And yet, if the investigator were to be believed, the man had made no effort to leave the country. Had, in fact, not even left London. What was Fordham playing at?
Thomas turned up the collar of his coat to ward away the evening chill as he trudged back toward the Fletcher Townhouse to change his clothing from the plain things he’d donned for this afternoon’s search into something more suitable to put in an appearance toward the end of whatever this evening’s scheduleof events had been meant to be. It had been difficult to find a balance, pitting the necessity of tracking down Fordham against his family’s busy social life.
Most days he went without dinner, the time for it lost in the travel from one part of town to another. Just occasionally he was lucky enough to catch a quick meal from some shop that had not yet closed down for the evening. Tonight there was only one shop upon the street with windows still lit, and he wouldn’t be finding anything there to ease his appetite, unless one considered books good eating.
Food for the mind, he thought, as he glanced through the window at the display arranged within it. But not so much the body.
He paused before the window, his eye drawn to an oversized book just there at the bottom left. A sketchbook, he thought, owing to the size of its cover, which was tightly bound in cloth. Not just any cloth—Mercy’scloth. He recognized the pattern, having seen it within the pages of the sketchbook Mercy had given into his keeping. It was the very same one he had upon that waistcoat which Mother had remarked upon.
He oughtn’t to have been surprised. Marina and Juliet had said that the fabric was still prized, still valuable. They had, after all, massacred a great number of Mercy’s old gowns with other esteemed prints and weaves in the service of refashioning some of them into accessories. But still, just the very fact that he’d found something here in this little bookshop, entirely at random, managed to hook the ghost of a smile into his face. A strange coincidence in and of itself, and—
Mercy needed a new sketchbook. Not wanted.Needed. Several times since she’d handed over hers to him, he’d seen her make some absent motion, as if to reach for it, only for her brows to draw in consternation to find it missing. A habitual action, he thought, to sketch whenever she had the inclination, the time.Whenever she was bored, or at loose ends, or even just when the turn of the conversation had failed to spark an interest in her. She missed it like she would a lost limb.
She still sketched whenever possible, upon whatever scraps of paper she’d managed to find. Half of them she’d left strewn about the house, and those he’d found he’d scrupulous collected and left for her upon the desk in the library. It was the binding, he thought, that she needed most. Order kept for her, in string and glue, compiled neatly in one place.
Hell. It was not going to leave his mind. He was simply going to have to buy it for her.
Moments later, the sketchbook was in his possession, tucked beneath his arm as he once more headed for home. Marina had not exaggerated; the shopkeeper had wanted an exorbitant sum for it for the rarity of the cloth which had been used to cover it. But it would please Mercy, he thought, to have her personal mark of ownership upon her most treasured possession. Like a secret signature.
Strangely, it pleased Thomas to have found it. To have purchased it. To imagine what her face would reveal when he laid it into her hands. Why the devil did the thought make his heart beat faster?
He shook his head as if to clear it. No; that would make it too personal a thing. It had been a practical purchase, really, only a replacement for the one she’d given him. He’d simply leave it upon the desk in the library, where she could most frequently be found sketching, and be done with it.
And he’d keep the damned gloves he’d still not returned to her into the bargain. A fair enough trade, he thought.
∞∞∞
“Well done,” Thomas said as he retrieved his cue ball from the pocket into which Mercy had sunk it and placed it back upon the billiard table. “Tricky angle.”
Mercy shrugged as she applied chalk once more to the tip of her cue. “Perhaps, for some less-skilled players,” she said loftily, with an arch of her brow that was no doubt intended to remind him that his score presently trailed hers by a full three points.
Thomas chuckled. “I suppose I assumed that you had an inflated sense of your own skill,” he said, amused to see the wrinkle of offense that settled itself between her brows. He adjusted his cue, drew it back, and sank her cue ball—though in all honesty, the shot had been less difficult than the one she had made. Still, it put him within a point of her score once again.
“Hardly,” Mercy sniffed as she bent over the table once more, lining up her next shot. “I’ve played billiards with Papa since before I was tall enough to see over the table.”
“How did you manage that?” he asked.
“The judicious use of a chair upon which to stand.” Another shot. She’d gone for the red ball this time, and it slipped into the corner pocket, placing her once more firmly in the lead. “Your turn.”
Hell. Thomas considered himself a competent enough player, but Mercy was something more thanquite goodat billiards. Even with the constriction of the ball gown she’d not bothered to change out of, she was a better player than most men he knew. Decisive and cunning, he could almost see her calculating angles in her head as she surveyed the table, effortlessly finding the proper angle from which to shoot.
He was going to have to cheat to win, he thought, as he settled for sinking her cue ball. Or, at least, get as close to cheating as his rather rigid principles would allow.
She bent over the table once again, concentration firmly fixed upon her target, and he waited until she had drawn the cue back to ask, “What were you doing in Cheapside?”
Her arm trembled, and the tip of the cue scratched along the green baize-covered surface of the table, missing the ball entirely. Thomas coughed into his fist. “That’s a foul, I believe,” he said, striving for an innocent inflection. “Loss of a point.”
“You meant to foul my aim!” Mercy complained as she stepped back from the table. “That’s hardly fair.”
“A trulycompetent player knows how to play even with such distractions,” Thomas said, suppressing a snicker as he stepped up to the table once more. If he could sink the red ball himself, that would put them equal at last in points.
Perhaps he might have a prayer of eking out a victory yet. He pulled back the cue—
“What wereyoudoing in Cheapside?” Mercy asked, tartly.
Scratch. The cue missed the ball, and his hopes of victory went up in a puff of smoke. “How the hell did you know I’d gone to Cheapside?” he groused as he rose.
“The coachman complained of it,” she said. “When I took the carriage home alone from the ball. Said you’d asked him to deliver you to Cheapside on more than one occasion.”
