If His Kiss Is Wicked. Jo Goodman

well, and when I judge that his very correct manner is politely masking his own dashed hopes, what do I do?”

      “You give him this.” Marisol reached delicately beneath the scalloped bodice of her walking dress and pulled out a folded square of lightly scented paper. “This will explain why I cannot see him any longer.”

      “I see.” Emma took the note in her left hand and closed her fingers around it. “And if it appears that he is relieved that I have come in your stead?”

      “Then you will give him this.” Marisol stood and lightly laid the flat of her hand against Emma’s cheek. “But you will do it with much feeling. Recall that you are delivering the insult on my behalf and you should respond accordingly.”

      “I don’t think I can slap Mr. Kincaid, with or without feeling.” Emma watched as Marisol slowly dropped back to her stool, her knees folding under her gracefully until the deflation was complete. “Perhaps if I simply tell him that you do not wish to see him again, it will suffice.” Emma offered this suggestion with no hint of the exasperation she felt. “I will allow that in this instance he does not deserve the scented note penned by your hand. He would not treasure it appropriately.”

      Marisol lifted her head and regarded Emma with new appreciation. “That is just my thinking on the matter. He does not merit a memento of our brief liaisons, not if he is unmoved by the withdrawal of my attentions. A slap seems just. After all, he has trifled with me.”

      There was an odd sort of logic to Marisol’s argument that Emma was very much afraid she was beginning to follow. “I’m certain I could use great feeling when I tell him that you no longer wish to see him.” Emma did not explain that the great feeling would be one of relief. Marisol’s assignations with Jonathan Kincaid were no secret to her. Whether or not they could remain a secret to Marisol’s father and her fiancé for much longer had been a question in Emma’s mind for some time. Mayhap her cousin had begun to question the same thing. “When I have finished speaking to him, he will comprehend that he is no gentleman and has earned nothing so much as our enmity and contempt. Is that agreeable to you?”

      “Very much so. You will use your most clipped accents, won’t you? And I do not think it will be amiss if you stare at him just so.” Marisol’s light blue eyes narrowed slightly and the effect was frosty.

      “I suppose I can manage that.”

      “Of course you can. I learned it from you.”

      “Oh.” Surprise mixed with dismay and made the single word almost inaudible. For a moment, Emma was at a loss. “I had no idea.”

      Marisol’s icy glance melted as she beamed. “That is because you spend no time in front of the mirror. A sharp setdown as you do it, accomplishing the thing with only your eyes, comes naturally to you. It puts me quite in awe.”

      Not so much in awe, Emma thought, that Marisol was ever restrained from speaking her mind. The fancies that flitted through her cousin’s gray matter found immediate expression at the tip of her tongue. Emma did not point this out, nor did she comment on the singular nature of what she was certain Marisol intended as a compliment. Instead, she placed the straw bonnet on her head and tied the ribbons. “I’ll get my pelisse.”

      “No, take mine. If I do not mistake the change in the weather, you will need it. I could not forgive myself if you took a chill. The green one, I think. It is easily my favorite, but it will look even more appealing on you.”

      “It is no trouble to retrieve my own.”

      In answer, Marisol extended her arm and pointed in the direction of her dressing room. “You’ll find it in the armoire. Berry brushed it out this morning.”

      Emma located the pelisse, slipped it on, and belted it just under her breasts. Her thought when she caught sight of herself in the cheval glass was that the silk-lined green muslin fell in a vertical line that was not unflattering. As invariably happened, at first glance, she was struck by her resemblance to Marisol. The impression no longer lingered in her mind as it used to, but faded quickly, resolutely pushed aside by the knowledge that it was merely a trick of the shifting light and the angle of the reflecting glass.

      Marisol was standing at her vanity when Emma returned to the room. She clapped her hands together, perfectly pleased with what she had been able to bring about. “I knew it would suit you,” she said. “Come, make a turn and let me see you to full effect.”

      Emma hesitated, saw nothing for it but to oblige her cousin’s whim, and did so.

      “Why, Emmalyn Hathaway, you look quite lovely.” She stepped forward and smoothed one of the ruffles at the cuff so that it lay smoothly against the back of Emma’s hand. “I shouldn’t wonder that Mr. Kincaid will mistake the matter and think I am come, at least until you close the distance between you.”

      “Is that part of your plan, Marisol? Are you encouraging him to mistake my identity in the hope that it will give rise to a more profound reaction?”

      “Do you think it will? I confess it hadn’t occurred to me, but it can only be for the best. You will have less difficulty judging the bent of his mind. You do not want to give him my note if he deserves a setdown.”

      “My brief acquaintance with Mr. Kincaid does not make me suppose there is any bent to his mind. He is rather more straightforward than that.”

      Marisol communicated her doubt. “If you say so, but in my experience men possess twists and turns of thought that make me dizzy. Do you have my note?”

      Emma indicated that she had slipped it under the belt. “I won’t lose it.”

      “Promise me that you’ll come back directly.”

      Emma knew this was not because Marisol had any concerns for her safety but was desirous of hearing the details of the meeting sooner rather than later. “The rain will encourage me to return quickly.” She went to the door, opened it, then paused on the threshold. When she looked back, Marisol was already moving toward the window. “Marisol?”

      “Yes?”

      “I won’t do this for you again.” Emma turned away but not before she saw that her cousin had the grace to blush.

      Chapter 1

      “You have a visitor.”

      Restell Gardner made no response to this announcement. He remained as stone in his bed, refusing to surrender to a single twitch that would indicate that he was not deeply asleep.

      “It is no good, sir,” Hobbes said as he poured water into the washbasin. “You have warned me of this very trick yourself and begged me not to be fooled by it. So we are at odds, you see, for I am armed with the knowledge of your pretense and must act accordingly, while you will continue to lie abed and favor me with an abrupt snore to put me off. When that does not have the desired effect, you will roll to your other side and compel me to hobble around the bed to address you directly. You will, of course, continue to ignore me, forcing me to take measures that may well relieve me of my employment. You will understand, sir, that such an outcome is hardly in keeping with your promise to treat me fairly.”

      At his first opportunity to be heard, Restell offered a weary observation. “Is it your plan, Hobbes, to speak at length on this matter?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Restell did not open an eye. “I don’t snore.”

      “I can’t say that I know if you do or don’t, Mr. Gardner, only that you’d pretend to.”

      “Where did I find you, Sergeant Hobbes?”

      “In the mews, sir, just behind the Blue Ruination, drinking bad gin and bemoaning the loss of my leg.”

      “I don’t suppose you miss the mews.”

      “No, sir. Nor the gin. Still miss my leg, though this peg has its uses right enough.”

      Restell