Page 66 of Peril in Piccadilly

He arched a brow. “Did that look deliberate to you, Darling? I’m just sitting here. I can’t control who comes and goes.”

“You mean you didn’t know her?”

It had certainly looked like a meeting between chums, or at least between two people who had made each other’s acquaintance before now.

“I’ve never seen her until this moment,” Crispin said. “I’m irresistible, Darling, and the sooner you learn that, the better.”

“I’ve never had a problem resisting you,” I pointed out, and he snorted.

“That’s because I’ve never subjected you to the full force of my charm. If I had done, you would have folded like a cheap suit.”

“Would not.”

“Would, too.”

“I think it’s much more likely,” I said, before he could prove his assertion, or try to, “that it’s simply a matter of whether someone knows you or not. I know very well what a bastard you are?—”

“Don’t let my father hear you say that, Darling. Or my fiancée, either.”

I ignored him, since that wasn’t the sort of bastard I was accusing him of being, “—so you don’t impress me. But someone who doesn’t know anything about you, other than that you’re sitting here looking like a good time?—”

“You think I look like a good time?” He sounded delighted at the admission.

“Less now than when you’re all dolled up in evening kit with a glass of champagne in your hand,” I said, “but yes, of course you do. This can’t possibly be news to you.”

His mouth curved. “It’s news that you think so.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head, St George.”

The curve turned into a smirk. “Too late, Darling. It’s already there.”

Of course it was. “That aside,” I said, “I’ve always found you imminently resistible. Because I know you, your abhorrent personality makes up for any bit of outward appeal that you may have.”

The smirk broadened into a grin. “You say the sweetest things to me, Darling. Outward appeal, is it?”

“You’re pretty,” I said, “and you know it. Sometimes I think you know it all too well.”

Such as now, when he was fluttering his eyelashes at me like a flirtatious girl.

“Stop it,” I told him sternly. “I’m not falling for it.”

“Darling…”

“No. You’re not supposed to call me that, remember?” And certainly not in that tone.

He smirked. “Philippa…”

“Not that, either. You know I don’t like it.”

“What do you like?”

“Not you,” I said, and that was when the door to the interior of Scotland Yard opened and Tom stepped through. I breathed a sigh of relief and straightened on my chair. “Tom. What news?”

Beside me, Crispin did the same thing. “You look glum, Gardiner. It isn’t bad news, is it?”

“It’s no news,” Tom said, and I breathed out, relieved, even as I was still worried.

“Nothing at all?”