The stranger tilted his head. “Or these elephants are biding their time until Prince George visits, completely sauced and demanding a ride. They’ll nick the flask from his left pocket and then throw him in the fountain.” His smirk reached his eyes, which flashed with merriment. “I would give good money to see that.”
She grinned in return. “No doubt the newspapers would have a photograph plastered across the front page a day later.”
“Stop the presses!” he called out. “The prince is in the fountain.”
Eleanor laughed. Setting the text that accompanied such an article would be the highlight of her career. Hell, she might even do it for free.
The man’s grin broadened further as he heard her guffaw. “I’m Peter,” he said, tipping his hat.
“Eleanor Wright.” Her cheeks flushed, which they never did. Then again, never had a man as attractive as this one tried so hard to make her laugh. Was he flirting? She was familiar with the act, but unlike the clumsy double entendres she was used to fielding, his words, his rueful smirk, his slight lean toward her, made her tongue-tied and lightheaded rather than tired.
She liked his flirting, but at the same time, she truly didn’t. A decade of self-sufficiency and success had left her in control of most situations, but she sensed that there was no controlling this man. He was too handsome, his aura too self-assured, his words too quick-witted, and his eyes too sharp with intelligence. He was the kind of man she read about in her smutty novels but never encountered in real life. Now that she had, she felt the need to scamper in the opposite direction to escape the awareness of him that zinged across her skin.
“It was lovely to meet you, Peter. I hope you have more luck with the platypuses than I did,” she said, backing away.
“Platypuses or platypi?” he asked, as though not willing to let the conversation end.
She paused, her discomfort giving way to her curiosity. “I don’t actually know the etymology of the word, but I will consult the dictionary when I get home.” She continued her retreat to the bench and her typecase.
He sighed. “I suppose I should return to my duties. I was persuaded to skip out for the afternoon, but I should return before those who need me come searching.”
“What do you do?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
He hesitated, a crease forming between his brows. “Most of the time, I work for the House of Lords. Today, I am supposed to be chaperoning my youngest sister and her friends, but there is only so much squealing one can handle in an afternoon.”
She took in the cut of his coat, the silk of his necktie, the quality of his kidskin gloves. He was too well dressed to be a footman or a clerk and that aura of his was imbued with so much confidence that he had to hold power of some sort. Perhaps he was an advisor or even a personal secretary to someone important. Her interest was piqued. She’d never been in the House of Lords before. “That must be fascinating. What do you do, exactly?”
He rubbed the back of his neck with a rueful blush. “Herd cats, most of the time. Now and then, I get to feel like I’ve done something significant. What of you?”
She slipped her satchel over her shoulder and lifted her typecase from the bench, her arm used to the weight of it as it dropped.
Peter’s eyes bulged. “That is the most terrifying purse I’ve ever seen a woman carry.”
He wasn’t wrong. The typecase was huge and life would be easier if she was willing to leave it at Cumberland Press when she’d be returning the following day, but her fonts were her tools, her method of earning a living, and her keys to freedom. So she lugged them home every evening and back to workevery morning, doing her best to switch from one hand to the other so that she didn’t develop lopsided arms.
“It’s a typecase,” she said.
“A typecase?”
“It’s full of letters for printing. I put them together to form paragraphs, they get inked, and then the pages are printed.”
Peter drew away. The playful energy he’d exuded cooled, and his eyes narrowed. Was it because she’d revealed her occupation? Had he thought her a lady of leisure who spent all her days entertaining herself? Was he somehow disappointed to learn she was working-class?
“You’re a compositor?” he asked.
She blinked, surprised he knew the term. “I am. A good one.” She tried to keep defensiveness from her tone, but it still snuck in there.
His hand reached for the case. “May I?” he asked. “I’ve never seen one before.”
Her instinct was to hide it behind her, but that was stupid and she would not be ashamed of her work. She put the case back on the bench, flipped open the latches, and lifted the lid to reveal the hundreds of individual characters—sorts—more lowercase than uppercase, moreAs thanYs, and more of the quads that created spaces between words than anything else.
He picked up a piece, gently, as though careful not to get ink on his gloves. Not that he would have. Mabel was meticulous in scrubbing Eleanor’s type after printing. Leftover residue could cause imperfections in the next print, and Eleanor hated imperfections.
“How long does it take you to set a page?”
“Book or newspaper?”
“Newspaper.”
