Free Anne Barbour by Point Non Plus nodrm

interests, or her own?
    Devon scowled. He’d not soon forget the moment when Mina had turned away from him to go and talk with Quin.
    Really, reflected Zoe, flirting with Mr. Kincaid was very uphill work. He hadn’t even commented on how fine she was today. Zoe considered her veil an especially nice touch. She was incognita, was she not?
    She tightened her grip on Nell, who disliked to sit still, and gazed down the tree-lined avenue.
    Hyde Park consisted of over three hundred acres appropriated from the monks of Westminster when Henry VIII decided to extend his hunting grounds. James I had hunted here with Jowler and Jewel, his favorite hounds. Now the park was the hunting grounds of those lovely avaricious charmers referred to as Cyprians, or the Fashionably Impure.
    Mr. Kincaid was well acquainted with the Fashionably Impure. Or so rumor claimed. A person would never guess it from the way he was treating Zoe. Not that she was an impure. Yet.
    Perhaps, like the Black Baron, Mr. Kincaid considered her above his touch. Perhaps he felt he was too old. Well, he was too old, but nonetheless—
    Zoe glimpsed George Eames, standing in the shade of a distant beech tree. Impossible to clearly see the female to whom he spoke so earnestly, but she wore a sprigged muslin gown trimmed with a frill around the hem, a deep red shawl with a paisley patterned border, and a demure bonnet that boasted neither blossom nor plume. An older woman hovered nearby.
     “Stop the carriage!” Zoe demanded. Devon drew his curricle to a halt. Zoe thrust Nell at him, and stood. Pleased with her new perch, Nell reached for the reins. The groom leapt down from his seat behind the curricle’s main compartment and helped Zoe alight.
    Zoe tripped gracefully across the grass. “Hello!” she said, causing Mr. Eames to violently start and his companion to turn her head. Seen closer, the young woman had dark hair and eyes, a prim mouth and rosy cheeks set in a plump face. “I am Zoe Loversall. And you are—”
    From Mr. Eames’s direction came the sound of grinding teeth. “I am Lady Anne Stuart,” said his companion, before he could speak.
    “I am pleased to meet you, Lady Anne. George speaks of you frequently. Are you having an assignation? Since your papa can’t approve? I wouldn’t let my papa dictate to me, particularly in matters of the heart, but you must know your business best.” Zoe cast George a reproachful glance. “We have missed you at Moxley House. It is one thing if you neglect the rest of us, but it is unconscionable in you to abandon Nell. The poor child has missed you desperately. ” Zoe waved at the curricle. Nell, for once obliging, waved back. The older woman gasped.
    Mr. Eames looked like he was about to have an apoplexy. Lady Anne looked stunned. Her companion looked like she couldn’t wait to spread fresh gossip all around.
    “But I shall say no more of that! I must return to my companions. We will see you soon, will we not, George?” Pleased with this good few moments’ work, Zoe bid her victims ciao and returned to the curricle, where Mr. Kincaid was entertaining Nell with the tale of Bluebeard, a violent nobleman with a nasty habit of murdering his wives, no fit tale for a tot, but she seemed to enjoy it well enough.
    He gazed suspiciously at Zoe. “What devilment are you about?”
    Zoe settled on the carriage seat. “Unfair! I was embarked on a good deed. You really don’t want me, do you? How very odd.”
    Mina didn’t want him, thought Devon. She valued him so little that she could hand him off to someone else.
    He plopped Nell on Zoe’s lap. “Your cousin will tell you I’m an odd duck.”
    “Duck!” demanded Nell.
    “Yes, poppet. We’re going to see ducks and geese and swans. Rabbits and squirrels. Cows and deer. We may even see a fox eat one of them. Would you like that?” Nell clapped her hands. Wildlife abounded along the banks of the Serpentine, an artificial lake created by the damming of the