“Er – home?” A quick glance about showed they were nearly the last people on site.“Wrong. You’re dining with me.”“Like this?” She looked down at her dusty clothes, mud-caked shoes, grimy hands.“Well, you could come home with me and have a bath first.” There was a distinct leer in his voice.She blushed from toes to hairline. “Your brother would have fits.”“He would,” he conceded. “I suppose, then, we’d best go elsewhere.”“Where?”“Don’t look so alarmed,” he grinned. “I was thinking of my office.”“But your brother—”“Won’t be there; he keeps gentleman’s hours. And even if he were, he’d not look twice at a scruffy little boy.”This was the opportunity she’d been wishing for … so why was she hesitating now?“This is hardly the time to come over all ladylike…”“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, her feet beginning to move of their own volition. “What’s for dinner?”He grinned with satisfaction. “No idea. But it’ll be good.”It was an absurdly short distance from Palace Yard to the offices of Easton Engineering in Great George Street – a matter of perhaps three hundred yards.
