A Most Dangerous Profession(88)

Mary lifted her brows archly. “So you call her Jane, do you?”

“Of course I call her Jane,” he said impatiently, disliking the interested note in his sister’s voice. “My tongue would be weary if I had to say Miss Smythe-Haughton every time I needed a fresh pair of socks or couldn’t find one of my notebooks.”

He could see Jane standing on her tiptoes by the door now, looking about the room for him.

He lifted his arm and let out a shrill whistle.

Everyone looked startled except Jane, who began to make her way through the sea of people, her large hat making her look like a wide, yellow lily pad swimming across a pond of reeds.

Michael frowned as he saw that his sister was holding her hand over her eyes. “What’s wrong? Do you have a headache?”

Mary dropped her hand. “Michael, you cannot whistle for the poor girl as if she were a dog!”

“I didn’t. When I whistle for a dog, I do it like this—” He whistled two short whistles. “When I whistle for Jane, I do it like—”

“Don’t! Once was enough.” Mary shook her head. “I quite misjudged your relationship with Miss Smythe-Haughton. We all have.”

“You thought I was romantically involved with Jane?”

“You write about her in almost every letter you send,” Mary answered in a defensive tone.

“Probably to complain. She can be a bit demanding. When you meet her, you’ll understand.”

“Oh. Is she plain?”

“She’s—” He hesitated. Jane was plain—rather wren-like, all small and brown and quick. But she always seemed bigger than her size, more visible than other women. “Jane is . . . just Jane.”

Mary put aside her glass and stood, peering at the crowds. “Ah, there she must be, for the crowd is parting and—Good God!”

Why did she sound so alarmed? “What?”

“She’s wearing a hat,” Mary said in a choked voice.

“Yes.”

“For a ball?”

Michael glanced at the hat, a wide yellow confection. It was large, though surely not any larger than those he’d seen paraded about Hyde Park this afternoon. It also seemed to have quite a few feathers. Very big feathers. So large that when Jane turned her head, the feathers slapped some silly bumpkin in a ridiculous orange waistcoat. “I like that hat.”

Mary muttered under her breath.

Michael looked about the room at the other women and noted that no one else was wearing a hat. He shrugged. “Jane should have left her hat with a footman in the vestibule.”

“I should have known that Miss Smythe-Haughton was so unconventional, seeing as she’s been shepherding you through the wilds of Africa for the last four years.”

“And doing it very well. She organizes our travel arrangements and makes certain the men and I are fed, and writes up our schedules and catalogues the finds, and all of that sort of thing.”

“Someone needs to take her to a good modiste. That gown and that hat—” Mary shuddered.

Michael could not have cared less. Jane was Jane, and he was perfectly comfortable with that staying as it was.

Jane paused by the silly bumpkin and was speaking to him, probably apologizing.

The man no longer appeared upset. In fact, he was regarding Jane with sudden interest.

Michael frowned. Women never paid Jane heed, but men frequently did, though she never seemed to notice. When he and Jane had been abroad, he’d decided it was because she was often the only white woman present.

Here there was no such excuse, yet—he looked about the room and scowled as he noted several sets of male eyes firmly locked upon her, many with pronounced interest.

What the hell?

For the first time since he’d hired her, Michael looked at Jane critically, trying to see her with fresh eyes. She wasn’t a beauty, though she wasn’t ugly, either. She was a small woman, with a slender figure. She had brown hair, brown eyes and, because of her years spent in hotter climes, brown skin. Her face could only be described as piquant with its high cheekbones, straight nose, and stubborn little chin. In fact, everything about her was small—except her thickly lashed brown eyes and her wide, mobile mouth.

Those two items seemed overlarge for her face, yet oddly enough they balanced one another.

He rubbed his chin, finding the mystery intriguing.

Perhaps it was her mouth that attracted such attention . . . something about it made her appear sensual. Now that he thought about it, the sulfi who’d held him prisoner had been most vocal in his admiration for the no-nonsense Miss Smythe-Haughton and her lush mouth. The man had been a positive idiot about it, even writing a poem. “A poem,” Michael muttered.