A Loving Scoundrel by Johanna Lindsey Page B

two small cards on it. The sight of herself had stopped her—and fascinated her.
    Rarely did she ever get to look in a mirror. The houses Dagger rented never had them. The rooms she robbed in that old inn didn’t have them, at least none that she’d ever noticed in the dark. This one showed her from the waist up, and without the debonair, manly hat, it pointed out just how pretty she really was. Amazing that anyone could still mistake her for a boy. Amazing what a pair of pants did for first and lasting impressions. Well, the flatness of her chest probably helped some with those impressions.
    That had been one of her old fears, that she’d develop really huge breasts like some women did and be unable to hide them. But she was lucky. Her breasts were a modest handful, mediumsized, and thanks to Lucy, easily contained.
    The easy part was because one of Lucy’s rare well-to-do customers had left behind a corset. They’d laughed a bit, that men would wear them, but then Lucy got the idea that it might come in handy for Danny in a few years, and it had indeed. Instead of wearing it around her waist where it was designed to go, she was thin enough that she could wear it around her chest. She just laced it up the front instead of the back, so she could manage it herself.
    It was a stiff contraption for the most part, but of a fine quality, the material that encased it so soft, she barely noticed anymore that she was wearing it. Yet it flattened her bumps nicely. That, and the slightly slouched posture she affected, was all she’d needed to look as flat-chested as any male.
    The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs reminded Danny that she had decided she didn’t want to be here after all, and she’d dawdled too long, ogling herself in the mirror. She didn’t turn around to see who it was though. She quickly reached for the door handle again.
    “Leaving?” the girl said. “Good. He can’t see you now anyway. He’s entertaining a lady friend. I hadn’t heard them come in, but then I don’t come in this part of the house often. We’re short of staff, or I wouldn’t have answered the door at all.”
    Danny swung around. She hadn’t needed to hear all that, figured the girl just needed someone to complain to. Her tone had been distinctly grumbling.
    “You’re the maid?”
    “No, we don’t have a maid yet, not even a footman to open the doors, much less a butler. I work in the kitchen. And you’d best run along. Come back later today. His lady friend should be gone by then.”
    Danny was about to take that advice when her belly growled. Roam around starving for several hours while Malory whiled away his time in bed with some lady? Not bleedin’ likely.
    “I’ll wait here if it’s all the same to you. It’s important I see him as soon as possible.”
    “Suit yourself. You might as well go into the parlor then, it’s through there. Though don’t expect to find anything to sit on. This house hasn’t been completely furnished yet.”
    The girl walked away toward the back of the house. Danny didn’t move, was still amazed at the speech that had come out of her own mouth. It was the way she used to talk! The way Lucy had insisted she forget if she was going to survive with the pack. And she’d learned Lucy’s way of speaking, learned it so well, she hadn’t spoken any other way in all these years.
    It no longer seemed natural to talk like that. She wasn’t even sure why she had just done so. Being in a fine house? Listening to a servant complain—with good speech? But it had obviously put the girl at ease with her, enough to leave her alone in their house.
    As for Malory, she’d give him exactly ten minutes to get his lovemaking over with. She’d experienced too much hunger in the last couple of days to wait any longer than that on that high-handed young lord.

Chapter 12
     
    “I WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED to run into you this early in the morning,” Mary Cull said as she lazed back in the