be looking for him if he wasn’t already. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“You want more?” She smiled. “No. Nothing.”
He stood up. “If I may, Mrs. Honeycutt, it seems to me that you’ve made quite a leap to a conclusion that is not supported by any facts. But thank you for telling me what you’ve heard. I will leave you to your...evening.”
She quickly stood, too. “Is that all?”
“Je.” He bowed his head and started for the door.
Donovan walked out ahead of him, no doubt to open the door and kick him down the steps when he passed.
But Mrs. Honeycutt darted forward and stopped him with a hand to his arm. Marek glanced down at her hand. Her skin looked translucent next to the black of his coat. Her fingers were long and slender, and for some reason, made him think of a harp. They looked like the sort of fine fingers that could bring a harp to life.
“Perhaps I could be of service,” she said. Her hand slid from his arm and she moved to stand before him, blocking his exit. “I have friends and acquaintances in positions of government.”
She looked so earnest, and her skin so golden in the light of the hearth. What an odd woman she was. What a beautifully odd woman. He couldn’t help himself—one corner of his mouth crooked up in a half smile. “You offer to be of service to a man you only moments ago suspected of plotting a coup against his king?”
Her skin pinkened. “I’m not so stubborn that I can’t be persuaded to another point of view.”
Marek actually chuckled. “I don’t believe you.” He didn’t trust her in the least. And yet, his smile held, because she was pretty and she was unique and he was a man and he could feel a very stark longing for female companionship. Not just any female—this female. There were any number of questions he would ask her if she hadn’t accused him of treason. What works of Shakespeare had she read? How often did she visit the palace? Was she having an affair with her butler? “Thank you, but I have what I need. Please don’t feel it necessary to take any measures on my behalf.” Advice that she ought to heed for many reasons, not the least of which was that she might come to harm if she poked around too deeply into business that did not concern her. But first and foremost, because he couldn’t risk anyone knowing why he was really here. He couldn’t have anyone—Weslorian, English, or Alucian—looking at him too closely.
She was looking at him very closely, as a matter of fact. Her eyes searched his and caused a bit of a quake in him. “Hmm,” she said. “I suppose you’re the sort that prefers to have a go at things quite on your own.”
Yes, and he best remember that. “Je, I am.” He tried to step around her to take his leave.
But Mrs. Honeycutt dipped to her right to keep him from it. “So am I, but sometimes, it helps to have an ally. Particularly if one is on foreign soil. How shall I contact you if I discover anything more about the soldiers?”
He would dearly love to understand what drove her. But once again, he looked at her lovely eyes, and the hair tumbling around her face. She reminded him of a painting, like the candid portraits of deceased Weslorian ancestors that lined the halls of the National Museum of Art in St. Edys. In that rare moment, he wished he was someone else. In this case, an Englishman. An unencumbered Englishman with nothing but time at his disposal.
“I don’t mean to contact you at all, Mr. Brendan, if that’s what you fear. But I should like to send a note if I learn anything more about the soldiers. Would you like to know? To, ah, protect your king?”
With her shining eyes, she was a dichotomy—speaking of matters that were deadly serious and all but laughing at it. It hardly mattered—she wouldn’t learn anything about the soldiers because he didn’t think there was anything to learn. He didn’t believe they existed. “Yes, of course,” he said charitably. “The Green Hotel.”
“The Green Hotel,” she repeated softly, and her gaze, ever so slowly, slid down to his mouth. Her lips parted slightly and while he was certain he hadn’t heard it, he imagined the softest of sighs.
The heat that rose in him was startling in its immediacy