Page 27 of A Lady’s Rules for Seaside Romance (The Harp & Thistle #3)

Anne went to stand where the mystery man had been and placed her gloved hands upon the rail, wondering if his hands had been there as well.

For a few minutes, she stood in place, her racing heart coming down from its reverie.

She watched the ball below for a few minutes and studied each gentleman, wondering if he was the shadowy man.

A phantom.

Maybe he was down there right now looking up at her, some kind of game building between them.

As her eyes darted over the crowd, she came to accept no one had noticed her up here. Either he was gone or was not willing to give away his identity.

The music began again, and she let go of the railing, crestfallen to not have an answer as to who had watched her.

And then a strange feeling crawled up her back, like a finger’s light caress, causing her to shiver.

With a gasp, she spun around and placed one hand over her heart.

Down the hallway, a shadow moved.

“Wait!” Anne called out. Swiftly, she lifted her skirt just enough to be able to start running toward him. But she came to a halt when she was about to pass over something lying in the middle of the floor.

It was a piece of cream-colored paper, nearly glowing white in the dim light.

Anne bent down to observe it. It hadn’t been there when she’d first come up, though perhaps it had been dropped accidentally by someone and she’d simply missed it.

It appeared to be nothing more than a piece of blank letter paper, but when she flipped it over, right in the middle of that side of the paper was a tiny ink drawing.

She picked it up and hurried over to a nearby gas-lit sconce to see better.

The ink drawing was a small circle, no larger than three inches in diameter.

At first, she thought it was some kind of planet, but it appeared to be the night sky, with stars of varying shapes and sizes, against a dark sky background.

But then, centered right in the middle of the circle was a flower, a stem, and two leaves.

A daisy.

Anne looked on both sides of the paper for more. A name, a signature, anything. But there was nothing else.

Despite this, her heart pounded as if she had uncovered something private, something precious. With a swallow, she looked back up and stared into the dark hallway. But there was no movement.

“Hello?” she called out, receiving no response.

The music and ball felt as if they were another world away. Holding the drawing against her heart, she inched down the hallway, keeping the creation safely against her.

But she made it to her bedroom door without passing another soul.

When she’d entered her bedroom, she shut the door behind her and hurried to her vanity to sit in the chair.

Briefly, she stared back at herself and thought she looked haunted with the room so dark behind her.

Ignoring this, she placed the drawing down on the surface of the vanity to look at it again.

A daisy surrounded by night sky. It made no sense. It wasn’t growing out of the ground, either—it seemed to be floating on its own. And when she thought of daisies, she thought of sunshine. Of summer. Of daytime! Not darkness, shadows, and night.

And why just one daisy? They grew in groups. The singularness of it felt purposeful. But why, she couldn’t decipher.

Gently, she traced the circle as she tried to figure out the puzzle. The Phantom had clearly left it there for her. But how had she not heard his approach?

He truly was like a ghost. Maybe he was?

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard the faint sound of footfalls entering the bedroom next door, followed by the door closing. Her eyes flew up to meet her reflection in the mirror.

What if…?

No. Victor couldn’t have been the Phantom.

He had been her dearest companion for years—he didn’t need to watch her from a secret place.

And not only did he not draw, if he’d wanted to give her a drawing, he would have simply given one to her without any pomp.

Whoever had drawn this clearly was an expert at their craft.

In the moment she recalled Evelyn, Ollie’s wife, was an art conservator for a museum. If anyone could pick out clues from this drawing and perhaps uncover who’d drawn this, it would be Evelyn. She would ask the woman as soon as she could.

Then she had a funny thought. What if the Phantom hadn’t left the picture? What if Mr. Ashby had followed her and put it there?

He had seemed genuinely regretful of the way their dance had ended. It made sense this could be his way of gently reaching out to her. For all she knew, he was a master artist. She would have to find out.

As she heard footfalls again, she looked at the door in the reflection of her mirror. The Phantom probably wasn’t Victor. But the paper the night daisy was drawn on was distinctive. If Victor had such paper, she would be able to find out quickly.

Anne opened a drawer to her vanity to safely store the drawing for now. Just before she put in in the drawer, she spotted her list of rules.

Never chase a gentleman.

“You didn’t say anything about a phantom,” she said aloud to herself while placing the picture inside and shutting the drawer.

Anne quickly observed herself in the mirror and then went to the shared door.

She unlocked and opened her door, then knocked on his.

A moment later, it opened.

Victor stood in the doorway, wearing his light-blue pajamas. He cocked an eyebrow. “Yes?” he asked.

Well, he definitely wasn’t wearing black.

“May I come in?” Anne replied, hoping not to sound too eager.

Victor nodded then stepped aside.

“Why did you leave the ball?” She already knew the answer but needed a reason to be able to look around the room.

“I was bored,” he replied. “Dantes introduced me to many people tonight, and I grew tired of it.”

Anne looked up to him. “You own a pub, Victor. How could you grow tired of talking to people?”

Victor crossed the room to a desk that had papers and books stacked neatly. Oh, this would be rather easy. She followed him.

“That’s different,” he said, and then as he reached the desk chair, he added, “Mind if I sit? I’ve been going back and forth between some things Keer has updated me on, and the stack of papers my grandfather gave me.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “But how is the pub different from the ball?”

“The people.” Victor lowered into the leather chair, which creaked in response.

“The atmosphere, too. You’ve been to my pub probably thousands of times.

Surely, you know what I mean. It’s people I know, people I don’t need to worry about appearances around.

Here, I have to put complete focus on the way I stand, the way I talk, the words I say, the way I hold my head, where I put my hands. ”

Anne felt a bit of pity for him. He was so far out of his element. “I’m sorry, Victor. I promise, in no time, it will feel normal to you.”

“Maybe.” He turned to fully immerse himself back into whatever it was he was working on.

With his attention averted from her, she hastily looked around his desk to see if he had any cream-colored letter paper, but she couldn’t find any.

Victor reached out to the corner of his desk and lifted a notebook.

The size was too big, but there was a stack of letter paper below it.

He pulled one out and over to him and began to write upon it.

But it was white, not cream.

“How are things going with you being gone?” she asked.

Victor began writing on the paper, a response to his employee Mr. Keer. He didn’t look up, but he still held a conversation with her. “Well, I haven’t been gone long, but it appears everything is fine.”

“That’s good.” May as well go all in. “Do you know how to draw, Victor?”

Victor stopped writing and looked up at her, his brow furrowed. She noted he used black ink too, but then again, who didn’t own black ink? “Do I know how to draw ?”

“Yes. You know, pictures?”

Victor stared at her with his pen hovering over paper, clearly befuddled by this question. “Have you ever known me to draw?”

She hesitated. “No. Humor me for a moment, though. Draw me something.”

He lifted an eyebrow and pulled over another sheet of white letter paper. “Any special requests?”

She almost asked him to draw a daisy, but if he was the Phantom, she wasn’t ready to cross over to that just yet, and asking for him to draw a daisy would be far too obvious. “How about Onyx?”

“All right.” Victor hovered his pen over the paper for a moment and then began to draw a side view of a horse.

The animal’s body was an oval, and the legs were four thin, long rectangles.

Small, parallel lines made up the mane; long, squiggly lines created the tail; and the eye was a circle with a dot inside.

Finally, he ended his creation with a triangle ear.

It was horrific.

Anne covered her mouth with her hand to keep the laughter in.

Victor finished his, erm, masterpiece and handed it to Anne. Though he didn’t smile, humor danced in his eyes. “Are you laughing at me?”

She pulled her hand away and cleared her throat. “Of course not.” A squeak escaped. “This is… Thank you Victor. I shall cherish this forever.” And she couldn’t help it. She started laughing. “Forgive me,” she said once recovered. “That is unkind.”

“I told you I couldn’t draw,” he replied, unbothered by her reaction. Point taken. Victor was not the Phantom, but she would ask Evelyn’s thoughts just in case. He began writing his letter to Mr. Keer again, and without looking up, said, “May I ask why you wanted me to draw something?”

Anne hesitated. She would tell Victor about the drawing someone had left for her, but she wasn’t ready to do so just yet. “Oh, I was just curious is all.”

“Quite an odd request, I should say.”

“Yes. Do you mind if I keep it, though?”

Now that got his attention. He stopped what he was doing and looked up at her, his brow furrowed dramatically. He looked almost appalled. “You want to keep that ?”

“Yes, I would. You don’t mind, do you?”

He stared off at nothing for a moment. “I suppose not, as long as you promise not to frame it and put it up for everyone to see.”

Amused, she promised she would not. “I suppose I should get to bed, then.”

“You’re not going back to the ball?”

“Oh, no. Not tonight. I’ve had my fill of dancing.

” Anne hesitated yet again, now debating if she should share the odd questions from Mr. Ashby.

Normally, she shared everything with Victor.

He was wise and patient. He always knew what to say.

They could debate for hours on whether or not Queen Victoria’s rumored saucy diaries from her marriage to Prince Albert truly existed.

Sometimes, when she was truly stumped in how to handle a situation, she would ask Victor his thoughts on an issue with the children.

For example, a year ago, Freddy had seemed melancholy and when pressed, had lamented that at his boarding school, he hadn’t had anyone he considered a good friend.

He’d felt left out. When she’d asked Victor for advice, he’d suggested Freddy join a club for a niche interest. Not cricket, which most boys joined, but something closer to his heart.

Freddy had chosen the astronomy club. There, he’d come across a young man with whom he shared a class—Ralph Ashby.

But now, she hesitated to tell Victor about Mr. Felton Ashby and the way he’d acted at the end of their dance. Something in her cautioned her against this. Why, she couldn’t say. But she thought it best to listen.

As Anne rose up from her seat and began walking to the door, Victor followed. And when Anne passed the threshold into her room, she turned around and said, “I suppose this is goodnight, then, Victor.”

Victor nodded once. “Goodnight, Anne.” But then he did something that was so unexpected, it would take weeks for her to accept she hadn’t made it up in a dream or hallucination.

“I should have told you this earlier.” Victor’s voice lowered to a dark, velvet tone, making the moment feel more private.

“But you look beautiful tonight.” Victor leaned casually against the doorframe and stared down at her with that intense stare he sometimes had.

This caused sparks to dance over her skin.

He had never complimented her unsolicited before—or at least, it didn’t feel like this when he had, as if she had snuck the most scrumptious piece of whipped cream and strawberry cake.

If someone had told her this moment would have happened—his compliment, how he leaned against the doorframe like a rogue while staring at her, as if she were the only person in existence, the way the air seemed to electrify around them—she would have thought the idea utterly mad.

Never in a million years would she have expected to be affected by…this. To—to her dismay—like it.

Surprised by this admission to herself, Anne stood there frozen like a fool. And amidst her stunned silence, Victor leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

That was all it was. He didn’t kiss her lips. He kept his hands to himself. He didn’t tilt her chin up, he didn’t run his fingertips down her back, and he didn’t pull off her gloves or let her hair down.

It was a mere kiss upon her cheek. One that lingered, yes, and was soft and gentle. But it felt as if something monumental had happened.

Anne’s heart pounded hard against her ribs, and she felt as light as a feather. What in the world was going on?

Still, she stood there like an idiot, not responding. What was she supposed to say? Do?

Victor stepped back and there was nothing in his face that told her his compliment or his kiss had been anything other than a friendly, parting gesture, even though nothing of this sort had ever happened before.

Fortunately, she managed to find her voice. “Goodnight, then, Victor.” It came out high-pitched.

Victor gave her one regal nod. But as he shut his door, she could have sworn there was a ghost of a smile on his lips.

With haste, she shut her own door, locked it, and took several steps back as she pressed a hand to her racing heart.

It had only been a peck on the cheek. It had only been a small compliment. Yet now that she was alone with only the darkness and the rolling sound of sea, she could not rid herself of the enormous grin that grew on her face.

But instead of being happy by this reaction, Anne was horrified. This was a very bad sign, and she had enough life experience to know the threat this warm, honey feeling was.

Anne quickly hurried to her vanity and pulled open a drawer a bit harder than she’d meant to. Swiftly, she took out A Lady’s Rules to Seaside Romance , found a pen, and underlined the last rule hard:

Never fall in love.