Free Gilded Lily by Delphine Dryden Page A

of emotions on Smith-Grenville’s face.
    â€œDid you notice anything unusual about that submersible?”
    â€œOther than the fact it nearly plowed into the porthole and killed us?” But she was already thinking back, trying to remember the details. There had been something, she was sure of it. She cursed herself again for bolting.
    Barnabas shrugged. “That too. I meant the bristles all over the front of it.”
    That was it! “I know what those are, I think! Or at least I know something about them. I overheard my father talking about some prototype of a device for catching smugglers. And something about a lily. There was a flower painted on that sub; I saw it when the thing banked, right before it swooped over the tunnel. A big yellow flower. The sub must be called the
Lily
. Though I can’t think why; it doesn’t look even vaguely floral. And Father seemed to think it was too small, but that one looked enormous to me. Perhaps the water made it look bigger?”
    â€œThat was no military vessel,” Barnabas corrected her. “And it wasn’t a lily painted on the side. It was a poppy. A golden poppy.”
    He’d grown paler still, and without thinking she reached over to touch his hand. He took her fingers in his, and a queer feeling sifted from her chest down to the bottom of her stomach. “Why is the poppy so important?”
    â€œIt’s the emblem of an opium smuggler. Baron Orm, but he called himself the Lord of Gold. He’s in prison in the Dominions, and in theory his operations were shattered. Obviously not, however.”
    The lift creaked to a halt, but Freddie remained where she was, her heart beating as fast as it had when the earthquake began. “I read about him in the newspapers. You’re not telling me everything, are you?”
    Barnabas lifted his gaze to hers, frowning with his mouth but smiling with his eyes. “I’ve always had an excellent poker face, Miss Murcheson. I can’t tell if you’re unusually perceptive or just more persistent than most in trying to see past it.”
    She matched his somber moue. “Unusually perceptive, of course.”
    He snorted, then got to his feet, offering her a hand up. “So I might as well go on and tell you everything to save time, I suppose? I don’t want there to be a submersible owned by opium smugglers. Particularly not that opium smuggler. Because I fear that somebody I know may be involved.”
    They exited the lift together, and Barnabas cracked the door to the alley to scout for passersby.
    â€œWho is it? Who’s involved?”
    He put a finger to his lips and held the door open to let her pass first. As she brushed by him, he murmured his answer.
    â€œMy brother, Phineas.”

S EVEN

    H E HAD SLEPT, which helped immensely. But Barnabas still felt a touch of the surreal as he guided the curricle around the park the next afternoon. Miss Murcheson sat behind him, prim and lovely in a pale green frock that managed to be entirely modest yet show off her curves to great advantage. He wasn’t sure if he preferred the fashionable ensemble to her workman’s attire. He did know, however, that he had never courted anyone remotely in Frédérique Murcheson’s category. Here, in this setting and in these garments, she was the paradigm of fashionable, demure loveliness. He found himself convinced, even though he knew full well it was a sham. She had a charmed glow about her, something indescribable and irresistible.
    Barnabas eased the pair of matched grays past a halted landau and matched the deliberately sedate flow of traffic along the broad avenue. He enjoyed the responsiveness of the animals, the quiet surrounding them. Steam vehicles were not permitted in Hyde Park, a stricture most of the current generation railed against. Barnabas liked that the horses knew where they were going without constant monitoring. This team had come with his cover