bespectacled man said wearily, “you must clear the way. I wish you good morning.” He pointed to the street.
The Yorkshireman’s shoulders slumped, then he dejectedly dragged himself off the stoop and down the street.
Jess stood, stunned at what she’d just witnessed. Clearly, her plan to talk her way into the Bazaar wasn’t going to work. She had to come up with an alternative means of getting inside, and her mind frantically spun as she worked out a new strategy.
One thing was certain: she couldn’t turn back now.
The man in glasses turned his attention to her, and her stomach dropped. “Miss?”
She stepped to the door, her pulse a hard, insistent beat in her ears, and fixed a wide smile to her face that she hoped looked charming rather than desperate.
From inside the house came the sounds of many people talking—the Bazaar was already underway.
“May I assist you?” The man in the spectacles peered at her.
She tipped up her chin. “I’m a guest of the Bazaar.”
“I have accounted for all our female guests,” he replied.
“Likely you didn’t know that I would be in attendance this year.” That sounded logical enough.
“Stapleton?” a voice sounded behind the man in glasses. “Is aught amiss?” An older gentleman with substantial white whiskers and a broad torso emerged, wearing the look of a man completely in his domain. Lord Trask.
The Bazaar’s mastermind stood in front of her, his eyes sharp as he regarded her. This man could be McGale & McGale’s making. Or he could allow it to wither and die.
“My lord,” the man—Stapleton—said deferentially, “this young woman says she is a guest of the Bazaar.”
“Dallying, Trask?” a deep and faintly familiar voice asked. “If I’m not mistaken, you promised us a breakfast with some of those buns your cook makes, so we oughtn’t dawdle.”
The Duke of Rotherby appeared behind Lord Trask. He glanced in her direction before turning his attention to the marquess. A moment later, his gaze was back on her and he smiled at Jess with recognition and pleasure, as if he’d been given an unexpected gift.
“Well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t Lady Hawk of Bond Street.”
“And if it isn’t His Grace, the wolf,” she returned.
“How am I a wolf?”
“One hunter recognizes another.”
“A fine pair we are.” He shouldered the butler aside to lean against the door frame, his arms folded over his chest, one booted foot crossed over the other. “A hawk and a wolf roaming London. Sounds quite star-crossed. And yet it’s the poor people of this town I pity more—to have a duo such as us unleashed on the populace.”
“We predators have a reputation to uphold.”
Jess never spoke this freely with people of higher ranks, but somehow the road to intimacy between her and His Grace had been paved from their first meeting.
“Beg pardon, Your Grace,” Lord Trask said, poking his head around the duke’s long body. “Who is this lady?”
“The brightest mind on Bond Street.” His gaze held hers and a hot bolt of awareness shot through her. It was as though she felt him in every corner of the labyrinth of her being. “Saw it in action myself.”
“Is that so?” Lord Trask raised his eyebrow and considered her, his eyes not especially compassionate.
“You were dressed in slightly more casual garments at the time.” The duke glanced at her borrowed finery.
Words flew from her lips. “That was my traveling ensemble. I’d just come to Town from my country estate and didn’t want to sully something finer with dust from the road.”
“Sensible.” The duke nodded.
“Forgive me, madam,” Stapleton said, frowning in puzzlement. “You are?”
Her gaze swept over the foyer she glimpsed behind the trio of men. A painting of idealized farmers in an idealized field of wheat caught her eye. “Lady Whitfield,” she blurted. “My husband, that is, my late husband was the baronet Sir Brantley Whitfield.”
She smiled at Lord Trask as if he should recognize the name. Which of course he couldn’t as she’d literally just made it up.
So, naturally when Lord Trask could only frown at her confusedly, she supplied in a helpful tone, “Sir Brantley went to Cambridge with your cousin . . .” She’d spent many nights at Lady Catherton’s country estate carefully reading and memorizing Debrett’s. It was important to keep apace of the aristocracy’s unions and deaths, since such information often came in handy when reading the Money Market column.
She searched her memory for Lord Trask’s page in Debrett’s. “Mr. Edward Melrose.”
“Edward is something of a rapscallion,” Lord Trask said with a hint of