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deep breath before he spoke and brushed an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve. “I was going to ask what in heaven’s name are you doing in a gentleman’s establishment.” He glanced down at her feet, clad in slippers that matched the gown, of all things.
    He was glad he’d only had coffee for breakfast. “Not buying boots, certainly.”
    She laughed, that low, husky laugh that he’d heard the previous night. It caused such a different reaction than her clothing, conversation, or pokes did that he wondered at his response. Was there more to her than met the eye?
    Or perhaps
less
, given what did meet the eye?
    “We are here to peruse what appears to be in overwhelming supply, Lord David,” she said. Again, that laugh. “Mother and I are here looking for a gentleman.” She gestured idly toward the other men in the shop. “Surely my mother hopes, one of the unmarried bachelors here might find me intriguing.”
    “You do know unmarried bachelors is redundant, do you not?”
    A smile spread across her face, a smile filled with unmitigated joy. It nearly blinded him, what parts of his eyes that weren’t already blinded by her gown.
    “Exactly what I said to my mother, but of course she had no idea what I meant. Thank you, Lord David, for sharing the joke.” She kept smiling at him, and he couldn’t look away.
    Her face was just—well, it wasn’t beautiful, certainly, nothing close to that of her friend, Miss Clarkson. Her hair was a normal shade of brown, as were her eyes, and her nose was perhaps a bit too long and her mouth a bit too wide.
    But she radiated a heat—an almost palpable heat—he hadn’t encountered since leaving India. And even though he appreciated the curve of her body, and the way herhusky laugh made him think of things that were better thought of when not in polite company, it was more her zest for life, for living, that he found fascinating.
    Wonderful. He would be certain to compliment her zest. That would be almost as flattering as telling her she wasn’t ugly.
    And he considered himself a diplomat? He wanted to smack himself in the head.
    At this rate, his assignment would be over before it had begun, once she realized he’d managed to insult her multiple times during each of their encounters.
    “Are there any likely candidates?” he asked instead, taking advantage of his height and the bend of her shoulders to catch a glimpse of the swell of her breast.
    He could find some benefit in the assignment, after all.
    Her expression dimmed. “You perhaps have not been in town long enough to hear what they are calling me?” She tilted her head in the way he’d begun to recognize as her questioning angle.
    He nodded. To pretend otherwise would be disingenuous. “I have.”
    “Oh.” She blinked rapidly. “So soon. Well, then. You see the problem.”
    “May I help you, sir?” At the shop owner’s words, she started, almost as though she were doing something she shouldn’t have been.
    He took her hand and tucked it under his arm. “Shall you advise me on which boots to purchase, my lady?” This was a safe topic, at least.
    She threw her head back and laughed, not the low, husky laugh he’d wanted, but something that was as zestful as she was. “Are you certain you trust me to advise you on fashion?” She gestured toward herself with the hand that wasn’t tucked in his arm. “Because you have seen me, have you not?”
    “I am in need of a pair of boots, please,” David said to the waiting shopkeeper. As the man went away to gather his measuring tools, he turned back to her. “Anyone who can willfully dress as you do, my lady, knows precisely what constitutes good taste—even if she errs on the wrong side of it.”
    Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened into an
O
of surprise. After she recovered herself, she dug her elbow into his side. First she had poked him, now this; he might end up bruised in the course of his courtship. Would Lord Bradford offer him injury