Lady Anne's Quest by Susan Page Davis

Author:Susan Page Davis [Davis, Susan Page]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60742-820-6
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2012-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

“It’s chilly tonight,” David said as he and Charlotte stepped out onto the front porch of the hotel. “Are you sure you want to walk?”

“I had my heart set on it.” She looked up at him from beneath lashes that for some reason looked longer and more luxuriant than they were last night.

“I wouldn’t want you to take a chill. And besides—there’s no moon to see tonight.”

She sighed heavily. “I suppose you’re right. But the hotel offers so little entertainment.”

“Perhaps we could scare up another pair and play cards.” David steered her adroitly toward the door. “There was a couple just sitting down when we left the dining room. Perhaps they’d join us.”

He could tell Charlotte wasn’t completely mollified. What was going on? She seemed more insistent than a woman who just wanted to snuggle up to him would be. Although he hadn’t done much snuggling lately, David was certain he hadn’t forgotten how, and the woman involved was usually much more compliant than Charlotte.

They walked back through the lobby, and he looked around for likely companions for the evening. A thin man was reading a newspaper, and two other men sat in the nook to one side, smoking cigars and laughing. None of them struck him as what he was looking for.

“Perhaps they have a small parlor we could sit in,” Charlotte suggested.

David almost offered the sitting room of his own two-room suite and changed his mind. He didn’t really want to entertain a woman in his hotel suite, for one thing. Past experience had proven such action could be risky. For another, he happened to know that his was the only suite the hotel offered, and Charlotte might get her nose out of joint if she knew about it. The hotel usually opened it for David when he visited, and in times of great overcrowding—like the days when a new mine opened and the investors came to see it—they would put a bed in the sitting room and rent it as two separate rooms. He suspected it sat empty most of the time, waiting for the establishment’s wealthier patrons to return.

Although Charlotte had seemed reluctant to go back to the dining room, she presented a charming attitude when David led her to one of the tables.

“Good evening, folks,” he said.

The man and woman eating looked up in guarded surprise.

“Hello,” said the man, standing. “Stone, isn’t it?”

“Yes. We met this afternoon. This is Mrs. Evans.” He looked at Charlotte. “Mr. and Mrs. Packer.”

They all exchanged their how-do-you-dos.

“I hope you’ll pardon us,” David said, “but we had planned to go out this evening and the rain has discouraged us. We wondered if you by any chance would be interested in joining us for a quiet game of cards or just conversation.”

The couple looked at each other. The woman’s eyebrows rose, and he gathered she was passing the decision to her husband.

“Might be interesting,” Mr. Packer said.

David smiled at the woman. “We wouldn’t want to intrude on your plans.”

“It sounds lovely,” Mrs.

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