He’d been thinking ofherwhen the villain had struck. Thinking of how he might solve the problem of her sneaking about before he was out of bed and running off with his prized mare to Rotten Row when Hyde Park opened. The throbbing lump on his head and the ten pounds which had been filched from him were stains upon her soul.
Piqued, he glared at the neatly stacked books lining the right edge of his mahogany-and-rosewood desk, placed there by her hand the day before. He tried not to think of how she had paled at his proclamation that all her books would be confiscated. Nor of the sheen of what could have been suppressed tears in her expressive eyes. She wouldn’t make him feel remorse for her own foolishness. Shedeservedthis punishment.
And by his estimation, there weren’t nearly enough books present on his desk. Even so, he knew Lady Virtue well enough to suspect she would never be willing to part with every tome she had.
There was no hope for it.
He was going to have to investigate her chamber. The very notion made his cravat tighten, heat prickling down his spine. Her room, where she dressed, where she slept. Good God, he’d have to rummage through her belongings like a Visigoth raiding the Romans. He’d have to be in her space, which somehow felt as intimate and delicious and wrong as a touch. Where would a cunning minx like Lady Virtue hide her books from him? Beneath her bed? Under a pillow? Secreted in her wardrobe?
“Blast,” he cursed, picking up the first book atop the pile and flipping it open to the frontispiece.
Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Volume 1.
Ah, the scientific. He had no doubt this one had not been pilfered from his library. The former Duke of Ridgely would never have consulted something so deadly dull. Trevor turned a few pages, finding some notes neatly penned in the margins, the penmanship distinctly feminine. Not only had she read this tedious treatise, Lady Virtue had mulled over its contents enough to offer her own commentary.
He stopped on a page which discussed the powers operating the globe. She had underlined a passage, which he read to himself.This subject is important to the human race, to the possessor of this world, to the intelligent being Man, who foresees events to come…
In the margin, her tiny scrawl askedWhat of the intelligent being Woman?
A knock sounded at his study door, happily intruding upon the moment. What the devil was he doing, reading such tripe, mooning over her words like a lovesick swain? It hardly mattered what she thought. She could take her inquisitive mind and her undisciplined rebelliousness to her husband where it belonged, and Trevor would happily forget her existence.
“Come,” he called, snapping the book closed and returning it to its pile.
The door opened to reveal his sister, wearing her customary expression of disapproval as she entered his study. Her blonde tresses were swept into an unforgiving chignon, and she wore a pale, afternoon muslin with a triple layer of embroidered flounces at the hem and a blue satin spencer. The picture of English womanhood. Little wonder she had firmly established her position as one of the arbiters of polite society—Pamela always dressed the part. And judging from the exorbitant bills he had received from themodiste, he had paid for the entire affair.
“Pamela,” he greeted her, rising and offering a bow.
“Ridgely.” She curtsied, the epitome of elegance and flawless manners.
Quite the opposite from himself.
“To what do I owe the pleasant surprise of your sisterly presence?” he asked, skirting his desk and gesturing for her to take her seat in one of the armchairs flanking the hearth.
“Surprise?” Her tone dripped with sarcasm. “You told me to meet with you at this time.”
Christ.He had?
Trevor waited for Pamela to settle on her chosen chair, arranging her gown daintily around her before he sank into one opposite her. “Of course. Remind me precisely why I did such a thing, won’t you?”
She frowned at him, her gaze flicking to the ugly lump on his head. “Dear heavens, what have you done now?”
Naturally, she assumed the fault was his for the damage which had been done to his poor, unsuspecting cranium. He tried not to allow her conjecture to needle him, and yet it poked at his skin like a burr under a saddle nonetheless.
“This?” He gestured wryly to the offending evidence of the attack. “Oh, I was merely suffering fromennuiand decided to alleviate it by knocking myself silly with a fire iron.”
Her expression turned cross. “Must you jest?”
“It is either that or pitch myself from the nearest window,” he returned, undeterred by her vexation.
Pamela was far too serious. She always had been, but her husband’s untimely death had not helped matters.
“You were not fighting a duel, were you?” Pamela demanded.
Trevor couldn’t resist the opportunity to further annoy her. “Oh yes, did you not hear the new fashion of fighting a duel? Pistols at dawn are quite old news, I’m afraid. Sneaking up behind one’s opponent in an alley and giving him a sound beating to the head is just the thing.”
Her golden brows arched. “Is that what happened to you? Who was it, an angry husband?”
Why the devil did his reputation always precede him?
