Page 59 of The Duke's Virgin
It was one minute after three when I reached the coffee shop, and I peered through the crowd, wondering how I was supposed to locate anE. Finch.
“Well, fancy meeting you here.”
I spun to my right and stared as Luka’s friend Emmett rose from a table, grinning at me.
Finch, I remembered. Emmett Finch.
“Please tell me you’re here to meet Belinda,” I said.
“Okay. I’m here to meet Belinda.”
“You’re not just saying that, are you?”
He laughed. “You just told metotell you that.”
We hadn’t spent more than a few minutes talking during my time in Monaco, so it was hard to tell if he was joking, and the affable smile on his face didn’t make it any easier.
He scratched his jaw, and I caught sight of a fading bruise on his jawline. There were a few more yellowish shadows around his eyes, and I winced instinctively, noting the cast on his left arm and the boot on his left lower leg. “That must have been some wreck you were in.”
“You aren’t kidding.” He sighed and took a sip of his coffee, then said, “By the way, yes, seriously, I am supposed to be meeting a Belinda,” he squinted, clearly thinking hard, “Morris, I think.”
“Excellent. She had to deal with a call from the catering company and asked if I’d escort you to the event hall.”
“Lead the way.” He gestured to the line in front of the counter. “Could I buy you a coffee first?”
“No.” I pressed a hand to my stomach. “I’ve been here since eight. If I drink much more coffee, I won’t ever sleep again.”
He chuckled, and we made our way to the elevators. Thankfully, the crowd was thinner now, and we only had to wait a few minutes before a car opened up for us. Several others joined us, so following the unspoken elevator rule, we didn’t discuss business until we’d stepped off.
Gesturing to the pedway that led over the busy street below, I said, “This will be decorated to look like part of the circus.”
“Circus.” He looked at me with a grimace. “I guess there’s going to be clowns.”
I grinned at him. “You’re one of those.”
“Don’t make fun.” He popped the plastic lid of the coffee cup and dropped it into a bin for recycling before tossing the cup into the one set aside for paper. That done, he pointed at me. “Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.” He snorted. “A misnomer, if you ask me, has a pretty solid base in science.”
We’d stopped walking, and I turned to look at him, trying not to smile but not succeeding very well. “Okay. Elaborate. Why is coulrophobia a misnomer?”
He cleared his throat and spoke with a deeper, slower voice, sounding more like an old-school southern orator now. “Because, Ms. Harden, the wordmeansan irrational fear of clowns and if you understand the science, it’s a very, very rational fear.”
“I’m all ears.”
A smile tugged at his lips, but he continued, still in his role. “There’s some debate about whether the true reason behind the fear lies in pattern recognition or because the clown hides his true feelings behind a mask or paint.”
“It’s a job.”
He flapped a hand at me. “If I may continue, young lady?”
“Of course, professor.”
He winked. “Now, first you have to understand the science behindpattern recognition. Your eyes recognize patterns, and sometimes, say with aclown, something is just off.” He folded his arms over his chest, the casted one braced on his belly while he went to stab at the air with his other finger. “For example…have you ever heard that some people believe children react to dangers or threats without really understanding thereisa threat? How can they perceive a danger before even adults do? It’s because thepatternthe child recognizes is off, and the child’s instincts give a warning.”
“Basically, the lizard brain.”
He snapped his fingers, reminding me oddly of a professor from high school. “Exactly. The lizard brain reacts to something about the clown. Say, the too-big smile but mean eyes as being wrong.”
“But what if the eyes aren’t mean?”
