For Love of the Earl (32 page)

Ginny took a step back, having never had a lady, genteel or otherwise, squat down to her level.
 
The girl looked at the lady, at the woman's clean, golden hair all done up with pretty ribbons and a little square hat that sat in the middle of her head like some kind of crown.
 
At least, that's how Ginny saw it.
 
When Ginny tried to see the color of the woman's eyes, it was then that she noticed the lady was not looking at her.
 
Ginny turned in the direction of the lady's gaze to find she was looking at the traffic just as Ginny had been doing.
 

"Hackneys are the key to this, you know," the lady said, and Ginnny swung around to look at her, mesmerized by the little brackets that formed around her mouth when she spoke.
 

"Hackneys?" Ginny heard herself say, not really believing that she was speaking with a real lady or that the lady was talking about dodging hackneys with her.
 
This was a lady that Ginny would have cut the purse from as soon as looked at her.
 
And here she was speaking to her.
 
Helping her really.
 

Ginny looked back at the stream of traffic.
 

"Hackneys are not as well sprung as the carriages of finer households.
 
You know how to tell the difference, right?
 
In the colors they bare?"
 

Ginny nodded quickly.

"I learned that a while back, but 'ow's it you know that?" Ginny asked, but she didn't take her eyes off of the traffic, so engrossed was she with the lady's words.
 

"Oh, there was a time when it was necessary," the lady said, her words drifting as she studied the movement before her.
 
"There!" she said, and Ginny jumped with the force of it.
 
But even as she jumped she saw what the lady meant.
 

It was a hackney, bouncing along with the traffic, but as it moved, she saw the space.
 
There was at least a two beat space between it and the other carriages as it tried to keep up on shoddy springs.
 

"There's a space," Ginny whispered, and the lady stood up.
 

"There is, indeed," the lady said.

Ginny watched the hack roll by and saw the distinct clearing left by its wobbling progression.
 
She would be sure to escape unhindered through a hole that size if the need ever arose to quickly lose the authorities that always seemed to plague her.

"Well, what kind of luck do ye need to find one of them to cut through in this 'ere traffic?" Ginny said, pointing to the traffic as the lady stood.

"I wouldn't count on luck, my friend," the lady said, as she retrieved her parasol from the handsome gentleman, "Luck is nothing by which to judge a man or a lady.
 
Intelligence is much more the thing."

And with that, the woman strolled away on the arm of the gentleman, and Ginny was sure she would never again meet such a remarkable lady.

~

Don't miss the next Spy Series book:

A Countess Most Daring:
 

Book Three of the Spy Series

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For Love of the Earl: Book Two of the Spy Series.
 
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Other books by Jessie Clever:

Inevitably a Duchess: A Spy Series Novella

Son of a Duke: Book One of the Spy Series

A Countess Most Daring: Book Three of the Spy Series

To Save a Viscount: Book Four of the Spy Series

Shake Down Your Ashes