One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,5
sent a prickle of uncertainty along her spine. All this, for a recipe book?
Awkwardly, she juggled the package into the crook of her arm to free one hand. Once more, out of the corner of her eye, she saw George’s fingers twitch as if he were tempted to snatch the card from the stranger. He was always so protective of her, of the boys. But the card was safely within her grasp before he made any further movement.
Across the rectangle of stiff paper, the stranger’s neatly manicured thumb nearly met her considerably grimier one. Like the broad-brimmed hat, gloves were sometimes an encumbrance during scientific pursuits. With a murmur of embarrassment, she took the card and tucked it beneath the string wrapped around the package. “Thank you. I’ll be in touch soon.”
“I await your message most eagerly, Lady Kingston.” With another bow, he turned and was gone.
Almost before the door closed behind him, certainly before she could draw breath, the boys raced into the hall, their questions echoing off the high ceiling: “What book, Mama? Who was that man? Can I open the package?” As they fell to arguing between themselves over the honor, George resumed upbraiding Lewis, his voice only adding a deeper note to the cacophony. Amanda was surprised that neither Matthews nor her mother came running to shush them.
But no one came. No one even seemed to notice when she said, “I’ll just take this upstairs, shall I? And freshen up? I’ll only be a moment.”
The stout door of her bedchamber ought to have restored everything to its usual quiet, but even in the silence, her head buzzed. The unaccustomed noise in the entry hall must have left her ears ringing. Or perhaps too much time in the sun had done it. Either way, her nerves jangled and hummed like a badly tuned pianoforte.
Out of habit, she reached for the bell to ring for her maid. With the other hand, she clutched both the book and her hat, now rather mangled, against her side. As her breast rose and fell with the slight exertion of climbing the stairs, the corner of the book pressed into her ribcage, its sharpness a reminder of that morning’s scuffle. She glanced down at the package—the paper wrappings, the string, the calling card with no writing visible. She thought of the striking-looking stranger. She let the silk-tasseled bell rope slip through her fingers without pulling it.
Instead, she tossed her hat onto her dressing table with a flick of her wrist and stepped toward the bed. Against the ivory silk coverlet, figured with delicate embroidery of yellow and pink roses and green vines, the coarse brown paper and twine looked out of place. She slid the card free and put it aside without looking at it. There was nothing mysterious, certainly nothing interesting or exciting, about having received the wrong book this morning. Nothing intriguing about the man who had delivered the correct one.
Nevertheless, she caught herself holding her breath as she slipped the knot and peeled back the paper to reveal exactly what she’d expected to find the first time: a copy of Pascal’s De l’Esprit géométrique, bound in tooled blue leather.
If she felt something like disappointment, she hid it, swiftly enfolding the book in the paper again. Jamie would be delighted. In the morning, she would send ’round a note to—to—
It required more resolve than it ought to pluck up his card from where it lay on the coverlet. For pity’s sake. Why was her fancy determined to make something out of nothing? Mistakes were made every day. A shop certainly might employ a gentlemanlike sort of fellow to smooth them over. He’d said the recipe book was valuable. All the more reason to entrust the task of retrieving it to someone other than an ordinary clerk. Just because the events of today stood out in her mind, a splash of color on the canvas of her dull, ordinary life, it did not therefore follow that either the mix-up or the man was actually interesting.…
When she swept the card toward her with two fingers, its sharp corner snagged one of the embroidered roses and unraveled a quarter-inch or so of pale pink silk thread. Absently, she smoothed the injury with her fingertip before turning over the calling card, wondering what the man’s name might be.
But the card bore no name, and her pulse kicked up a notch in spite of her determination to be calm.