Tempting Her Reluctant Viscount by Catherine Hemmerling

this investigation. Hope, you had better get changed. It is getting late and you do not want to miss any opportunity to possibly catch some illicit behavior prior to the offices closing.”
    After being directed to the spare bedroom that held her disguise, Hope ran off to get changed. It did not take very long and soon she and Michael were on their way.
    …
    Hope spent most of the trip into the city contemplating all that had happened that morning. A fake engagement? What was Lady Lancaster thinking? Already Hope was having a hard time distinguishing her real feelings for Michael from her imagined ones. She had had a tendré for the man for some time, but only recently had she really begun to know him. As such, it was hard to differentiate the true emotions from the romanticized ones. She feared the false courting would only heighten her confusion, so she was grateful the betrothal idea had been dismissed. However, false emotions would still need to be employed—on both parts. She would just try to keep her head. This was business. With this new mantra firmly on her mind, Hope soon found their carriage just around the corner from the offices of R & W Hichens.
    Departing their carriage near the Stock Exchange building on Bartholomew Lane, Hope walked with Michael the short distance to Threadneedle Street, where they continued west, away from the London Wall toward the stockbroker’s offices. Hope felt a familiar excitement at seeing the towering buildings rising up on either side of them. Add to that the excitement of their mission and it was all she could do to appear calm and confident in her guise as a young gentleman.
    As they approached the office building, Michael stopped a lad on the street to purchase two copies of the newspaper. Handing one to Hope, he said, “I’ve been here before and there is a small sitting area just inside the entrance. If we sit with our papers and keep to ourselves, I doubt we will rouse much suspicion, especially at this late hour. The men will be busy wrapping up the day.”
    Nodding her understanding, Hope tamped down the nervous butterflies in her belly and followed Michael into the small foyer of the building. Sitting in chairs close to the reception area, but off to the side enough to not be noticeably present, Hope and Michael kept surreptitious watch over the small, but busy, lobby.
    After about fifteen minutes of not seeing much of anything interesting, a man stuck his head out of one of the offices and asked the man sitting near the foyer area ( The firm’s factotum, by chance? Hope wondered) to run and retrieve a file for him.
    Michael leaned over and whispered, “That is Mr. Fearn.”
    “Oh,” Hope replied in surprise, a shiver of excitement running through her. Though whether the excitement was from what Michael said or the feeling of his breath in her ear, she couldn’t have said. She turned her focus back to the weary looking gentleman who had asked for the file. Beyond him, she could just see the back of another man sitting in the office before the door was shut again. “I wonder who is in his office with him?”
    “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. Stay here.”
    “But—”
    Michael gave her a sharp look that broached no argument and Hope sat back. From behind the safety of her newspaper, she observed him closely, wondering just how he was going to accomplish his task and not be seen or recognized. He was a spy after all, right? Maybe she would learn something.
    First, all that Michael seemed to do was change his location. Hope watched as he walked over to the opposite side of the room and leaned against the wall. There, he opened his newspaper and began reading. Confused, Hope paid close attention to Michael’s eyes. While to the casual observer he appeared to be absorbed in his paper, Hope could now see that he was glancing quickly down the hall every so often, as if waiting for something.
    Less than a minute later, the same young man they had seen