The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,32

wear once and taking tea with beautiful, wealthy people who would not remember her tomorrow.

Abruptly the captain stood up and went to the counter. When he returned he came to her side.

“Miss Flood,” he said quietly, “if you wish me to convey you anywhere at this time, I am at your command.”

“Said as prettily as an opera singer, Anthony,” Lord Bedwyr murmured.

“Stubble it, Charles,” the captain said without removing his attention from her. Then his gaze dipped to her lap, where her fingers had twisted a serviette into knots.

“Do you wish to go now?” he said.

It was yet an hour before she typically left the shop. Mr. Curtis would soon be calling upon her grandmother. She could return home early and relieve him of that duty.

She looked into the sailor’s eyes, at the tiny crinkle lines radiating from the corners that revealed a life of both enormous responsibility and much laughter, and she shook her head.

“Not yet, please,” she said.

A half-smile cut his mouth. “Knew you couldn’t resist spending more time with me.”

“You are a regular Romeo, Anthony,” the earl drawled. “It is a wonder Miss Flood can withstand your roguish charm for even a moment.”

“Isn’t it?” Grabbing a chair from another table, the captain plunked it down backward between her and Lord Bedwyr, and settled himself on it, his muscular thigh not an inch from her knees. “Now, Miss Flood, tell us all a nice long tale about the barrels of errors you found in my friend’s poem here. If there weren’t many, invent ’em. Longer the story, the better.”

“Why? To embarrass Lord Bedwyr?”

“Not at all. Don’t think he’s capable of embarrassment anyway. I simply like to hear words come from your lips. Watch them too. Best show in town.”

At that moment it was fortunate that they were in a public place and surrounded by people. For if they were not, she had the most dreadful certainty that she would swiftly be making speech impossible for both of them.

Chapter Nine

Bishop Baldwin lived on a quiet avenue in an austerely elegant house filled to the brim with every conceivable valuable item that a man of means might consider worth having. There were clocks and snuffboxes and ancient swords and decorative lanterns and crystal vases and lamps, a pair of oars signed by Admiral Horatio Nelson and a punting championship cup, three chess sets of blown glass, marble and wood, boxes and small caskets of all sorts, jewelry, two flutes, a brass trumpet, a worthy cello with its graceful bow, several exotic drums, three spectacular masks of the sort one saw in parades, a gilded birdcage in which a mechanical bird repeatedly pecked at a dish, a collection of beautiful quill pens, another collection of peacock feathers that burst from a sturdy Roman amphora tucked in a corner, oil paintings and watercolors and maps occupying every inch of the walls, a dish of rare coins, a string of Catholic rosary beads fashioned entirely of lapis lazuli, a number of interesting chairs, thick rugs of Eastern design in every room, and one suit of medieval armor.

Most of the objects were arranged on tables and windowsills, while some rested on floors and others hung from the ceiling. All were easily accessible to a person wishing to examine them.

The only item about which Elle truly cared was locked in a glass case.

“What’s this, Uncle?” the captain said, tapping his fingertips on the top of the case casually, as though he and she had not been throwing each other exasperated glances for an hour during which they drank tea, Elle pretended to be a Hungarian princess, and the bishop told them about every item in his collection except the Warburg chase.

“Ha!” the bishop exclaimed. “Never thought you’d care about that, my boy.”

For an instant, the captain’s fingertips ceased tapping. Then they started up again.

“Daresay,” he said. “Let’s open up this thing and see it, what?”

A gold watch chain stretched across the bishop’s waistcoat. Now he tugged on it and withdrew not a watch but a key that he fit into the lock on the glass case.

“Go ahead,” he said to his nephew. “Lift it out of there, boy.”

The sinews of the captain’s big, strong hands strained around the frame packed closely with type and Elle got instantly light-headed.

“Good God, Uncle Frederick, it weighs more than Victory’s anchor.”

“That, my boy, is no peas-and-pie lump of iron. That is part of a Warburg printing press, built in seventeen fifty-five. There are only six of ’em in existence