Fortune Favors the Wicked Read Free Page A

Frost?”
    â€œBecause you don’t ask the question everyone asks when they meet me. And that makes me think you don’t want to answer questions yourself.”
    He seemed so large, and they were quite alone near the corner of the room. Everyone else was watching Nance. Charlotte had created her cocoon well.
    â€œYou need not answer questions either,” she rushed. Why, she had not even asked his name; he had volunteered that on his own. She would not ask, for to seek an answer was to look behind a person’s veil. And she could not return the favor.
    â€œIt’s all right. You are wondering.” He rested his fingers around the tankard. “The answer is no, Mrs. Smith. I cannot see at all.”
    As she fumbled for a gracious reply, he turned his smile upon her. “Now that’s been addressed, how is the stew here? I’ll need a good meal before I seek my fortune.”

Chapter Two
    â€œThe stew is as good as the ale. Make of that what you will.” The intriguing Mrs. Smith’s tone was warm as she replied to Benedict, with a bubble of laughter in it. “And I must add, since you tell me you are blind and therefore might be unaware of this detail, that you are quite right about the effect of your uniform on certain females. Mrs. Potter, who owns the Pig and Blanket with her husband, has granted you the only smile I have ever seen cross her sour features. If you wish to return it, she is across the room and to your right.”
    And that was that. She noted and accepted his blindness, and that was all she had to say about it.
    Huh.
    â€œIt is most gratifying to know I can turn a woman up sweet. Or at least that my coat can. Thank you,” Benedict replied, grateful to his veiled companion for far more than her appraisal of the cookery at the Pig and Blanket.
    Feeling his way through the world was a skill that had taken years to hone. As was the ability to smile when one felt not at all like smiling, and to ask for help when one would rather curse the darkness.
    He had not felt much like smiling since his dreadful interview with George Pitman. But just now, it was not so difficult. He even pointed a bit of the smile to his right, in the direction of the unknown Mrs. Potter.
    â€œNot at all.” Just when he thought she had no more to say, she added, “You are correct that my name is not Mrs. Smith. But if you would continue to call me that, I should be grateful.”
    â€œVery wise of you to keep your counsel. One will not find a stolen treasure by trusting every random encounter with valuable secrets.”
    â€œMy identity is not a valuable secret, Mr. Frost. Nothing of the sort.” The bubble of laughter had popped.
    â€œI meant to imply nothing of the sort. I am certain your identity is a matter of complete dullness. Only the plainest people with the most tedious of lives go about veiled under a false name.” Before she could ask how he knew of her veil, he waved a hand. “You—there’s something in front of your face. It gets in the way of your voice.”
    â€œIt gets in the way of a damned sight more than that,” she muttered, just low enough that he could pretend he hadn’t heard a lady curse.
    The word carried a little shock, almost like coming upon a lady undressed. And there was no question that she was a lady, though she was alone and passing under a false name. Her voice was well-bred, well-educated. Accent was everything in England; the way a person spoke or dropped their aitches was enough to open or shut the doors of society.
    God. This country was such a cursed prison. Cursed streets, cursed thieves, cursed coaches that didn’t run precisely on time to the schedule one had memorized.
    Most of all, cursed George Pitman, because of whom Benedict was still in England and not scudding across a springtime sea.
    Oh, the publisher had enjoyed Benedict’s accounts of his travels. Found them everything he’d