Page 19 of A Lady’s Guide to Mystery and Mischief

“It’s the Arabic word for joy,” she said from across the room.

“I see,” he murmured, sliding one of the drawers in the cabinet shut. As he’d suspected, nothing was missing from it.

Which made him all the more suspicious of Francis. There was no way his cousin wasn’t indebted to every single business owner in London. Of course he’d be itching for his inheritance, the missing one thousand pounds included. As for Miss Rafiq, a man in debt was no more a catch than Grey was, which made her role in this as confusing as ever. She was clearly clever enough not to have deluded herself into thinking Francis was the picture of a responsible gentleman.

She loves him, remember?

He doubted that, too. He’d doubted it the minute she’d said it.

“What’s your first name?” He felt her proximity a beat before he saw her out of the corner of his eye. She’d come to stand at his elbow, grinning up at him. With her this close, he couldn’t help but notice the smear of freckles across her nose.

Fine. His grandmother was right—Farah Rafiq was breathtaking. Best admit it and move on.

“Grey,” he said, tone clipped. Francis, bastard that he was, had probably been aware that a woman like Miss Rafiq would trigger some kind of weakness in Grey. It was the one thing his cousin could be counted on to know, after all.

“Like your eyes,” she remarked. “I much prefer that to Mr. Montgomery.”

He chose not to respond because he didn’t know how to.

“Anyway,” she continued, in that same pleasant, even tone, “look at what I found.”

Grey took the torn piece of card from her hand, studied it for a moment, then said, “You found a piece of rubbish?”

She shook her head in what appeared to be amused disbelief. “No, silly. It’s an invitation! Or the top half of one, at least. Look at the painted border.”

Peering at it more closely, Grey noticed that she was right. Someone had clearly paid a pretty sum for whatever this was, given the printed border had been carefully colored by hand. “I stand corrected.”

Miss Rafiq smiled at this. It was easy to make her smile, he thought despite himself. Did Francis make her smile?

“It is most certainly an invitation,” she said, obviously pleased by her powers of deduction. “And, I think, a clue.”

“A clue,” he repeated, handing the object in question back to her.

“Yes!” she breathed, face aglow. The pattern of freckles on her nose was rather charming, actually. They suited her, alleged herbalist that she was. It was as though she’d accidentally smudged herself with soil after a day spent digging up—

Enough.

“How do you know this wasn’t in my office already?” he asked, pushing the doors to the newly tidied cabinet shut.

She stepped aside as he made his way back to his desk. “Do you receive very many invitations, Mr. Montgomery?”

“No.”

“Even if you did, I suspect you’d reject the whole lot of them,” she said. “Am I wrong?”

Grey picked up the small jar she’d left on his workspace, looking through the glass at the thick ointment inside. “No.”

He was blessed with no more than three seconds of silence before she said, “I don’t mean to tease you about it. I’m rarely invited anywhere myself.”

Grey’s head snapped up in surprise. There was no earthly reason she wouldn’t be invited to every ball in London. Not with how effortlessly sociable she was.

Wait.

“You don’t live in town, though,” he said, placing the jar down on the table with a dull clink.

She resumed her flitting about the office, tidying everything she could get her gloved hands on. “I do not.”

He couldn’t stop himself from tracking her. “It’s not the same, then.”