The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,51

ladies will soon return to town. She will need extra seamstresses.”

“Thank you, dear friends.” Elle squeezed their hands. “But I have a plan.” She had the direction of an employment agency across town and a burning need to be as far from Brittle & Sons, Printers, as possible. Lady Justice’s latest pamphlet was on every street corner, but Elle hadn’t even the pennies to purchase a copy. It was foolish to want the final broadsheet. But it was the last of the correspondence between the pamphleteer and her nemesis that Elle had shared with Gram. And because of it she had met a ship captain who opened up her heart again.

That heart beat now shallowly. Emptily. It did not even ache. Instead, she was numb. She would feel again someday, perhaps. For now she must find work.

When she bade her friends goodbye, however, she did not walk in the direction of the employment agency. She walked home. She needed to sit in the rocking chair by her grandmother’s bed. And she needed to see the roses that her grandfather had painted on the walls, to feel the power of love and devotion that even in misfortune had never died.

The grocer’s boy perched on the building’s stoop. Leaping up and tearing off his cap, he mumbled, “I’m that sorry, miss.”

“Thank you, Sprout. She always appreciated your help.”

“She, miss?”

“My grandmother.”

He cocked his head curiously.

“I have just come from her funeral.”

His eyes popped wide. “Gor blimey, miss. I didn’t know!” Then his nose screwed up. “S’pose the cap’n didn’t either.”

Elle’s numb heart tripped. “The captain?”

Guilt washed over the boy’s face. “I’m plum sorry for showin’ him where the key’s hidden.”

Now her heart sped. “He asked you for the key to my flat?”

His head bobbed. “I tried not to tell him, miss. Honest! But he said if I didn’t, he’d send the impressment crew over to nab me right up.”

She imagined the gleam in the captain’s eyes when he had made the empty threat, and she pinned her lips adamantly together. She did not want to smile now. She did not want to know his outrageous humor. She did not want to know him.

“After I showed him, I ran outta there quick, case he changed his mind and sent ’em anyway. Then I got to feelin’ poorly about doin’ you wrong. I’d to say how sorry I am for it, miss. Don’t know what the cap’n wanted it for anyhow. Key’s still under the mat.” He shrugged.

“Then I guess we should investigate.”

Sprout followed her up the stairs, her heart beating quicker with each step. When she reached the landing, she sensed something different. A scent. Bending to the mat, she took up the key and the scent positively overwhelmed. With shaky fingers she opened the door.

Roses.

Everywhere.

On tables. On the floor. In corners. Spilling out of vases and festooning chairs, on every surface pink and yellow and red and white blooms rampant with color. The most spectacular arrangements were clustered about her grandmother’s bed, their glorious fragrance filling the air.

Elle’s throat closed. Her eyes welled.

Finally, she wept.

~o0o~

Tony glowered at the page he’d been staring at for half an hour without making headway. It was like sailing against a damn trade wind, trying to make sense of the papers the land steward at Maitland Manor had sent. But he’d little knowledge of houses and fields, and he had to muddle through this quick primer. Couldn’t ask a woman to share his estate till he knew it himself. But he was impatient to be done with it. The sooner he could get down on his knee before that woman again—this time without shoes in hand—the better.

The door of his sitting room swung open.

“Disturb me, Cob,” he growled, “and I’ll have you strung up from the crow’s—”

But it was not Cob who stood there.

“You should not have done it.” Her face was blotched, and streaked with tears, her hair disarranged, and her hands twisting a kerchief she obviously wasn’t bothering to use because her nose was a bright soggy mess.

She looked like heaven.

“Why did you do it?” she demanded.

“She didn’t like them?” He stood up and moved to her. “Blast it. I’m sorry, Elle. I wanted to—”

She threw herself upon his chest, pressed her face into his waistcoat, and a great sob shook her. He cupped his hands around her shoulders, wanting to grab her up entirely, to hold her. He’d needed her in his arms again like he needed air, but this was not precisely what he’d