Little Coquette by Joan Smith

Author:Joan Smith [Smith, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency Romance
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1998-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The champagne was brought to the box and Dooley poured two glasses. He touched his glass to hers and said, “To the future.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Lydia said, adopting a common accent. “What’s your name, then, mister?”

“First, my dear, what is yours?”

“You can call me Nancy.”

“Put down your mask, Nancy, and let me see your lovely face.” He didn’t wait for her to do it, but reached out and took the mask from her.

He studied her for a long moment, his dark eyes darting over her hair, her eyes, nose, and mouth. “You don’t look much like your sister,” he said.

“Who says I have a sister, and what is it to you?” she asked pertly.

“This mask says it,” he replied, running long, artistic fingers over the gleaming feathers. “I bought it for Prissie some years ago.”

“Then you’d be Dooley. I’ve heard my sister mention the name,” she said, but gave no idea what she may have heard of him, other than that he had given Prissie the mask.

“Priss and I were bosom bows,” he said. He kept watching her intently as they talked. “Where is she, Nancy? I thought she’d be here.”

Lydia allowed a frown to seize her brow. “I don’t know. I wrote and told her I was coining. She didn’t answer, so I came ahead. But when I got here, there wasn’t a sign of her. Sally thinks she’s off visiting her lad.”

“You’re staying at her place?”

“Just till I get rooms of my own.”

“Any special reason why you came at this time?”

“My ma figured it was time I started earning my living,” she said vaguely.

“How do you plan to do that? Following the family profession, are you?”

“What do you think?” she asked with a shrug.

“I think that with that face, you should do well.” He lifted his glass to her. “Here’s to your success. I might put you in the way of a well-inlaid gent.”

She gave a dismissive laugh. “I’m not sure I’ll need your help, thankee all the same.”

They drank a moment; then Dooley said, “Has Prissie sent anything home to her ma lately? Just before you left, it would be.”

Lydia came to attention. This suggested it was Dooley who had searched Prissie’s flat—and her room at the inn in Kesterly. It seemed he had not found what he was looking for, since he asked this question. “She sent some muslin,” she replied with a smile that suggested she knew more than she did.

“Nothing else? A smallish package it would be, heavy.”

They exchanged a long, measuring look. Lydia had an instinctive feeling Dooley would lose interest in her if he felt she didn’t know what he was talking about. A smallish, heavy something. What could it be?

“No, she didn’t,” she said. “Would she have taken the package with her when she went to see Richie?”

“Nay, I’ve already been to the Nevils’. I smashed that ken and a few other spots. They weren’t there.”

“I noticed you’d searched her flat as well,” she said, smiling knowingly. They weren’t there.

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