‘No, not yet. There is time enough when I find a suitable shop and studio.’
‘You are going to tell her, then?’ Ivo spotted a hat shop and veered towards it.
‘Of course.’ There was that hesitation again, then she rallied and found a response. ‘I can hardly catch the local stage into Bath and disappear for hours every day, can I?’
‘Quite.’ Ivo stopped in front of the shop window. He must try and reinforce the doubts he could hear in her voice. ‘That is a very handsome pink bonnet.’
‘The one with the exaggerated poke and the feather? It is rather fine.’
‘Why not go in and try it on?’ he suggested.
‘Ivo, are you trying to distract me?’
‘Just a little. It would suit you.’ And that was no lie. He found he had a desire to see that feather lying alongside her cheek.
She tipped her head to one side, studying the hat. ‘It is certain to be too expensive. Shall we explore the side streets? I do not want to be too far from Milsom Street because it is the most fashionable, so I need to find something close, but inexpensive.’
Short of throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her back to the Assembly Rooms, Ivo found he was helpless. Jane dived down every turning, then turnings off turnings, questing like a hound on the scent.
He put up a spirited rearguard action, taking her into parfumiers, glove shops, an establishment selling nothing but ribbons and even a coffee merchant’s, but, however diverted by pretty things, Jane was soon back on the trail.
‘Are you not becoming weary?’ Ivo asked when she paused at the bottom of Milsom Street, then plunged on towards the Abbey.
‘Not at all.’ She stopped, swung round and laughed up at him. ‘I am enjoying this.’ Worryingly, all trace of her earlier hesitation had vanished. ‘Oh, are your feet aching, my lord?’
‘No, they are not.’ Although to be honest he was thinking longingly of his oldest pair of boots and not the smart new Hessians he had ordered months ago and picked up on his way through London. They had seemed right for this expedition and now he chided himself for thinking like a park saunterer and not a practical man.
‘Fibber. Never mind, you can take a chair back up to the Assembly Rooms.’ She danced off in a flutter of hat ribbons, reticule swinging.
With a grin, Ivo followed, caught up and secured her hand again. He tucked it under his elbow in the hope of tethering her to him. ‘Be carried like a gouty old colonel? I will do no such thing.’
But Jane was not attending to him. They had emerged on to Westgate Street and she was staring at the shops opposite with rapt attention.
‘A shoe shop? We haven’t looked in any of those yet,’ he said, steering her across the road, avoiding two burly chairmen trotting towards the Abbey and a Dennett gig being driven over the cobbles with more speed than flair by a very young man.
‘No, next to it.’ Jane tugged at his arm. ‘Look.’
Beside the shoe shop was a dirty green door and a shop window perhaps ten feet in width, equally begrimed and festooned with cobwebs. A new-looking sign propped up inside read:
Premises to Let
Apply Pertwee and Forster,
4a Milk Street, Bath
Jane rattled the door handle. ‘Locked.’ On the other side was an agency for domestic servants. She hesitated, then marched into the shoe shop.
‘May I be of service, madam?’ The assistant was about thirty with very white hands, pomaded hair and improbably tight trousers. Ivo wondered how he ever managed to bend down to fit shoes.
‘The premises next door, the shop for rent. Do you know how large it is?’
‘Oh, the old snuff shop? Minute, madam. Positively Lilliputian. Just the width of the front and, as you can see from the angle of our wall, it hardly comes any further back.’
Both Jane and Ivo turned to see what he meant. Once inside the shoe shop the space opened up and it looked as though the old snuff shop had either been there first and been built around or had taken a bite out of the larger establishment.
‘Old Mr Flowers owned both. When he died one nephew got these premises and several more in the street and the other, who was out of favour, only got the snuff shop. And he will not sell to us out of spite.’ The assistant made a complicated sound of disapproval.
‘Thank you so much.’ Jane smiled at the man and Ivo held the door for her. ‘Oh, dear. It sounds as though the owner may be a difficult person to deal with,’ she said as they regained the pavement.