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She couldn’t help a little cry.

“That bad, is it?” he asked.

“Forgive the editorial comment. You’ll have quite a bruise, I think.” She dipped a compress in the water and pressed it to the plaster. As she held the compress in place, the citrusy, woodsy scent of his soap took over her senses. All the other stillroom smells faded. She made herself call them to mind—comfrey, calendula, lavender, barley water, spirits. But it was no use. An odd state of frozen alertness possessed her.

A rivulet of water ran down to the waistband of his trousers. He shivered, and woke Viv from her trance. She lifted the compress, lay it aside, and peeled away the old plaster. He flinched with the first tug, and then stilled again.

“It is not as bad as I feared,” she said, striving for a matter-of-fact tone. “The sutures are tight. The skin around them is puckered but not inflamed. Your ribs are very colorful, a mass of purplish brown, but there’s only a trickle of blood where the fellow must have hit you. Why was he so angry with you?”

She reached for a towel to dry the area, glad for all the times she had tended Lady Melforth’s injury.

“My attacker had a thick accent, and I didn’t catch all that he said. I think he was insulted to be ignored.”

She looked up at his averted profile. It was a neat explanation, but she knew him well enough now to recognize one of his evasions. It was a reminder to be on her guard. They were pretending to be engaged. They would soon go their separate ways. Whatever odd effect he had on her senses would pass. She applied the new plaster and wrapped a length of gauze around him. “There, done,” she said.

“Where do you go tomorrow?” he asked.

She averted her gaze and tried to close her ears to the sound of cloth rustling as he restored his garments to order. “Oh,” she said. “I’m not doing a walk tomorrow, just taking care of business.”

“Business?”

“A visit to our publisher with some new pages. Then, of course, I really must work on my notes from today.”

She looked up and found him regarding her steadily as he rebuttoned his waistcoat. She lifted her chin to meet that gaze. “Surely the duke has something for you to do?”

Chapter Twelve

Lark found the offices of Dodsley & Sons at Number 86 the Strand between a chemist’s shop with a striped awning, and a milliners with lacy confections in the window. Narrow, bright green glazing framed the panes of four tall windows through which Lark could see tables stacked with books, shelves crammed with more books, and standing behind a long counter, a young man in a maroon-and-gold plaid coat with a bold black velvet collar. Across the street he found a place to wait for Viv. Clouds streamed in overhead from the west, and it seemed the long dry spell was about to break.

Viv was easy enough to spot in her familiar chocolate bonnet and short, dove-colored cape above blue silk skirts.

At Dodsley’s she stopped and peered through the windows, and turned away. She stood for a moment, clasping the bundle of pages to her chest and looking at the traffic. Then she squared her shoulders, drew in a breath, and turned to the door.

When she still hesitated to enter, Lark crossed the street. “Do you need me to go before and slay a dragon?”

She turned to glare at him, rising instantly to the bait. “You. How did you find Dodsley’s? And, no, I do not need you to slay anyone.”

He could not repress a grin.

“Yesterday you were the one under attack,” she reminded him.

“I survived.”

“Hardly a cause for self-congratulation,” she observed. “I can’t have you meeting Dodsley. We are trying not to have our arrangement exposed.”

“It hasn’t been,” he said.

“Do not underestimate Lady Melforth because she didn’t see through our…fraud at tea.”

The word fraud sobered him. “I think you underestimate her.”

“Me? Underestimate her? Never. She may look frail, but she is formidable. You’ll see how we are treated by the publisher.”

“You mean the one whose door you hesitate to approach?”

She shot him a sharp glance. “I may be a few minutes. I need to tell Dodsley what we want with these new pages.”

“But his son, is it, is at the counter?”