Page 85 of The Ladies Least Likely

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

M al walked up and down George Court several times before he gathered the courage to rap on Amaranthe’s door with his walking stick.

After some time the portal opened to reveal a slender young woman.

She had the same dark curling hair and wide-set eyes as Amaranthe, but she wasn’t the woman he wanted.

“Is Amaranthe at home?”

His voice sounded hoarse. He was as anxious as a schoolboy. He realized he ought to call her Miss Illingworth; she hadn’t given him permission to use her given name.

The woman laid a finger against her lips, indicating silence, and led him down the short hallway.

The small house was as neat and welcoming as he remembered.

Not as grand as Hunsdon House, not nearly, but a far sight more comfortable than the bachelor’s quarters he kept above a shop in the Strand.

There was a calm, lovely quiet about the place. Much like its mistress.

He paused at the door of the parlor and stared in.

Amaranthe sat at her desk, bent toward her easel, completely absorbed in her work.

She wore a shapeless, shabby robe and house slippers, and her hair frizzed in a delicate halo about her head.

Rich afternoon light gilded the back of her neck and the elegant curve of her cheek.

She held a small knife in her left hand and a goose feather quill in her right, which she dipped into a small pot of paint and used to scratch on the parchment.

A small exclamation followed, and she employed the knife to scrape away an error, then applied the paint again.

“I am sorry to bother you.”

His voice broke the silence and her concentration. He was sorry to bother her, but not sorry to be here. He wanted to take a seat and watch her for hours. The mere sight of her soothed the ache that plagued him.

She placed the quill in the inkpot and lifted her eyes to his. Her face made a new ache begin, one stranger and deeper.

“I told Inez I am not at home to visitors.”

“I made her admit me.” Not true; the girl had let him in readily. He wondered why. “We haven’t seen you for four days.”

She moved the shawl draped over the back of her chair to the table beside her, covering its surface. He might be mistaken, but he thought he glimpsed the edge-bitten binding of the book that had come from Hunsdon House.

Still hiding things from him, then. How could he ever win her trust?

The light falling through the broad window shifted, softening and warming her face. He longed to trace that bright path with his fingertip.

“I’ve been quite busy. I’m due to return this manuscript to its owner at the end of the week,” she said.

He moved to stand beside her and her easel. She made a small gesture, as if gathering herself to leap like a frightened hare. Why should she be afraid of him?

“I see that you’re adding the red.”

“Yes, I’m touching up the rubrication now that the gilding is done.”

She smelled wonderful, like an English garden in summer. He’d missed her. Mal had never longed for the mere presence of another person like this before.

“But this word stands alone here.” He pointed toward the single word hovering in the lower margin.

Her script was balanced, even, precise. So characteristic of her.

He’d caught himself many times a day, while attending to things at Hunsdon House, listening for her voice in the hall, wondering what she would have to say about an amusing thing the servants or the children did.

It was no better when he was able to visit his own apartments.

Though she’d never been there, he still found his thoughts occupied with her, wondering where she was, what she was doing.

And if she thought of him nearly as often as he did her, or felt a physical sense of deprivation.

“That single word at the bottom is the catchword. This is the last in a quire of eight pages, and I want to be sure the section is bound to the correct quire that follows. Mr. Karim may send the quires out to separate artists for illuminations, and he must have a way to ensure the pages are bound in proper order when they come back.”

Still sitting in that halo of light, she cleaned her knife on the edge of the easel, then tucked it into a small leather case of other tools.

He loved this insight into a world he knew nothing of.

Her world, filled with light and order and concentrated beauty, so unlike the prosaic, noisy world he knew.

“The writing is so neat and even. It’s an art all its own. You’re very good at what you do.”

“Thank you.” As if concluding a play she drew a cloth over the easel and secured it with the bar upon which she rested her wrist. “What did you need?”

To see her. To smell her. To find if the image that had begun to take up space in his head had any relation at all to a real woman.

“To see if you were well. Your brother insists you are merely working, but the children have been disappointed that you’ve not been able to join us for dinner. They insisted I call upon you.” Using the children was a craven excuse, but perhaps it might make her less skittish.

She rubbed her eyebrows as if she were tired. “I am sorry to disappoint them. But I need to get this done.”

“Is there no hope of convincing you to take a small break? I don’t wish to trouble you.” The goal was to see what he could do to help.

And see her.

“I could use a break.” She blinked her eyes. He watched the slow, heavy movement of her lashes. The line of violet around her iris was muted, almost brown. She was tired. “If I don’t rest my eyes, I’ll start skipping lines or confusing words, and that won’t do.”

“Come outside with me for a walk. We can take a turn through Leicester Square.”

She rose and reached for her shawl. “I like that idea. Let me dress.”

It was the Hunsdon manuscript she had covered with her shawl. The volume lay on the table beside her, close to hand. He wondered if she were reading through it as she suggested. He forced his eyes away. He wasn’t here to pry.

Yes, he was, but as he prowled around the parlor while she ran upstairs to change, he couldn’t see anything out of order. Nothing that roused his suspicions. Nothing that told him he could not trust her.

Nothing that told him how he might win a smile. Her affection.

Her hand.

He was studying one of the paintings on the wall, what appeared to be a reproduction of a picture in an illuminated manuscript, and wondering what about these archaic artifacts appealed to Miss Amaranthe when she descended the stairs.

She wore a pair of sturdy half boots and a riding habit that had seen better days and held a small, jaunty hat in her hand.

He was struck anew by her graceful self-possession. She carried herself like a woman of breeding. It made her appealing even in plain garb, but he had to admit he liked to see her splendidly turned out. All those gowns lying untouched in Sybil’s dressing room—he should have sent them home with her.

So that she could wear them and interest other men, while he had to beat down her door to see her? That wouldn’t do.

“That didn’t take long,” he observed, setting his own hat on his head.

“Only rich women can afford to spend time dressing. I’ve one more quire to finish before Saturday, and I must give the ink time to dry before I go back through and look for errors.”

“You are very thorough.” One of the many things he liked about her. Capable, efficient. Sensible.

No wonder she’d declined to marry him.

“It’s said that medieval scribes intentionally introduced at least one error into their manuscripts as a gesture of humility, because only God is perfect.” She hesitated as he held out his arm, then took it. The warmth of her small hand around his elbow filled him with a strange triumph.

“I wish I’d known that. I could have used it in defense of my examinations at university.”

She laughed, and the warm, low sound filled his chest with delight.

He held her arm securely as they stepped from George Court and dodged traffic across bustling Whitcomb Street.

He relished the way her body fit beside his, the way their strides matched as they ducked through an alley to come out into the broad expanse of Leicester Square.

Unlike the nearby avenues of commerce, coaches and chairs moved leisurely along the iron fence surrounding the park, overlooked by rows of grand houses.

They walked companionably along the fence enclosing the green.

Mal felt none of the self-consciousness that he usually felt around women, none of that groping for things to say.

Amaranthe was calm and at ease in her demeanor, though he felt alert and full of anticipation, alive to the warmth of her arm entwined with his, the suggestive brush of her skirts against his legs.

She glanced at the neat Palladian expanse of Leicester House, once home to princes and queens.

“Have you brought the children to see Sir Ashton Lever’s collection?

” she asked. “I hear he converted the entire first floor of Leicester House to a gallery, and he has a great many curiosities on display there, including items Captain Cook brought back from his voyages.”

“I regret that I haven’t had time to take the children to any of the places I should,” Mal said.

“They deserve a treat, considering they’ve been mewed up in Hunsdon House since their father died.

” Was she offering him an opportunity? “Have you been? You can come with and show us your favorite exhibits.”

“The entrance fee is five shillings, so I have not yet been inside,” she said. “And as for visiting together—I could not presume—that is, I ought not be telling you how to go on with the children. I have no right.”

“You’d have the right did you marry me,” he blurted, not nearly as casual as he wanted to be.

She paused. “Grey,” she said, and the informal address pleased him, though her tone was chiding.