The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,12
was considerably easier to talk to him when she could not see him. “Despite my reluctant agreement to accept your help, we are not a ‘we,’” she insisted. “You are a scoundrel—”
He chuckled.
“—and I must devise a method of crawling into that sewage drain in order to—”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say.” He followed her into the press room. “I’ve got an idea to replace those bits and it don’t require crawling about in drainpipes to accomplish it.”
“It does not require crawling about in drainpipes. Your blithe use of improper grammar is an abomination of the English language and good manners.” Her head snapped around. “It doesn’t?”
He peered at her carefully, his gaze traveling over her from the crown of her bedraggled bonnet to the sodden hem of her skirt.
“A man’s allowed to misuse grammar every so often, ain’t—isn’t he?”
“Not unless he wishes to sound like a cretin. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Fact is,” he said thoughtfully, “this little project’s going to require the opposite of crawling through drainpipes.”
“The opposite?” She frowned, making a delicate crease in a brow that had suffered far too many creases lately, Tony thought, or perhaps—given the sorry old state of her accoutrements—always.
Not this time.
“Last night,” he said, “when you mentioned the name of this machine’s maker, War—”
“Warburg?”
“Right, Warburg. I thought it sounded familiar.”
“Unless you are an aficionado of printing technology—which we have previously established you are not—I fail to see how that name could be familiar to you, Captain.”
“Not an aficionado myself, no. But I’ve got an uncle who’s a collector.”
“A collector of printing presses?” she said, her pretty eyes decidedly skeptical as she untied her bonnet and revealed the coils of midnight satin he’d spent hours fantasizing about since the night before. Unbound. Flowing over his hands. Spread out on a pillow.
“A collector of all sort of knickknacks and whatnot, actually,” he said, ignoring the tightness gathering in his breeches. “So happens that when my cousin and I were little mites we’d spend hours ’n’ hours lost in that collection. Uncle Frederick hates any of it to leave the house. But he never minded it when Seri and I rummaged about, as long as we left everything as we found it.”
“And?”
“And dashed if I don’t recall a box in that collection that was precisely like this one”—he gestured to the printing press—“full of type.”
“A box full of type? Do you mean to say a chase with set type? Really?” Her eyes had gone round again, and sparkly. When she looked him like that, he felt like he was on the quarterdeck, every sail full, in a following wind. He nodded.
“But there are many makers of printing presses,” she said. “Type that has been cast for one press will not necessarily fit into another.”
“Suspected that. This one had a name carved into the side of it. W-A-R,” he said slowly, so as not to bungle it, “B-U-R-G.” He crossed his arms. “Daresay it’s still right where it used to be. Uncle Frederick never moves a thing, just piles up new on top of the old.”
Instead of throwing herself into his arms and declaring her undying gratitude, she reached for a pair of pliers and came at his groin.
“Now, miss,” He backed up a step. “No need to—”
She plied them to the side of the machine in front of him. With a few quick twists of her wrist, the outside edge of the frame loosened. Her slender, strong fingers tugged away a brace alongside the frame and he was almost too distracted imagining those fingers on him to see what she’d revealed.
Warburg. Emblazoned along the side of the box of type. She turned her face up to him and her eyes looked odd—almost watery but not quite.
“Now, don’t go weeping,” he said with a smile. “We ain’t accomplished the thing yet.”
“We have not accomplished it yet,” she said with a little grin. “And I never weep, Captain.”
“Ever?” He wanted to reach up and stroke a loose tendril of hair from her cheek and feel that smooth skin.
“Never.” She dropped her gaze and fiddled with the pliers. “Will you go to your uncle’s house and retrieve the type today?” she said, then set down the tool and crossed to the desk to take up a pen. “I will write a list of the letters and symbols that are missing.” She dipped the pen into an inkpot. “Then you can take from your uncle’s collection only the letters that—”
“No,” he said. “That won’t