ask you why you are not married,” she pointed out. “They don’t think you are eccentric or lacking in some way.”
He blinked, startled. “Surely people do not think that of you?”
“Well,” she said reasonably, “I suppose I am eccentric, but the point is, marriage is the only profession, the only trade open to women of my class. Unless I wish to be a governess, which I can’t help thinking would be tedious and thankless.”
Distractedly, he helped himself to a cake. “You have considered all this very carefully.”
“Well, I have nothing better to do,” she said, her eyes dancing. “Being unmarried and without purpose or use.”
“I might allow you the first two,” he said, referring back to her remark about him. “But you do not appear to be remotely useless.”
She laughed. “Touché. In truth, now that I have managed to shrug off everyone’s expectations, I enjoy my life very well.”
He found it hard to look away. “That is a rare gift,” he said slowly. “Treasure it.”
***
It was no hardship to walk with her back to Park Lane. She moved briskly, clearly used to exercise, while they talked mostly of Nancy, though occasionally got distracted onto other subjects. The incongruity of the situation was not lost on him—walking in the spring sunshine with a beautiful, blue-blooded girl and talking of murder.
The other incongruity didn’t actually strike him until they reached the more rarified streets of Mayfair and passers-by who exchanged bows with her and eyed him askance.
“Will it hurt you to be seen with me?” he asked abruptly.
Griz, who had been frowning over the puzzle of what could have persuaded Nancy into an insalubrious back street in the dark, took a moment to refocus on his words.
She waved one dismissive hand. “Lord, no. Most of them won’t remember my name any more than I recall theirs. Besides, it’s not as if I’m hanging on your arm and gazing up at you adoringly.”
For an instant, he imagined her doing just that, though not on the public street, and was obliged to fight down the inconvenient surge of desire. All the same, as they drew closer to Grosvenor Square, he was reluctant to leave her. He wondered what she was like to talk to about subjects other than murder, to dance with, to merely enjoy the moment. Fun, he suspected, remembering the mad chase on Sunday.
His breath caught. “Griz, would you…?”
“Would I what?” she prompted.
Come with me to a charitable event raising money for my countrymen. Dance with me, laugh with me, no barriers between us. It wouldn’t just make the dreaded evening bearable. It would be intoxicating…. And impossible.
“Keep me informed of anything else you discover,” he said hastily. He tipped his hat and bowed before she could even answer. “I won’t cause talk by accompanying you all the way home. Goodbye.” And he strode away, turning the corner into Mount Street without considering where he was going.
He really did not need this complication in his life. He would help her find the truth of the murder because they both seemed to owe Nancy that, but pursuing anything else between them was madness.
Wasn’t it?
“Mr. Tizsa!” The female voice calling his name did so with the kind of half-amused frustration that told him it was not the first time she had addressed him.
He halted, blinking at the fashionably dressed lady in front of him. Lady Trench, otherwise, Grizelda’s beautiful sister Azalea. She had clearly just stepped down from a carriage emblazoned with an impressive coat of arms, in which sat another, curious lady, her eyes out like organ stocks.
“Lady Trench.” He bowed politely.
“How charming to run into you. Come and take tea with us. Or luncheon, perhaps.” To his surprise, she actually took his arm, as though they were much closer acquaintances. The carriage began to move forward with its solitary occupant, and Lady Trench murmured in some amusement, “Don’t look so appalled. I won’t eat you. I merely wish to give my sister-in-law something to gossip about.”
He regarded her in some amusement. “That’s a dangerous temptation to throw in a man’s way.”
“Not really, if you are at my little sister’s feet.”
He was too startled to do more than follow her into what was, presumably, her own house. “What makes you say that?”
She cast him a brilliant smile reminiscent of Grizelda’s at Great Scotland Yard. “You mean you are not? Tea in the drawing room, if you please, Turner,” she added to the waiting butler, to whom she gave her gloves, hat, and coat.