“Now, really! There’s no call for that sort of thing.” Why was it that every time he encountered this woman—which, he realized, had only been twice so far—she outraged him? What had he ever done to her that he should earn such enmity? Well, except for questioning the propriety of her working at the World’s Columbian Exposition.

“No?” She tilted her head and surveyed him from top to bottom. Alex felt like squirming. He hadn’t felt like squirming in his entire adult life, and he found the sensation extremely unpleasant. “Listen, Mr. English, why don’t you tell me what you want to talk about? If it’s about my father, I can’t help you. I don’t know where he is. If I’m lucky, they’ve got him locked up, but I’m not usually lucky.”

Good Lord. Alex had never heard anything like this before in his whole life. He couldn’t imagine so young a woman being so hard and cynical. “It’s not about your father. It’s about you.”

She seemed to slump for no more than an instant, then straightened her spine again. “Yeah? What about me?”

Drat the woman. A person would think he was the one at fault here, when it was she who was the one performing salacious dances and telling fortunes. Everyone knew fortune-tellers were no better than criminals.

“I saw your performance this evening.”

“Yeah? Pretty good, aren’t I?”

“For heaven’s sake, Miss Finney! That dance is scandalous!”