He’d loved this room as a lad. Even when he’d been summoned within its walls for a lecture, the books had seemed to comfort him, the desk had suggested that his father meant business while the thick rugs would soften the blow. As had his father’s smile once the lecture had reached its end.
Odd to be here again and to know he’d never hear that voice, see that smile again. Felt like a wound that had healed but still ached when it rained.
It rained right now.
“I’m not hungry,” Jackson said. “Let’s find the thing and be done with it.” Surely he could open up the desk drawers, rummage around a bit, and find the manuscript, then he could lock himself away with it and get to work completing his father’s legacy while doing his best to avoid the warm woman beside him. And that ache in his chest from the familiar room, the memory.
She strode to the bellpull and gave it a yank. “You may be fine, but I need coffee. Now sit and be a good little scholar while we wait for the tea and toast.”
He propped a hip against his father’s old desk and raised a brow. “Feeling a tad… domineering this morning, Gweny?”
She hid a smile. “If you weren’t in need ofconstantguidance, I wouldn’t have to tell you what to do.”
A maid entered, and after Gwendolyn made her request and the maid left again, she said, “You’ve not even shaved today. Do at least remember to wear your glasses.”
He pulled them slowly from his waistcoat pocket, holding her gaze, unfolding them at a glacial pace, and sliding them onto his ears. “Happy, Miss Smith?”
The rise and fall of her chest stopped for one brief moment, and she sucked her lower lip between her teeth.
Liked his glasses, did she? He’d have to wear them more often.
“I suppose,” she said, “I am somewhat appeased.” She dropped her gaze and busied herself running a finger and a studied eye over the shelved books on one side of the room.
So easy to fall into a playful rhythm with her despite the hurt and longing, despite a future of nothing between them.
How the hell could that be? No future between them when they could run together so smoothly and happily in moments like this?
He sauntered forward until he almost pressed against the length of her body from the side. He reached up and flicked that little devil’s horn of a lock of hair that liked to curl up above her ear. “I’m not the only one disheveled this morning.”
She swatted his hand away then paced away from him. “Bah. You know it will not be tamed, no matter my efforts.”
He did not approach her again. He’d promised not to. He must remember.
The tea cart came, and when she sat in a chair at a low table, he did not join her in the chair opposite. Instead, he popped behind the desk. Best to be done with this. Top right drawer first. Not more than two minutes of perusal proved it empty of Jackson’s prize. The top left drawer, though filled with bits and bobbles, proved similarly useless. No manuscript there. He rummaged through the rest of the drawers on the left, then moved back over to the right. Nothing in any of them. Some of them entirely empty. Did the damn desk have hidden drawers? He looked for them, knew where and how to find them but found nothing.
“Good morning, Miss Smith. Where’s Jackson?”
Jackson popped up from behind a desk. “Uncle.”
“Zeus, what’s happened to you?” He gestured to Jackson’s head.
Jackson reached up—a complete tangle sprinkled liberally in dust. Lovely. He swept his gold-rimmed glasses from his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not here. It’s not here.” He came to his feet, holding his hands out flat, palm up, empty. “Where the hell is it?”
“We’ll find it, my boy,” Uncle said. “Don’t worry. Sit down and have some tea.” He lounged on a nearby sofa, his feet kicked up onto a low table, a scone slathered with dark jam in one hand, a teacup sloshing cream-lightened tea in the other. “Join Miss Smith and I. Break your fast.” He waved the teacup toward Jackson.
Jackson disappeared into the desk’s drawers again. Had he missed something? It was a desk. His father’s most-used one. Where else was a manuscript of a book meant to be? But a second search proved no more successful.
He strode out from behind the desk and walked with dead steps toward the table and the tea tray. Gwendolyn sat on the edge of a seat near his uncle, no other chairs within arm’s reach. He couldn’t sit near her even if he wanted to, so he dropped into a chair as far from Gwendolyn as it was possible to get and stabbed his fingers through his hair, doing little to smooth it, only more evenly spreading the dust throughout.
“Why wouldn’t he put it in the desk?” he asked to no one in particular. More the ghost of his dead father than anyone else.
Lord Eaden grinned. “Did you expect this to be easy? Your father was superstitious about his work. Didn’t even let me see it unless he thought it complete. Melinda had to wait as well.”
“Melinda?” Gwendolyn asked, reaching for a scone.
“My mother’s given name.”
“Very pretty,” Gwendolyn mumbled, reaching for a pastry.
