* * *
Promptly at twoo’clock in the afternoon, Lady Georgiana appeared at the door.A suspiciously well-groomed Harley showed her to a seat in the front parlor.He bowed respectfully and told her he would announce her before disappearing up the stairs.That alone should have warned her to be careful.
Far too busy keeping the balance between two conflicting desires—the desire to put her lying cheat of a partner in his place and the desire to fall into his arms—she failed to notice Harley’s strange behavior.She lost all ability to think clearly.
The sound of two pairs of boots on the enclosed stairs caused the pounding in her ears to get louder and made coherent thought even more difficult.
“Get on with it, man, hurry up!”she snapped.
Her eyes widened at the sight of Jamie Heyworth’s toothy grin descending the final step.
“Lady Georgie, glad you are so anxious to see me!I didn’t realize you knew I was here.”
“I didn’t.I thought...”The ludicrous sound of Charles Harley aping a proper butler spared her the need to reply.
“Mr.Mallet will see you.”
The declaration forced Georgiana to troop around Heyworth, still grinning like an idiot, to the stairs.With every wary step upward, she reviewed what she should say to the upstart above.
“How dare you proceed without my permission” seemed to her correct but colorless.
“You, sir, are no man of honor.”Too pompous.
“You’ve wounded me, sir, with your perfidy.”Too dramatic.
“You are a worm and no man.”Too Shakespearean.
By the middle step, she prepared to argue ad hominem.“Your man, sir, is a trumped-up monkey and no proper servant” Notfair to Harley.
“Damn it, Andrew, what were you about?”Better.
“Where the devil have you been?”Definitely not.
“Oh, Andrew, how could you?I thought we were partners.”Worst of all.She would not show weakness.
Her last thought just before the door opened on the top step was “You reprehensible son of a horse thief, you stole my life’s work!”
“Ah, Lady Georgiana, you didn’t have to come to offer your gratitude in person.”Andrew stood in the center of the room.He was laughing.
“Gratitude?You insufferable toad!For what should I be grateful?”
“The work, my lady.The fine gold letters, the linen paper, the gilt edges.Didn’t you receive it?”
“You know I did.You arranged it without me—and you took credit.”
“Arranging your work was, I admit, a mistake.”He looked serious but only for a moment.“No harm done.I came to my senses.Five hundred copies sit patiently in John Bailey’s storage room awaiting your decision.Sell them, burn them, give them away.The work, as you say, is yours to do with as you wish.As to credit—” His confusion would have been endearing if it wasn’t patently false.“I fear you are mistaken.I’m not a Lady of Scholarship.”
“Not that, you fool.Your name is on the cover, not mine!”
She caught the twinkle in his eye.“My dear Lady Georgiana, I didn’t realize you wished to have your name on the cover.You gave me the impression you wished your identity to remain anonymous.Does this mean you plan to sell the books?”
“You have Jamie Heyworth running tame in your parlor.You might as well stand in the street and announce my work to my parents.”
“Normally, yes, I agree.The very voluble Major Lord Heyworth would serve as a town crier, but in this regard he has been quite mum.He seems to enjoy the subterfuge.I believe he enjoyed tweaking your brother Richard—at least until the latter gentlemen made his own inquiries and inserted himself into the plot.”
“Richard knows?”It was a gasp of outrage.
“I fear so.We discussed it and?—”
