Page 16 of Sir Andrew and the Authoress

He looked at the mantel clock. He’d been reading for half an hour. It wasn’t entirely late yet, but with everyone else gone to sleep…

Andrew left his book on the chair and went to peer out into the hall, curious as to which family member was creeping about in the near-dark. And why. If it was one of the younger girls, he’d do the family a favor and point her right back to where she had come from.

He barely stuck his head out of his room and saw at once the tall, graceful figure of a woman walking softly away from his door. She held a candle aloft in one hand, and a dark shawl covered the bright blue of the gown she had worn to dinner that evening.

“Josie?” he whispered, and she immediately stilled. She slowly turned around. She clutched a rectangular box to her chest with one arm and held a candle with the other.

“Andrew,” she whispered back. “I thought everyone had gone to sleep.”

He came out into the hall, closing his door behind him. “So did I.” He took a few steps toward her, and she gripped the box she carried tighter. He paused. “What do you have there?”

She swallowed and affected a haughty tone. “That is none of your business.”

“Ah.” He came closer still and watched with some satisfaction as she tried to cross her other arm over the box, too, the candle flickering as it passed beneath her nose. So. Josephine had a secret. “What could be in that box, I wonder, that brings you out of your room to skulk through the castle like a ghost?”

“I am not skulking,” she insisted, voice dropping to a quieter tone. “I am perfectly allowed to come and go in this castle as I wish.”

“True, but I find it interesting you waited until you thought everyone was asleep to ‘come and go’ this evening. In truth, you ought to have delayed your suspicious errand another half hour at least. I wager I am not the only one still waiting for sleep to take me. Any moment now, someone else will open their door because they hear us.”

She glanced down the corridor, lowering her arm somewhat as she did. “My errand isn’t suspicious.”

“Your behavior certainly is.”

“If I want to take a walk in my family’s home—”

“With a box you won’t let me see.”

“I already told you, the box isn’t any of your affair.”

“Which only makes me more desirous to discover what is inside.”

“It isn’t my duty to see to your desire. You should go back to your room, because you will not get any satisfaction from me.” She put her nose in the air.

Andrew chuckled. “My dear Josie, you are the very last lady I would look to for the satisfaction of my desires.”

Her jaw dropped open, and a gasp of air escaped her. “What did you say?”

He grinned without the least bit of repentance. “I am confident you heard me.”

She blustered. “My father would be shocked—”

“Your father would want to know what you’re doing in the corridor when you ought to be in bed.” He folded his arms, feeling quite superior in that moment.

“Go away,” Josephine snapped. She turned and started walking again.

Andrew followed and watched as her shoulders drew up closer and closer to her ears before she spun around again, making the flame of her candle waver dangerously.

“Stop following me.”

“I have as much right to walk down this corridor in the dark as you do.”

“Then walk the other direction.”

“No, I think I would like to see where you are going.”

“Without your shoes on?”

He looked down at his feet, then shrugged. “I see no need for shoes. Unless you mean to lead me out of doors?”