Under the desk, Saffron slumped. She might have the nerve to flirt with a few men and pick a lock or two, but hiding under a desk while her harasser stood inches away—she didnothave the nerves for that. And she didn’t even have anything useful to show for her attempt to unearth something in Berking’s office.
She didn’t dare move, even if she believed that if Berking came back, Alexander would stall him again and she’d be able tohide. Her ears strained for hints of his return. Her neck, twisted into a strange angle by her hunched position, began to cramp. She finally forced herself to move, and as she pushed aside the heavy chair blocking her, she saw a piece of paper had been caught in the corner drawer from which Berking had retrieved his checkbook, wedging it in the back of the desk. Saffron tugged on it, and it ripped, the sound so loud and shocking in the silent office that she jolted to her feet. Holding her breath, she waited for sounds of approaching footsteps.
When nothing came, she stood up, stretching her neck this way and that, then rubbing at her knees, which burned from crawling across the carpet. Her stockings were likely ruined. She switched off the lamp and crossed the room to leave. Her hand had barely touched the door when she stopped, glancing down at the corner of paper she’d ripped. The letters and numbers on the paper didn’t mean much, but it was clear that it was a formula of some kind. Where fear had been a moment before, suspicion crept back in. Pursing her lips, Saffron frowned at the desk. Could she risk another few minutes?
She’d already come this far.
Saffron turned around and hurried back to the desk. With the light back on, she unlocked the top drawer and slid it out, feeling the catch of the paper as she did so. Carefully, she inched her hand as far back into the drawer as it would go. Her fingertips met the scrunched paper. She tugged and wiggled, but she got nothing but another torn edge, frustratingly blank, and feathered bits. Disappointed, Saffron looked to the checkbook, flipping through his receipts. She found it odd that Berking left it in his desk drawer, but he would not be the first to try to keep his spending habits in control that way. Her uncle had done the same thing—kept his money stashed far away when he was drinking.
She found the check from today. It wasn’t addressed to Dr. Anderson, but to Rupert Glass. She quickly nabbed a sheet ofpaper from the second desk drawer and copied the information; then, remembering Glass’s note she had found earlier, she copied it onto the piece of paper too. It was too coincidental not to be the same person. Now that she thought of it, Glass was a name she’d heard around campus before. She would check.
She replaced everything except the torn formula, which she folded into the paper, and checked each drawer to make sure they were all locked. She replaced Pierce’s spare keys, but after two failed attempts at picking his desk drawer shut, then the office door, she gave it up as a bad job. The cleaners would find the office door unlocked in the morning and likely think nothing of it.
Back in the hallway, she silently made her way to the stairwell.
“Well done, Ashton,” she hissed at Alexander with a mocking glare. “I was nearly caught!”
He pressed a finger to his lips, and she followed him down the stairs and to his office. Just as she turned to him with a triumphant smile, ready to share her discoveries, Alexander closed the office door, enveloping them in darkness before he crossed to his desk and flicked on the lamp.
He sat in the middle of the couch and nodded next to him in invitation. Saffron, unsure of his enigmatic half smile, sunk onto a cushion. He stretched an arm behind her.
Clearing her throat against the sudden nerves she felt, Saffron began to describe what she’d found, but the look Alexander gave her effectively dried up her words.
“Saffron …” Alexander said, his dark eyes on her face.
“Yes?” Saffron was very aware of his nearness, the warmth of his arm not quite touching her neck. She hadn’t expected to go from breaking into an office to being stashed away in a dimly lit room with Alexander. She certainly didn’t mind.
His steady gaze was intense, confident. Alexander reached to her face and brushed back a lock of hair come loose from losing her hairpins. He tucked it behind her ear, looking at her mouth.
“I just wanted to say …” His face, golden in the dim light, drew nearer to hers.
“Y-yes?” Anticipation made her voice shake.
Inches from her, Alexander murmured, “That was a stupid thing to do.” A switch clicked on behind her, flooding the room with light and extinguishing the spark of want he’d so effectively fanned to life.
Saffron blinked at him with an open mouth. Alexander fell back onto the cushions behind him, a look of satisfaction on his face.
“Are youserious?” Saffron hissed, hitting him on the arm.
Alexander chuckled. “Not so funny, is it?”
“Oh, shut up—it was your fault I was nearly caught to begin with!” Saffron huffed, face hot. It was only fair that he got her back, but she didn’t have to admit it any time soon. “Do you want to hear about what I found or not?”
“I do,” Alexander said with a grin, “but not tonight. I need to concentrate.”
“Concentrate on what? I thought you were finished working for the night.”
“I am. I need to concentrate on cementing the look on your face into my mind. I never want to forget that.”
CHAPTER 15
Alexander’s flirtatious revenge had utterly distracted Saffron. When she and Alexander parted ways, her head had been filled with the melting look he’d given just before scolding her. That look had helped Saffron put from her mind the unease she felt whenever she remembered that Berking had some of her father’s papers. However, walking to work through cool mist the next morning, it was all Saffron could think about.
She’d never gone through her father’s things, having been just young enough when he died that her mother deemed it inappropriate and locked all his papers away. At the time, her fourteen-year-old self had scoffed at the idea that journals detailing plant growth and disease could be inappropriate, but considering how affected her mother had been by his death, she hadn’t risked upsetting her by asking. Now, she wished she’d taken the folder from Berking’s cabinet. Plant breeding, the subject of the document she’d barely skimmed, would not have been a new concept to Violet Everleigh when her husband had died—especially since she was a botany enthusiast herself—but perhaps the concepts of sexual reproduction in plants were what made her keep Saffron from reading her father’s papers. Researchers spent years on work that never saw publication, and Saffron hadn’t had any idea what her father had been workingon before he left for war. Apparently, it was related to creating hybrid plants. That line of research held as little interest for her as plant pathology did, unfortunately. It would have been nice if her father’s work had been something she could continue for her graduate studies.
There would be another few years of work and study, all under the uncomfortable gaze of Dr. Berking. At least he would be absent for the next few months. Maxwell had encouraged her to wait a year or two to apply, but she didn’t see why she should. She simply needed a topic that captured her interest and for Berking to approve it.
Alexander, like Berking, would be leaving in less than two weeks, she thought with a sigh. She hadn’t fallen madly in love yet, but she certainly liked the man. Maybe she should do what Elizabeth suggested and set something up between her and Alexander, though she didn’t know what that would look like considering he was leaving England for six months.
