by Amy Sandas
There was something inherently dangerous in the man before her. Though his posture gave no indication of a threat, it was there anyway. In the subtle tightening of those angular muscles across his chest and abdomen and the way she could feel him staring at her, though she couldn’t see his face beneath the deep shadow created by the towel.
Portia swallowed hard and lifted her chin.
She could not back down. Lily needed her to follow this through. No matter how intimidating the circumstances, it could not be close to what her sister was likely enduring.
“Wot should I do with her?”
Portia tensed.
“Nothing,” he replied darkly. “I will handle her. Go ready the carriage.”
The butler left the room and Portia squared her shoulders. “I am not leaving until you promise to do everything in your power to retrieve my sister.”
“Then you delay me unnecessarily,” he replied tersely. “I always do everything in my power, Miss Chadwick. Some things are beyond my reach.” He turned and crossed to where a set of clothes had been laid out over a chair. With his back to her, he dropped the towel and bent to retrieve the clothing. She was so distracted by the sight of his woolen trousers tightening briefly over very firm masculine buttocks before he straightened again that she only just noticed his new clothing was sewn together as one piece in the same manner as Honeycutt’s costume.
In the moment before he drew the garment over his head, Portia noted his hair was not the pale blond and gray it had been as Honeycutt. It appeared much darker, with some caramel-colored streaks, though that impression could have been a trick of the candlelight reflecting on the damp, tousled locks.
“If Hale is not behind your sister’s abduction, what would you have me do? Young women disappear off the streets all the time and are most often never seen again.”
“I do not accept that.”
“You may have to.”
“It has to be Hale,” she insisted. “It is the only thing that even partially makes sense.”
He grunted at that but did not reply as he walked back to take a seat before the mirror. She noticed that he was very careful to keep his face averted. From where she stood, all she saw in the mirror was the empty space over his shoulder.
“Take the old lady home so I can do what you hired me to do.”
Portia’s mind whirled as a strange resistance settled deep in her bones. She stood stiffly, watching as he reached for the towel again and draped it around his shoulders. Then he expertly applied a black, greasy substance to his hair, which had started to dry in a riotous mess. The grease smoothed his hair back along his skull, completely eliminating any suggestion of lighter streaks. After washing his hands in the water basin, he began applying something to his face. His movements were swift and competent, as though he had performed these same actions a thousand times.
Portia watched in silent fascination. Sidling farther into the room, she tried to get a better view, wondering why he donned his disguise so openly in front of her. By the time she got around to where she could see his face, she realized why he didn’t bother to chase her off before beginning his ministrations.
He had become a different person.
Not quite as old as Honeycutt, this incarnation appeared perhaps thirty-five to forty, with black hair, a slightly swarthy skin tone, imposing black eyebrows, and a thin, black mustache. Put together with the simple white shirt, navy-blue coat, and the basic neckcloth he had donned, he looked like a man of the upper-middle class. A lawyer perhaps, or a banker.
She stared in amazement at how completely he had transformed from the forgettable Mr. Honeycutt to this strange man in a matter of minutes. And all while effectively preventing her from catching any discerning aspect of his natural self—aside from his bare upper body and a firm backside, which she was not likely to forget anytime soon.
Her amazement shifted in an instant to admiration and then determination.
“I am going with you,” she declared.
About the Author
Amy Sandas’s love of romance began one summer when she stumbled across one of her mother’s Barbara Cartland books. Her affinity for writing began with sappy preteen poems and led to a bachelor’s degree with an emphasis on creative writing from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She lives with her husband and children in northern Wisconsin.
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