Page 239 of Dukes for Dessert

I enclose the sketch. Please advise.

Paterson

* * *

Adam fished in the basket for the report containing the craftsmen’s proposals, and flipped through them until he found the one his man of business had referenced. It had been provided by John Thurston of Catherine Street in London. Not a local laborer at all, but England’s most renowned maker of billiard equipment, according to Paterson.

According to Miss Quincy, too, by the look of it.

He didn’t have to check his notes to know that choosing London’s most celebrated expert would exponentially increase both the cost and time required.

But as Miss Quincy had said—he wanted to do this the right way. To make the best impression. The last thing he needed was to have his guests standing about talking about how stingy he’d been with the materials or how much foresight he’d failed to give the question of lighting. Which he hadn’t even known was an important question to ask until their argument.

Whatever flaws she might possess, one thing Adam couldn’t help but admire was her willingness to try, no matter how unlikely the chances seemed for success. What would happen if he set her up to win? He was Project Billiards committee leader, not the entirety of the committee. With his resources and her expertise, Adam’s billiard room would not simply be a nice touch, but possibly the talk of the town. In a good way.

He drew out the journal one more time.

* * *

Knows what she wants

Does everything she can to achieve it

* * *

“I just need one more!”

“Hold on, I’m getting it.”

Adam shut the book and stared through the lattice at his neighbors’ garden.

Miss Quincy stood near a waist-high row of blooming rapeseed with a pair of shears, talking to one of the little girls that lived nearby. Both wore crowns of bright yellow flowers atop their heads and matching yellow necklaces at their throats. In the little girl’s outstretched hand was a fifth loop of braided flowers.

“Five golden rings,” he growled in disgust. “You’re bamming me.”

As if she’d heard him mutter, Miss Quincy glanced up and met his eyes. Rather than shouting to him as she might once have done, she gave a tentative little wave.

“When you’re done dusting yourself with pollen,” he called out, “meet me in the library.”

Although he was too far away to discern the sparkle returning to her eyes, Adam swore he could feel them twinkling at him.

“Five minutes,” she yelled back. “This band is for Annie’s father.”

Annie held it aloft as though the ring of yellow flowers was the Crown Jewels for a king.

“The finest rapeseed headwear I’ve ever seen,” he assured the little girl as he exited the belvedere with the basket on one arm.

She gave him a gap-toothed grin.

Adam entered the library and began organizing the basket’s contents back into their neat piles. General correspondence, House of Lords, Billiards Committee. He had barely finished when Miss Quincy burst through the door.

He spun toward her. “What happened to five minutes?”

“It’s been ten.” She glanced over his shoulder, not at the table but at the lone stack of books on his otherwise empty shelves. “Those are your can’t-live-withouts?”

He lifted a palm in acquiescence.

She ran over to the books to inspect the titles. “If these are your favorites, why are they in such terrible condition? If you bent the page-corners of one of my books, I would smite you with a plague of locusts. Or spiders. Whichever you hate the most.”