Page 57 of Who’s That Earl

You’ve only to bid me come to you, and I will.

With a shake of her head, she picked up her pen, dipped it into the ink, and held it above the page, waiting for words to come. Eventually, a drop of ink splashed onto the page, very like a tear. This would never do. Methodically, she blotted up what she could of the droplet so as not to waste yet another piece paper or the sheets beneath it. Afterward, she cleaned the tip of her quill, corked the ink bottle, and put everything away.

This time when she rose, Athena lifted her head hopefully. So far, Edinburgh had been a grave disappointment to the lassies, as all the attention they received from their new circle of acquaintance involved an occasional pat on the head and a few words of praise. No one carried bits of cheese in her pocket just for them. The girl who came to clean didn’t even seem to like dogs. Still, the pair was resiliently hopeful.

Jane smiled down on them. “Come, Athena, Aphrodite,” she said, with a snap of her fingers before going to fetch her new pelisse of slate-blue wool. The dogs scrambled to their feet. Before a small oval looking glass, she paused to don her fur-trimmed hood, which she had kept for its practical warmth, of course, and not at all because she associated it with that walk with Thomas or his almost-kiss. “Let’s go for a walk.”

When their leashes were fastened, the trio descended the steps and walked in the direction of her favorite bookshop. The cobbled street was narrow, a little crooked, and lined with a mixture of houses and shops. Pungent coal smoke threaded through the brisk air. At the end of an uphill climb that pinked her cheeks and left them all a little breathless, she entrusted the dogs to Davy, a local lad who was as glad to earn his coin by watching them as by sweeping the crossing.

A bell tinkled above the door when she entered, and the clerk, who was wrapping books in brown parchment for another customer, nodded in her direction. She drew in a deep breath of the soothing bookshop smells of leather and paper. A tall gentleman was leafing through the latest titles, spread out on a table near the front; upstairs, two young ladies were whispering and giggling over what might well have been a Robin Ratliff novel. Jane smiled privately to herself and moved on. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular—nothing, that was, but an excuse to get out of the house. And perhaps, while she was at it, something that would stimulate her imagination and give it something to think about other than a certain Scottish earl.

History, Biography, Geography...She strolled aimlessly past shelves, eyeing the spines of slender volumes and thick ones, plain ones and those that had been embellished and embossed. Geology, Chemistry, Natural Philosophy...Here, the range of possibilities sparked something unexpected. The glowing light—could it be an alchemical experiment gone awry? She began to browse more intently, now and then pulling a book from the tightly packed shelves, until her arm was full of a weighty stack of ideas. Now to find a place to peruse at length.

Mr. Murray, the bookstore’s owner, had long since discovered that customers who stayed longer bought more and so had arranged the shop to encourage dawdling. A table with two wooden chairs had been claimed by a university student poring over the volumes spread open before him, running his eyes over each in turn as if comparing information. In a more secluded corner, a gentleman and a lady were thumbing through a single book together, paying far more attention to one another than to its pages. Jane found a chair with well-worn upholstery and made herself comfortable, one book on her lap and the remainder tucked on either side between her hips and the chair’s arms. She opened the first, a cheap and battered edition of Sir Robert Boyle’s The Sceptical Chymist, and began to read.

Halfway through, a possibility took root and began to blossom. Surreptitiously, she reached one hand up to ease the knot forming in the side of her neck, a sure sign she’d been at it too long. Davy would wonder what had become of her. Just a moment or two more. She’d purchase this book, certainly, and maybe another of Boyle’s to study at more length, but she believed she’d at last solved the problem of the glowing light, and possibly figured out how to make the brigand respectable. Not too respectable—the shadow of mystery always hung around her heroes, even at the end—but respectable enough that readers would not have cause to doubt Allora’s happiness.

A shadow fell across the page she was reading. She blinked, trying to bring the words back into focus. But before she had looked up to see what had made the light fail, a voice spoke. A masculine voice, low and familiar.

“Well, well, well. Robin Ratliff. I’ve found you, at last.”

* * * *

The racing curricle did indeed go like the wind. Frozen ground aided their progress, so that they arrived in Edinburgh late on the second day, more wearied by the journey than the spry horses Theo had brought to them under cover of predawn darkness—“a loan, merely, an’ the less said about it, the better.”

Still, not quite two days and a hundred fifty miles provided more than enough opportunity for Thomas’s anxiety to grow. His traveling companion had been relentlessly sharp-tongued and seemingly unsympathetic—had Thomas actually imagined that his own change of status would alter Ross’s salty nature?

“Here now.” Ross, who had been driving since the last stop, slowed the horses as they approached the city, with its narrow, bustling streets. “We’ve made it.”

“Aye. But I’ve as yet no earthly idea where to find her in all this, to warn her.” And even if he managed, she’d likely not thank him for the interference.

I thought you understood. I want to be alone.

“Well, ye’ll see nothin’ of her if ye sit gazin’ at yer own navel.” Ross jostled his arm with a nudge from his bony elbow. “Look about yerself.”

Thomas did as he’d been bid—observation was too ingrained a habit for him to shed it entirely, even when it seemed unlikely he’d see anything at all.

“What happens if we find her and she wants nothing to do with me?”

The question had been running through his mind for days, though he’d feared to give it voice. Even now, the words might easily have gone unheard over the rattle of wheels over stone. A few moments passed before Ross made any reply.

“Mrs. Higginbotham always struck me as a woman of sense. She’ll be glad enough o’ the warning about her da, and ye’ve only done what her brother set out to do. She canna fault ye for that.”

Thomas managed to nod as if in agreement, blaming the tautness of the movement on the bulk of his garments and the tightness of his shoulders, strained after two days of cold, hard travel.

“Can it be you were hopin’ I’d tell you she’s no’ a woman of sense?” Ross prodded.

Yes. Because love wasn’t sensible. But she had built up so many walls and barriers around her life, around her heart. If she was determined to guard them strenuously, even a trained intelligence officer had very little chance of sneaking past them...to say nothing of breaking them down.

Then again, she had opened the door to him on occasion. Taken him into her confidence. Into her bed. And the glimpse he’d had of the woman inside those stone walls—a thrilling, heartache-inducing combination of Robin Ratliff’s creativity and sensuality and Jane’s quiet vulnerability—meant he had privileged information. Something no one else had seen.

Besides, would a truly sensible woman have such a soft spot for her—

“Dogs!” Thomas grabbed for the reins. Had the thought of them called the image into his mind, or had he really just spotted Athena and Aphrodite tied to a lamppost?

The horses lurched, and Ross muttered an oath under his breath. “What’re ye on about now, Magnus?”

“Ja—Mrs. Higginbotham’s dogs. Right there.” He pointed toward the pair of little brown and white spaniels and waited for Ross to tell him he’d lost his damned mind.