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He paused upon seeing her. "Ah, Miss Summers."

"Quite august company you keep," she said.

"Do you know who that was?"

"I believe so, yes."

"I should not say anything. Not yet."

She confided, "If it concerns the royal guests visiting Sidmouth, I already know. At least in part."

"Do you indeed?" He blinked at her from behind his small rectangular spectacles. "And how are you privy to such information?"

"Some of his staff are to stay at Sea View."

"Ah, I see."

She gestured toward the recently vacated room. "And how did you manage to arrange such a meeting?"

He stepped closer and lowered his voice, expression animated. "I am glad you know who has come, for I may burst if I can't tell someone. When General Baynes mentioned in confidence that a certain personage would be visiting Sidmouth to consider properties, I made so bold as to write to invite His Royal Highness to meet me here so I might present him with an engraving of the long print of Sidmouth. I was never so stunned as when his secretary wrote back to accept. What a privilege!"

"Well done," Emily praised. She quickly decided that this was not the best time to mention the errors she had found in his latest publication.

Instead, she walked quietly out of the hotel with him. As they reached the esplanade, Emily glanced toward the beach and saw a man at the water's edge wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. She barely stifled a gasp.

The man picked up a long floral dressing gown from a rock and pushed his arms into the sleeves, adjusting each velvet-trimmed cuff.

He sauntered toward them, robe open, belt hanging loose, center of his chest bared.

Mr. Wallis turned to see what had drawn her attention and frowned. "Popinjay," he muttered.

The man's curly dark hair fell over his forehead. Long, sharply angled side-whiskers framed a face that—while not handsome—was interesting, with a nose that seemed almost Mediterranean, its center portion dipping nearer his lips.

As he neared, he gave her companion a sardonic smile. "Ah. Wallis. You should have joined me. Nothing so refreshing as a bracing dip in the sea. The shock of the cold water drives the blood from the skin, and immediately brings it back to the surface." He pounded a fist to his chest. "Now my entire body glows with warmth and vitality. Whereas you..." His gaze flickered over Wallis's rather spindly form with meaning, but he let the sentence go unfinished.

Without apparent self-consciousness over his state of undress, he dipped his head to Emily and passed by with a polite "Miss."

She turned and watched him continue on, following the esplanade to its end.

"Who is that?" she asked uneasily.

Again Mr. Wallis frowned. "My competition."

* * *

When Emily returned to Sea View a few minutes later, she heard Mr. Gwilt's singsong voice in the parlour and realized he was probably entertaining the twin sons of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson again.

Whenever Emily saw the ten-year-old boys, she was reminded of her own twin sister, although the boys looked far more alike than she and Viola ever had. Her sister had reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes, while Emily's hair and eyes were dark brown. Viola was also smaller, though she occupied a large part of Emily's heart. Emily missed Viola's daily presence now that she was married and living with her husband. Thankfully, Westmount was only a short walk up the lane, and the two visited each other often.

Mr. Gwilt had been a guest himself last summer and had stayed on as part-time accounts clerk and odd-job man, assisting their increasingly frail manservant, Lowen.

A widower of about fifty, Mr. Gwilt was a small Welshman with an amiable disposition, unfailingly kind to all. Yet he possessed one peculiarity. He'd arrived at Sea View with an eyebrow-raising companion—a parrot in a cage, kept lifelike thanks to the efforts of a friend who dabbled in taxidermy. Moreover, Mr. Gwilt had the unsettling habit of speaking about and to his feathered companion as though he were still alive.

While at first wary of the man, Emily had come to like him. Especially after she'd learned he had long devoted himself to caring for a wife who had lost her memory and ability to speak. During those years of silent isolation, he'd talked to Parry to assuage the loneliness. And even after the parrot died, the habit lingered.


This excerpt ends on page 22 of the paperback edition.

Monday we begin the book Fragile Designs by Colleen Coble.
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