She smiled. “You could say that. Giving me this book is the equivalent of giving another woman a very nice set of diamond earrings.”
She could see that Sam did not like hearing that. She wondered why it bothered him so much. She had merely been trying to illustrate a point.
“It’s not personal,” she said quickly. “I mean, it’s not like he wants to have an affair with me or anything. He just wants me to know that he can afford my services and that he’ll pay well for them.” She touched the herbal again. “This gift also tells me that he respects my talent.”
“Don’t get any ideas about dumping me and taking him on as a client,” Sam warned. “You and I have a deal.”
She sighed. “Yep, I’m committed.”
“You don’t have to act like it’s a tragedy. That blackmailer is still out there, remember.”
“Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.”
“Can I have a look at that herbal?” Sam asked.
“Sure.” She handed it to him with some reluctance. The energy of the book was mildly intoxicating. Like an exotic perfume, she thought.
Sam opened the book with due care. “I can feel a little heat, but nothing that would warn me that it’s encrypted.”
“Whoever locked that book was very skilled with the old techniques. You probably wouldn’t notice anything at all unless you actually tried to concoct some of the recipes. Then you would find out, probably the hard way, that the perfumes you created were all off in some fashion.”
Sam looked up. “The hard way?”
“The results might vary, from foul-smelling concoctions to some that are downright poisonous. It would depend on just how serious the person who set the code was about protecting her secrets.”
“You think a woman locked this book?”
“Yes,” Abby said. She smiled. “Every psi-code is unique. It’s like a fingerprint in that it reveals a lot about the individual who set the encryption. You’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you that you do not want to re–create any of those recipes unless the code is broken first.”
“I believe you.” Sam put the book down on the desk. “What are you going to do with the herbal? Keep it?”
“No, I really can’t do that. The person who sent it was very gracious and very generous about insisting it was a gift, but I could never accept such a valuable item for services that haven’t been rendered.”
“How will you return it?” Sam asked. “You don’t know the sender.”
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem. I’ll give the book to Thaddeus Webber. He’ll find a way to return it to whoever sent it. Thaddeus has connections throughout the hot-book market. Unlike me, he works the deep end.”
“Do you think that the person who sent you the herbal is a deep-end collector?”
“Yes.” She placed the herbal carefully back into the box. “I do.”
“Think he knows you’ll arrange to return the book if you don’t accept him as a client?”
“Certainly.” She smiled. “I told you, I have a reputation in this business.”
“In other words, he didn’t take much of a risk when he gave you the herbal.”
“No. But it was a very elegant gesture, regardless.”
Sam watched her close the lid of the box. “You know, I had no idea until now how delicate business negotiations are in your world.”
“I thought I made it clear. In my line, reputation is everything. All my transactions involve an element of trust.”
“Well, that attitude explains why you aren’t yet ready to hold hands and jump off the edge of a cliff with me,” he said, without inflection.
She blanked for a couple of beats. Then she chuckled. The chuckles turned into laughter, and she was suddenly laughing harder than she had in some time.
“That’s hilarious.” She wiped the corners of her eyes. “You are a very unusual man, Sam Coppersmith.”
