Edith Layton Read Free Page A

tipped a smile to the serving wench. “I’ll keep it in mind, luv,” he told her; although he already believed his mind was the only place he’d have it.
    There were two tables available in the corner of the room he’d indicated: one to the back of the gray lady, and one in front of her. Daffyd took the one in front. She’d be too nervous with him behind her, and he didn’t want her to take flight. Besides, she probably thought he couldn’t see her. But a seemingly casual repositioning of his dinnerware gave him her reflection in a knife’s edge, and she showed very nicely on the side of the smooth silver match safe he set in front of his plate.
    He ordered his meal. Then he sat back and waited for his dinner, amusing himself by watching the waitress roll her hips as she strolled away with his order. And all the while he tried to read the gray lady’s expressions as she decided what to do next.
    She peeped at him from time to time. Sometimes she frowned. Sometimes she bit her lip. But she stayed where she was, and though he could see her nibbling at her dinner, she paid more attention to him than to her plate.
    Of course, Daffyd thought as he tucked into the fine mutton chop that had been put in front of him, it might only be that she’d mistaken him for some other villain. His dark gypsy looks had always made females shiver, and men look askance. Even when he’d been a boy, if anything was discovered stolen in his vicinity, people always looked at him. Which was why he’d been caught holding goods rather than stealing them. He’d been a good thief, but a bad risk. His dark looks made him resemble every Englishman’s notion of a villain, from a Frenchie to a gypsy to any unknown foreigner. That was why he wore good clothes and spoke in flowery accents tonight.
    He was by nature short spoken, but could ape anyone, and had found people liked speaking to people who sounded like themselves, or just a bit better. He always mimicked his betters among strangers. Otherwise he might be turned away at the door, mistaken for a tinker or a traitor, or the gypsy that he was.
    The woman in gray might have been afraid of him simply because of his looks. He’d certainly never seen her before, and he remembered faces. But in that moment when their eyes had met she’d thought she recognized him, he’d swear it. She could be addled, of course, he’d met females who were. But shedidn’t look it. She looked sober, proper, and apprehensive. Still, though she kept studying him, she didn’t move from her table.
    No one from the tap came to talk to him either.
    So much for hoping that he’d be able to find the runaway heiress on the Brighton Road. He wondered where to go next, because he wasn’t ready to give up the search. He disliked his errand, but disliked having to report failure at it even more. The thought of rescuing his mother from anxiety and then waving off her thanks and disappearing from her life had pleased him very much. But he could live without that pleasure. He’d lived without her for so long anyway. However, the thought of telling his adopted father he’d failed at the task bothered him much more.
    “I think it’s a good thing for you to do, Daffyd,” the earl had said just days ago when he’d told him about the mission. “For too many reasons to enumerate. Although I’m sure you’re aware of them all.”
    “If you think I’m going to retrieve the wench, sit at the viscountess’s feet and wallow in her praise, you’re wrong,” Daffyd had answered.
    They’d been sitting in the new earl of Egremont’s study at Egremont, his magnificent manor house, after a lavish dinner, drinking excellent port wine together. Everything at Egremont was excellent, most of all, to Daffyd’s mind, the fact that Geoffrey Sauvage, eleventh earl of Egremont, was in his rightful place at last.
    He said so then.
    Geoffrey had looked amused. He’d been dressedcasually that night, at least for a man of such power and