Free Beyond A Wicked Kiss by Jo Goodman Page A

could raise her smile, she did not begrudge herself this response.
    Ria forced herself to eat slowly without regard for her hunger. Occasionally she pressed the hand resting in her lap against her midriff to quiet an embarrassing rumble, always darting a look sideways to see if he was taking measure of her success. It seemed to her that he had lost interest in teasing her, in spite of his words to the contrary. He ate more slowly than she, she noticed, and drank three cups of black coffee to her one of hot cocoa. She wondered that he did not come out of his skin with the effects of the bitter brew, but in truth he appeared no more than casually watchful from under his heavy-lidded glance.
    West was grateful to see that Ria required no invitation on his part to help herself to more toast and tomatoes. He could not finish his own first serving, let alone take more of the same to his plate. He did not press her to discuss what manner of crisis had prompted her to take leave of both her senses and Gillhollow and journey alone to London. There was time enough yet for that, though he hoped the explanation she served him was more diverting than tedious. The day stretched long before him, and it would be filled with a surfeit of tedium, beginning with his father's funeral service. He was certain to be the object of far too many stares and whispers there. There would be no possibility that he could hang back as was his wont in all gatherings of the ton. Circumstances—and the heavy, manipulative hand of his father—had contrived to push him front and center. It was enough to make anyone lose their appetite.
    West set down his cup and pushed his plate away. He allowed the footman to take it up, then waved the fellow off. Unlike many others of similar position and modest or better income, West was conscious of the presence of servants in his home. He had never been able to pretend they were not about when they so obviously were, and it was his habit not to discuss just anything in front of them. He knew firsthand what manner of secrets could be learned by the maids and footmen in the course of serving dinner. Between the sorbet and the port, a great many things were often said that were overheard by ears no one at the table seemed to notice. Playing the footman himself, West had had occasion to come by intelligence in just such a manner. Hiding in plain sight was how he'd explained his tactic to Colonel John Blackwood, his mentor in the foreign office.
    It had been a very long time since spy work required climbing a chestnut tree.
    West waited until the door to the breakfast room closed behind the footman before he spoke. "You have someplace to begin your account, I collect. I should like to hear it now."
    Out of West's sight, Ria's fingers pleated the napkin in her lap. On her way to his home, she had mentally rehearsed a pithy speech that would put the facts before him so straightforwardly they could not be lightly dismissed. She could not remember a word of it now. "One of my girls is missing," she said.
    West considered this. "Very well," he said. "You mean to begin in the middle, or perhaps it is at the end. It is not often done, but both approaches have their supporters. Will I discompose you by asking how you have come to have any girls at all in your possession?"
    Ria had allowed the maid to ruthlessly scrape back her thick hair this morning and fashion it into a smooth knot. Now, as her head began to ache, she had no idea if it was the tightness of her scalp that prompted the condition or West's wry commentary. If she had to choose, she thought it might be the latter. It had not escaped her notice that one of his eyebrows was raised a fraction, and that with very little provocation he might actually laugh at her.
    Ria's nostrils flared slightly and her sweetly curved mouth flattened. "I am headmistress of Miss Weaver's Academy for Young Ladies in Gillhollow. I have been a teacher there these last six years and headmistress