Page 54 of The Pursuit of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

He still felt thrilled that she’d agreed to go with him.

They covered the distance to her office with both of them smiling—in her case, with her habitual serenity, in his, rather inanely.

He escorted her to her office and, propping his shoulder against the door frame, watched as she tidied papers and files away.

Sylvia hoped she was putting things away in the right places. She was operating entirely by rote, her mind scrambling to adjust to a reality that, despite their recent equable interactions, she hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate.

Going to a public concert with Lord Kit Cavanaugh. Walking into the Council House hall on his arm, beneath the interested eyes of the cream of local society…

Did he realize that was what it would be like? Did he have any inkling how local society would interpret such a sighting?

She ducked her head, swallowing the scoffing sound she’d nearly given vent to. Of course he realized. He might not be the rakehell she’d imagined him, but he’d been raised within the ton. He understood the nuances of social behavior very likely better than she did.

Almost certainly better than she did…

Him asking her to accompany him did mean what she thought it meant, didn’t it?

For a second, uncertainty rose and shook her, then she realized she was merely giddy.

Hardly surprising when a situation she’d fantasized about—admittedly with a very different imaginary man—was on the cusp of coming true. And with a gentleman who was much more to her taste than her imaginary lord had ever been.

Placing a stack of papers in her bottom drawer, she glanced at her desktop and found it cleared. She drew in a deep breath and straightened. She had to get a grip on her wayward senses before she did something truly foolish—like smile at him with stars in her eyes.

She looked at him and smiled—and fought to ensure it was an appropriate expression rather than one too revealing. “There’s nothing more I need to do here.” She picked up her reticule and walked toward the door.

He watched her approach, then stepped back and waved her into the corridor. “In that case, I’ll escort you wherever you intend to go.”

She had intended to pick up some laundry, but that seemed far too mundane an activity to do with him by her side.

They stepped onto the pavement of Broad Street, and he offered her his arm. She took it, feeling steel beneath her fingertips, then hesitated.

He glanced at her face. “Your lodgings?”

She nodded. “But that’s in the opposite direction to your house.” She lowered her lids and watched his face through her lashes. “You don’t have to escort me all the way there, you know.” She’d been walking the streets of Bristol for the past two years without incident; she had very little fear of the areas she had to traverse.

He started them strolling toward the nearby intersection with Wine Street. His expression was unperturbed as he replied, “I do, as it happens—both know that and yet have to escort you to your door.”

Her lips curved more deeply, and she looked ahead. After a moment, she murmured, “Ah—I see.”

He steered her across the busy intersection, and they continued down High Street.

Somewhat sternly, she told herself not to read too much into what he very likely saw as common courtesy. Or at least the sort of gentlemanly attention he would bestow on any lady he knew were she to set out to cross a city the likes of Bristol.

Still, it was impossible not to feel a fillip of happiness that he was willing to go so far out of his way to see her safely home.

Her pleasant mood made the icy chill that slithered across her nape all the more noticeable. She tensed, then quickly looked around.

“What is it?” Kit halted, every instinct on high alert. He scanned the crowds behind them—a bustling throng jostling along the pavements of Corn Street to the left and Wine Street to the right, with people dodging and weaving through the equally strong flow of pedestrians going up and down Broad and High Streets. “The watcher?”

“Yes.” Sylvia’s tone was quietly furious. “And whoever he is, he’s a coward—as soon as I look, he stops.”

Kit drew her to the side of the pavement, putting their backs to the building while he searched the scurrying sea of humanity.

Beside him, Sylvia, doing the same, huffed disgruntledly. “There’s so many people, yet not one of them looks out of place.”

He had to agree. There were businessmen of all stripes as well as hawkers of this and that, a chestnut vendor, and the ubiquitous men carrying placards advertising one or other chapel. There were messenger boys darting in and out, weaving their way through the throng, and older women as well as girls trudging home after working as shop assistants or the like.

After a moment more of fruitless searching, Kit closed his hand over Sylvia’s, now gripping his arm. “Come. Let’s walk on.”