so far that he’d consider to be a glaring character flaw. Judging by her behavior in his office, she did seem to have a tendency to act first and think later, to make judgments and decisions on instinct and at the spur of the moment. But, he reminded himself, that wasn’t something terribly uncommon in women. At