Albert adjusted his aim, the slingshot still straining. “We’re both suspicious A.F.”
His sister nodded again. “Protective A.F. as well. Why are you here?”
He cleared his throat. Well, he could tell the truth. That was unlike him. “To see yer sister’s Egyptian collection. Yer father said she was on the upper level?”
The two of them shared a look.Suspicious A.F. indeed.
“You’re shrewd A.F.,” Albert told his sister, and she bit back, “Youare trigger-happy A.F.”
Kenneth’s heel found the first stair and he eased himself up it. When they both swung on him, he froze. It wasn’t until Albert sighed and lowered his slingshot that Kenneth allowed himself to relax.
“You still look like a spy,” the boy announced.
Annabelle shrugged, then rolled her eyes. “You might be a spy, but you like those musty old antiquities so at least you will fit in with Barbara and Papa. She is in her library.”
She reallydidhave her own library? Kenneth followed the lassie’s pointing finger up the stairs, then offered an abbreviated bow, hoping to stay on the good side of thetrigger-happy A.F.lad. “Thank ye verra much. Can I assume ye arenae interested in antiquities?”
“I am going to be a famous botanist,” the girl announced proudly.
“And I am going to be a mountain man in Canada,” her brother declared, swinging his slingshot through the air. “I’ll kill a couple of bears, then make myself a coat out of them. Then eat the meat.”
Kenneth grinned, remembering having similar goals when he was a lad, and also knowing this blood-thirsty boy would one day become the next Baron Fokette. “We all have our dreams, I suppose.”
But the lassie shook her head firmly. “Albert is usually right, you know.”
Before Kenneth could reply, the lad used the first two fingers of his free hand to point to his eyes, then stabbed them inKenneth’s direction, as if pointing his gaze. “I still think you’re a spy. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
Kenneth’s grin was shaky. “How utterly terrifying. Good day.”
He escaped to the upper level.
The first door he tried was a sort of closet—linens and tableware stacked neatly on shelves. Evidence of a housekeeper, and not for the first time, he wondered where all the Fokette servants were.
He was holding his breath when he pushed open the second door, disconcerted by all the silence. But this was a large room, full of bookshelves and display cases holding antiquities. And there, stretched out on a chaise beneath one of the large windows, a large tome open on her lap…
Barbara looked up at his entrance, and when she recognized him, her expressionlit up. His breath caught; how had he ever considered her plain? When she smiled—truly smiled—his chest squeezed in response.
“Kenneth! You came!”
When she swung her legs off the chaise, the skirts of her pink gown rode up, and he saw her feet; the right foot encased in a typical shoe, but the left wrapped in a sturdy boot. Was that to protect what she’d called her malformed foot?
Pulled toward her by some inexorable force, Kenneth stepped into the room—the library. Her library.She had her own library.
“I…how could I not?” The words were charming, but he only spoke the truth. “I wanted to see you. See your collection,” he hastened to correct himself.
Barbara moved the book aside and stood, brushing wrinkles from her skirts. “I did not honestly think you would come.”
And she hadn’t been pining over the fact. He liked that; he liked her realism, liked her openness.
When he reached her, Kenneth bowed. “Ye look lovely, lass.”
Being this close to her bare skin made him warm in all the best ways. Part of him grew excited at the scent of the chase…and another, considerably less disciplined part of him, grew harder.
She didn’t blush or stammer in response to his compliment. “No need for flattery, Sir Kenneth. I am wearing my least interesting gown.”
“Anything would be interesting with ye in it, Barbara.” He couldn’t seem to step away from her. “And I like ye in pink.”
Finally, a bit of a blush. “Pink is my favorite color. I wear different shades at home.”
