∞∞∞
Sebastian closed his hand around a stray coin that had ended up on the edge of his desk and worked it through his fingers—a habit he often indulged in when his mind was too loud and his concentration was split between disparate things. His mother had often said his hands had needed to be as busy as his brain, and she had never fussed when he had fiddled with something—a coin when available, or his pocket watch when subtlety was necessary. But just now he was alone, and he worked the coin through the lattice of his fingers, thinking—or trying to, anyway.
It was a struggle to place his attention upon the recently-delivered list of those who had attended Lady Pendleton’s party when Jenny kept traipsing through his mind. Every new bit of information he gleaned from her only deepened the mystery of her. She did notunravelwith new knowledge; she did not untwist and sort herself neatly into one category or another. Still she did not makesense.
She had been poor enough to be unable to afford so much as a profiterole, but with a husband who had demanded anheirof her. She would share saucy literature with a man, but balked at an affair. She couldn’t conceive, and that troubled her—despite the fact that he would have sworn from the pitch of her voice that she had not loved the man to whom she had once been married. Or at least she did no longer. He had made herashamed, and that was not to be borne.
When he pictured her in his mind, the various images he had collected of her, the one that burned to the forefront of it was full of fire. Which made absolutely no sense, given that he had not personallyseenthe fire that had destroyed her dress shop—only the after effects thereof. Sowhywas it that fire burned so fiercely in his mind?
Hermysteries were becoming his own. She muddled his head with thoughts of her, when heoughtto have been making a new list of the one he’d been provided, narrowing down potential suspects. There was a murderer to be apprehended, and he—he could not keep his attention to the matter at hand.
He had never met her before; of that much he was certain. He doubted they’d even crossed paths. He would have remembered her, remembered her face, the delicate curve of her chin, the blue of her eyes, the fine arch of her blond brows. But perhaps he had recognized her from somewhere else. A woman living under an assumed name—a woman who pretended to be someone she was not, somethingthat she was not—perhaps it had triggered something within him. Something that recognized her not for who she was, but for who she had once been.
Somewhere, buried in the deepest reaches of his memory, was the truth of Jenny Laurent. He was almost certain of it.
And whatever she was—whoever she was—he wanted her anyway.
∞∞∞
Harriet was lying in wait for Jenny the moment she coasted down the stairs in the evening. “Well?” she inquired.
Jenny blinked. “Well, what?”
“The book!” Harriet prompted, her russet curls quivering with curiosity—along with the rest of her. “Did you give it to him?”
“Hmph.” Jenny swept around Harriet, tilting her nose in the air. “Lottie has been carrying tales, I see.”
In a swish of lavender skirts, Harriet pursued her. “Oh, come,” she said in a plaintive tone. “I ask for so little!” When that failed to elicit a response, she tried again, with a pout. “It’s been such a long time since we’ve had a good, scandalous secret, the three of us.”
“What would you callthis?” Jenny asked, fluttering her fingers to indicate Ambrosia as a whole in a grand, sweeping arc.
“Notablynota secret any longer,” Harriet said, catching for Jenny’s arm. “Oh,please, Jenny. Just a hint. Ilongfor a touch of scandal.”
“Anyone could hear you!” Jenny chastised, though there was no one about to hear at the moment—the distant drone of conversation and theclinkof silverware told her that dinner had been served, and most ladies present would be ensconced within the dining room. She turned for the reading room, hoping she would find it deserted at present, and of course, Harriet dogged her steps.
“Well, then, you had bettertell me,” Harriet grumbled. “It’s not fair that Lottie should know everything and Inothing.”
Just to be contrary, Jenny said, “Lottie was the one who helped me choose the book.”
Harriet released a scandalized gasp. “May I pick the next?”
“Who said there would be a next?” The arch question provoked a huff from Harriet, who careened into the reading room on Jenny’s very heels.
“Ofcoursethere will be a next, you shameless tart—” Harriet broke off, snatching for the volume in Jenny’s fingers before she could replace it upon the shelf and obscure its title. “Oh,” she said, holding it in her hands. “Has he already read it, then?”
Taking pity on the poor woman at last, Jenny gave a brief nod.
“And?”
“He said page ninety-seven was his favorite.” It was an effort to will away the blush that wanted to rise in her cheeks.
“Oh, now Imustknow.” Harriet pried the book open, thumbing through the pages until at last she arrived at the proper section. “‘He knelt between her splayed thighs,’” she read, her voice rising in scandalized delight, “‘and touched the tip of his tongue to her’—oh. Oh,my.” Her brows arched toward her hairline, and she snapped the book closed with a giddy giggle. “You say that was hisfavoritepart?”
Jenny gave a little shrug.
“Youluckywoman.”
She turned just briefly to push the heavy door closed and contain her secret within the otherwise deserted confines of the reading room. Pressing her back to the cold mahogany surface of the door, Jenny heaved a great, tremulous sigh. “Oh, Harriet,” she whispered. “I might have an affair.”
