Page 123 of Kathryn

“Thank you,” she said in a breathy voice. Her face, he noticed now that he was closer, looked flushed rather than burnt by the sun.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no, I just wanted to get here. I’ve already wasted so much of the day.”

Was her smile… forced? Gerrit wished like hell he was better at reading emotions. “You forgot your hat, Kathryn.”

She lifted a hand to the top of her head. “Oh. How thoughtless of me. I was so eager to get here, you see—”

“You have plenty of time. I’ve arranged with Cranston to eat here again tonight so we can work until it is almost dark.”

She brightened. “Oh, good.”

“I keep a spare hat in the tent,” he said. “It is old and not pretty—”

“It will be fine, thank you.”

He nodded and she followed him to the tent where he located the hat and set it on her head, where it promptly fell down to her nose.

“Oh,” he said stupidly. “I should have thought—”

She laughed and lifted it up. “I can make it fit,” she assured him.

Gerrit watched dubiously as she shifted her hair around, removing a pin here and adding one there until the hat was no longer covering her eyes. Somehow, she managed to make even an ill-fitting man’s hat look fetching.

“How is that?” she asked, her cat eyes sliding up to meet his.

“Good,” he said, sounding like a dolt to his own ears.

She tucked some loose hair beneath the brim while her green eyes slid toward where Mr. Scott was now pacing around his find. “Is he still—”

“He is finished. Although he would like to move that boulder.”

“Why doesn’t he?”

“The piece is already too large to transport. If there is more, as we suspect, it will have to come out separately.”

“You said this would go to the British Museum?”

“Correct. They are one of the few establishments that can do justice to such a piece.”

“It will make a stunning display.”

Gerrit thought so, too.

“Oh, did you look at that section I mentioned last night at dinner?”

“I did look at it, first thing this morning.”

“What do you think it is? It is terribly damaged, but I did not think it was an ammonite.”

“You are correct. I believe it is a nautiloid fragment. That piece is extremely small, and most people would have mistaken it for an ammonite fragment. You have a good eye for this work,” he said, not exaggerating.

She gave him a shy smile. “Thank you… Gerrit.”

Hearing his name on her lips in the middle of the day pleased but unnerved him, and he could only nod and offer her his arm. “Come and I will show you how I made that deduction.”

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