Page 1 of The Worst Spy in London (The Luckiest With Love #2)

D amaris Dunham stared at her pink shawl, splattered in dried mud, and distantly wondered why she’d been jilted. And what her poor shawl had to do with it.

“I’m sorry, love,” the innkeeper’s wife was saying. “Mr. Littleton left this here with me and asked it be returned to you, with his apologies. He said you’re a lovely girl but he thinks you both deserve better than a marriage forced into being by your fathers.”

Numb, Damaris blinked, finally looking up from the delicate weave of her shawl into the sympathetic brown eyes of the woman behind the counter.

“Thank you.” Her thumb stroked the silky tassels at the end of the shawl.

The last she’d seen of Mr. Littleton was when he strode away from the picnic and back to the house to grab her shawl for her, despite his mother suggesting a footman get it. “Can you tell me why it’s so dirty?”

The woman’s eyes shifted away, as if she was embarrassed, though Damaris doubted she had anything to do with it. “He didn’t say. I think there may have been a gig accident in the mud or some such thing. Can I offer you a cup of tea, dear?”

Damaris glanced to the front of the inn, where her mother sat rigidly in a chair, staring a hole in the wall, and where her father paced angrily back and forth while waiting for their hired carriage.

“No, thank you. I…I think we shall be departing shortly.” The words came rote and unemotional. Why am I so unemotional?

The innkeeper nodded, brow furrowed in concern. “Chin up, love. He wasn’t the boy for you. I’m sure you’ll find your man back in London.”

Damaris took the shawl, which she hadn’t seen in over a day, and went to sit beside her mother. The chair creaked, drawing her mother’s attention.

Mrs. Dunham pursed her already thin lips, her pale face paler still from the shock of the morning.

“Damaris,” she said in her reedy voice. Her long, bony fingers clenched a handkerchief over and over until it was a crumpled ball of linen.

“What were you doing over there? Did I not tell you to stay near while in this seedy place?”

Damaris sneaked a look back at the counter, where the innkeeper’s wife was wiping down the counter.

“She had something for me.” Damaris looked down again at the shawl in her lap.

It had been brand new. Her mother had ordered it from a fashionable, authentically French modiste only a month ago so Damaris could impress the Littletons during their visit.

Now it was only a reminder of failure: the trip, her father’s plans, her betrothal, even herself. All failures.

Her father paced back and forth, his face and balding head bright red. He turned his hat in his hands, his shoes clipping on the wooden floorboards. “Where is that carriage?” he seethed. “I must’ve told them twenty minutes ago we’re returning to London! What are they waiting for? Christmas?”

A strange sort of numbness had fallen over Damaris ever since she’d received word that her missing almost-betrothed was not, in fact, missing, but likely eloping to Gretna Green with another girl in the neighborhood.

Her parents had grown silently furious, but Damaris felt like she’d watched the whole display take place on stage, and she was merely part of the audience.

Her parents were too angry to consider her feelings yet, but she knew they expected her to be heartbroken.

At the very least, betrayed and embarrassed.

But the truth of the matter was Damaris didn’t know Mr. Littleton at all.

They’d only conversed three, perhaps four times.

Her father was the owner of Dunham Solicitors, and he managed several great families’ finances and legal matters.

One of the more prestigious was Sir Stanley, baronet of Littleton Hall.

It had been her father’s idea to climb the social ladder another few rungs by marrying his only child, Damaris, to the baronet’s youngest son.

It had been her mother’s idea to arrange a visit to the family’s estate so young Mr. Littleton could propose.

“The nerve of that family,” her mother hissed. “They ruined my cup of coffee. How was I supposed to take my breakfast after news like that ? One does not simply announce tragic news over the breakfast table!”

Damaris awkwardly reached over and patted her mother’s shoulder. “Of course, Mother.” Damaris herself had eaten a full breakfast of toast with marmalade, eggs, and tea while the adults fumed and carefully picked their words over their coffee.

“And the visit had been going so well!” Mother wrung her handkerchief again.

Damaris nodded. Had it been going well? Damaris had no way of knowing.

She’d never been courted before. Never had a marriage arranged before, so she had little to compare it to.

Judging by how Benjamin Littleton had never returned with her shawl, she could now safely assume it hadn’t been going well at all.

Most almost-betrotheds didn’t run away with another girl and drop the shawl off at the local coaching inn.

“Sir Stanley swore he would make his son do the honorable thing and follow through with the arrangement,” Father growled, spinning on his heel and tracking back toward them. “I do business with the man. This is an insult that cannot be borne!”

Damaris looked up at him in alarm, the first real emotion she’d felt since…well, since the carriage ride out to this Surrey village. “Father? You will not ask him to move his accounts to another firm, will you?”

He shot her a look of rage. “I haven’t decided yet!”

Damaris leaned back in her chair, relieved.

That likely meant that despite his injured pride, her father knew it would be disastrous to ask such a wealthy client to leave his business.

Eventually, he would calm down and remember that he didn’t want to lose a source of income as well as a potential son-in-law.

“Oh, Damaris,” her mother exclaimed. “I had already told that French modiste we would be ordering your trousseau.”

Damaris picked at the dried mud. “We shall simply have to explain to Madame Morand the wedding is off.”

“How humiliating! Benjamin Littleton has no sense of honor. How could he do this to us?”

Damaris sighed. “If he truly is eloping, as his father informed us over breakfast, then I suppose he loves the girl and couldn’t bear to be parted from her.” Mud flakes drifted from the shawl onto the floor.

“My poor, brave girl,” Mother said, finally taking notice of Damaris. “How calm you are in the face of this insult.”

Damaris didn’t know how to respond. Was she being unusually calm? Brave? She thought back to her few conversations with Mr. Littleton, back to the embarrassing announcement a few hours ago at breakfast, and couldn’t dredge up any emotion beyond exhaustion. Did that count as an emotion?

Everyone assumed she was heartbroken, even the innkeeper.

Damaris chewed on the inside of her cheek, thinking.

Was something wrong with her, that she wasn’t heartbroken?

She hardly knew the man. Besides, marriage was just something one did as a course of life, not something one truly looked forward to. Wasn’t it?

The door to the inn burst open, letting in a shaft of spring sunlight.

“Sir, the carriage is ready.” A burly coachman stood in silhouette, a tricorn hat perched atop his head.

“Finally!” Her father slammed his beaver hat on his head and stalked out the door, barely allowing the coachman time to get out of the doorway.

Mother stood, snapping her handkerchief. Her severe brown skirts swayed as she stepped quickly and precisely toward escape. “Come along, Damaris.”

Damaris sighed and stood, touching the back of her bonnet to make sure it was still on.

She hated that bonnet. It was straw with a dull brown ribbon that her mother swore looked excellent on her.

Damaris fingered the pink shawl, the most colorful article of clothing she owned, and followed her parents.

She’d liked the dratted shawl until now.

Is that why he didn’t propose to me? Do I look ugly in these colors?

Damaris knew she wasn’t a beauty. She looked too much like her mother: wan face, thin brown hair, pointed chin, and slight curves.

But Damaris had never cared about catching men’s attention, so she’d never worried about her looks or her fashion. Maybe that was the problem?

The coachman helped Damaris board the rented carriage as she mulled over her problem.

“Sit beside me,” Mother said sharply, pointing to a worn spot on the leather squabs. “It’ll be hours until we’re back in London.”

Father huffed and snorted, glaring out the window at the bucolic countryside. Not even the sunshine after days of rain could lighten his mood.

Her charcoal and sketch pad were packed away, so Damaris removed her bonnet and rested her head against the back of the seats. A bubble formed in her chest, growing larger and larger the farther the carriage traveled down the road. It grew until her ribcage ached with the feeling.

Mother kept up a steady stream of complaints about the countryside, the Littletons, betrothals in general, and the dismal future awaiting Damaris back in London.

The bubble popped, and emotion spilled out.

A little smile slipped out one corner of Damaris’s mouth.

Damaris stroked the shawl lying across her lap. Relief . Finally, she felt something as the carriage left Surrey and traveled back to her home, back to her dull life, and away from all the Littletons. She felt relief.