she left a room. About as long as it had been since he’d lost himself in an erotic daydream in public, and just as long since he’d been put into checkmate within eight moves. Or had it been nine? He hoped it had been nine.
Whatever the number, it left him gaping at her as she left, then smiling as their footsteps echoed down the hall.
And then he was grinning. Oh, yes, Lady Kate Cole was, indeed, the finest life had to offer.
Nine
By two o’clock on her first full day as an agent of the crown, Kate was forced to admit that it was probably best she wasn’t asked to fill the role with any regularity. She was, as it turned out, demonstrably bad at waiting and watching.
She’d tried her hardest, she truly had. It was just that her task turned out to be rather unengaging and the presence of Hunter much too distracting. She had assumed that after breakfast he would spend the day fishing with Lord Martin and the other gentlemen. Instead, he had spent the day in the house, making it all too tempting for her to go seek him out. It was absurd that she should do so, but she couldn’t seem to stem her curiosity. Was he searching the house? Questioning the staff? Counting the floorboards?
Desperate to know what he was about, she had ever so casually tracked him to the veranda after breakfast, where they had sat speaking to other people. And then she had trailed him at a very respectable distance to the library where he had read a book and she had pretended to. And finally she had followed him, after a perfectly suitable amount of time had passed, to the parlor where he was now looking over a paper in a chair some distance from where she sat writing an imaginary letter to the Duchess of Rockeforte.
She snuck a quick glance at him. His clothes, she noted, were as tidy now as they had been first thing that morning. Her white muslin gown, on the other hand, was a mite wrinkled, had a brown smudge of unknown origin on the hem, and a small black ink stain near her waist. She scowled at the spot, then scowled at the pen in her hand. How ridiculous did one have to be to acquire a very real ink stain as a result of writing an imaginary letter? She set her pen down, brushed at a wayward lock of blonde hair, and once again glanced at Hunter.
How fastidious did one have to be, she wondered, to always look a veritable fashion plate?
Well, no, that wasn’t quite right. Hunter’s clothes were stylish, yes, but they were too subdued in color and cut to be considered the fashion du jour. There were no brightly colored or outrageously patterned waistcoats for him. She knew for a fact he didn’t pad his shoulders, and he seemed to avoid the impossibly high and stiff collars favored by some other gentlemen. There was nothing about Hunter that marked him as a dandy or a fop. He was simply…polished.
She recalled that her brother, Whit, had once remarked in passing that Hunter was a man who possessed an inordinate amount of self-control. Perhaps that was what drove him to keep his appearance so well ordered—a desire to be, and look to be, in absolute control.
A simple enough appearance for one to obtain—provided it was someone other than herself—when one did nothing more than go from breakfast room, to library, to parlor. Clearly, the man was not about searching the house or questioning the staff. He didn’t look to be about anything at all, not even counting the floorboards. Her curiosity got the better of her. She pushed away from the desk and rose from her chair.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hunter,” she chimed loudly for the benefit of several ladies gathered at the far side of the room. “Can I interest you in another game of chess before tea?”
He waited for her to reach him before giving her a wan smile and a simple, “No, thank you.”
She opened her mouth to respond to that, then changed her mind when she noted he was still sitting. She gave him an inquisitive look. “Are you aware that it’s rude of you to still be seated while I’m standing?”
“It won’t be when you sit down.”
Apparently, he was aware. As the question had been mostly an academic one, she shrugged, unoffended, and took her seat. “Why won’t you play