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I f Shay rushed through his breakfast so he could get to the dower cottage all the sooner, no one on his staff was impertinent enough to point it out. Not the way he’d hardly chewed his food before washing it down with coffee. Or the fact he’d not bothered with a coat since he would have needed to wait for Cragen to help him into it. And he didn’t want to wait.

He was only eager to get his hands on the new book and read a story directly from the mind of the author. At least, that is what he told himself.

However, as he took the steps to her door two at a time, he realized it might be too early to visit. Did she sleep late? Would he catch her just out of bed? Maybe she’d be in only her robe at the breakfast table. Would her hair be down? The golden locks rippling over her shoulders?

Not one of those thoughts had anything to do with the book.

Blast and damn.

He knocked and waited for Frannie to let him in. As was usual she ducked away without looking at him.

“Good morning, Frannie. Are you well?”

“Aye, m’lord. Miss Thea is a kind woman. I enjoy working for her. Thank ye for allowing her to stay.”

“I’m glad to hear you are pleased to work for her. Is she available?” He looked toward the breakfast room, but Frannie gestured toward the drawing room.

“Yes. She is already working. The woman hardly ever takes a break. I worry her fingers will be worn down to nubs if she continues writing at such a pace.”

“Do you know what she’s writing?” Shay wondered if Thea had shared that information.

“Nay, m’lord. It’s not my place to know.”

He thought he caught a slight twitch of Frannie’s lips, but he didn’t dare call her out for she would likely melt into a puddle. He chose to ignore it and went into the drawing room.

Thea was inside and looked much like he’d seen her the day before. Her hair was up in the messy bun again, the smudge of ink was on her chin this morning and her gown was a light green rather than blue. Those were the only real changes Shay noted.

He wondered how she did this day after day. Sitting in the same place, fingers flying over blank pages to capture the words her mind put together in the most enticing ways. Perhaps to her it wasn’t as if she were sitting in one place. As the author she was off on the same adventures as her characters.

Maybe that was why she seemed so far away.

It only took one throat clearing to gain her attention this morning. Perhaps she was not so deeply embedded in her story yet that day.

“Good morning, Lord Flemming,” she greeted him with a smile and he wanted for anything to tell her to call him Shay, but of course, he could not. It wouldn’t be proper.

Nor would the fact that he was in the room with her alone and planned to stay that way for the better part of the day. Still he’d not push things.

“Good morning to you as well, Thea.”

“You are ready to begin reading my newest book?”

“If it is convenient for me to do so while you work. I can assure you I’m a very quiet reader.”

“As you’ve observed already, once I’m engaged in my writing I hardly notice much else that goes on around me.”

He nodded.

“If I may, I have a few questions,” he said. His questions had only been keeping him up most of the night, so he was pleased when she nodded. “How long have you been writing? The first Theodore Stonecliff novel came out near eight years ago. You would have only been nineteen.”

“That’s correct. I’ve always loved reading, and as a young girl I would often write my own stories when I had nothing new to read. They were generally tales of horses and fairies. But after my dowry was lost and there was no money for books, I turned to writing my own tales. The Case of the Widow’s Veil had been written as I sat in my room watching life outside my window. Lady Worthington lived next door and was newly widowed. She was quite young and beautiful and her husband was an old, crochety man. I’d heard him bellowing at times.”

“I’d met him and can say bellowing was his common volume.”

She smiled and continued.

“A few days after the man died I was sitting at my window which looked out into their gardens and I saw Lady Worthington come out and sit on a bench near the far corner of the area. She was dressed in full black including a heavy black veil. But as she sat she peeled back the lace and removed the veil and she was smiling. Not just the smile of sitting in the sunshine on a lovely day, but this smile…”

Even knowing the details of the book she spoke of, and knowing what happened, he found himself eagerly anticipating her next words.

“That smile was the expression of a woman who was utterly joyful. I’m sure what I witnessed was merely the woman appreciating her freedom after years of being married to a tyrant. Even though I wasn’t out in Society, I knew Lord Worthington arranged the marriage with Lady Worthington’s father to get ownership of the land between their properties in Sussex. But my imagination set off on an alternative reason for the woman’s glee.”

“It is surely one thing to write for one’s own entertainment and another to have a book published and sent out into the world.”

The sparkle he’d noticed in her eyes as she spoke of writing seemed to dim somewhat as she looked down at her ink-stained fingers.

“Stephen went through the money at an alarming rate. He’d had a few hefty losses and the staff was let go. There was no food in the house and I began to panic. He was younger than me, yes, but as my brother and the viscount, I’d thought he would take care of me.” She frowned. “That night as I lay in bed, unable to sleep for the hunger, while my brother was out yet again, I came to the awareness that what I’d always thought was not true. Stephen wasn’t going to take care of me. I would have to see to things myself. I knew I needed to find a way to earn enough money to buy food, and heat our home when winter came. I first thought to take on sewing, but I had never been very proficient with a needle and thread, and it didn’t make much money. As I looked around my rooms considering what I might do, my gaze fell upon the pile of papers. The manuscript for The Case of the Widow’s Veil . And I had an idea. I knew no publisher would buy a novel written by a woman, so I planned and plotted and hired my man of business to see to the things I could not.”

“Amazing.”

“I didn’t realize I would sell so many books or make quite so much money. And while doing something I loved. Originally, I thought only to have enough for food, but then I thought perhaps I could replace my dowry and I might somehow still have a chance at the life I had planned. But as we’ve already discussed, my brother suffers from a sickness. When I came to him and told him I’d found the funds in the library and wanted to use them for my dowry, he spoke of using that money to win an even larger sum so he might put everything back to rights.”

“I can only imagine the money was gone that same night.”

She let out a breath. “You would be correct.”

“I’m sorry,” he said feeling the weight of his own guilt.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for. It is not your fault,” she said kindly, but he knew that wasn’t exactly true.

*

Lord Flemming peppered Thea with more questions, and she found it was rather enjoyable to have someone to speak to about her life these last eight years. Other than the MacLains, no one knew what she’d done to survive.

Since she’d never had a proper come out, she didn’t know many ladies of the ton, but even still she knew she would not be accepted if anyone were to find out the real reason her fingers were always stained with ink.

And now this stranger knew everything. He knew things she’d not even shared with the MacLains simply because he’d asked.

The way he’d listened without judgment gave her the courage to tell him even more of her truth until eventually Frannie came in with the noon meal and Thea realized she’d hardly finished a full page of writing.

She’d never be able to leave the man’s home at this rate.

“I brought some for you as well, my lord.”

Frannie handed the large man a dish with stew and a piece of bread before she set Thea’s meal on the edge of the desk.

“Best eat it while it’s still hot today, miss,” Frannie warned.

“You take your meals at your desk instead of the dining room?” the marquess asked. Even that question had been edged only in amusement rather than judgment.

“I know it’s improper, but it allows me to continue working. Besides, there is no one in my dining room to notice I am not there.”

The man chuckled. “I have the same predicament in my own dining room.” Carrying the dish over to the small table by the window, he nodded. “Shall we sit here and converse while we eat? Afterward you have my word I will stop my yammering and allow you to get to work.”

She smiled and joined him at the table. Recalling her lessons on deportment she extended her best manners and noticed for such a large man he was very graceful and tidy as he finished every bite a few minutes before her.

“Frannie was right, it is better when it’s hot.” When the girl came to take their dishes, Thea noticed her smug smile but said nothing. While Thea was thankful to have someone in the house tasked with making sure Thea ate at some point during the day, the younger woman had taken on the role of being Thea’s mother.

Thea didn’t argue for it was nice to have someone care. It had been so long since anyone had.

She hated when she turned pitiful. She’d long since given up the habit of curling up in a ball on her bed and crying until her eyes ran dry and her throat burned. Nothing productive had come of it. Her tears certainly hadn’t brought her mother back to her or improved their household situation.

For all this time she hadn’t needed anyone. She’d made sure of it. Sure she required a man to turn in her manuscripts and collect her earnings, but she was able to pay for such a service rather than to depend on anyone’s charity.

Definitely not Lord Flemming’s.

She returned to her desk and dipped her quill in the ink to begin writing. She wasn’t quite able to slip into that stasis she normally entered when her mind provided the words. The soft turning of pages from the man in the room with her kept her floating just above that other place.

It wasn’t that he was a distraction, or much of one. He was just there taking up space. Shaking her head she began writing again.

“Might I ask a question,” he said.

“Certainly.” It wasn’t as if she was writing anything yet.

“Why doesn’t your hero have a real name? Everywhere he’s mentioned it just says, ‘Hero said,’ or ‘Hero did.’ Surely his name isn’t Hero .”

“No, it isn’t. I don’t know his name yet. I don’t know him well enough to have been properly introduced, I guess.” It sounded mad when she explained it like that, but there was not another reason she could give that would make any sense.

“He’s a real person?”

“Well, no. But he needs to feel like a real person and I will write him as I know him to be and then, eventually, his name will be revealed to me. I’ll go back and fill it in later.”

“I see. Is there any chance his name will be Shay Buchanan?”

“I would say little to no chance, my lord.”

He chuckled and continued reading.

This time as she started writing again, she found herself smiling and as she thought of her hero, she pictured him with midnight hair and eyes the light blue of a winter’s morning. Speaking of winter…

“Might I ask you a question?” she said, setting her quill aside as she stretched her aching fingers.

“Would it be horribly improper if the two of us just asked our questions as we have them, rather than having to ask first about asking? Seems more efficient that way, aye?”

She smiled and nodded.

“Very well. The snow on the mountains. How long does it linger?” She looked out the window at the white summits.

“Those out there will be capped until June. The loch nearby is icy, cold all year long as the snow melts. Freeze a man’s—uh, fingers off.”

She pressed her lips together knowing Lord Flemming had not intended to say “fingers.”

“But not a woman’s fingers?” she asked being sure to look innocently curious. She should have allowed him to cover his slip, but she enjoyed making him smile.

“Ye are a wily one.” He was grinning as he shook his head and turned back to the page he was reading.

They continued on in silence once more.

“I know who did it,” he proclaimed, drawing her attention from the words she was writing on the page. He’d been reading all of eighteen minutes.

“I assure you that’s impossible,” she said, maybe a bit smugly. She prided herself in making sure her twists were revealed at the perfect moment and that no one ever saw them coming.

“It’s the groom. He’s shifty.”

She did her best to stifle a smile for he was indeed wrong, but she’d made the groom look shifty on purpose so one might think it was him. All the while overlooking the actual villain.

“I’m sorry to disappoint, but it’s not the groom.”

“You’re certain? I might say it wasn’t the groom if it really was the groom and I wanted to throw someone off.” Another impressive tactic, but not one she’d employed this time.

“Or perhaps the groom looks suspicious on purpose, so you think it’s him.”

“You’re a canny one, lass,” he said, and she was sure it was a compliment this time.

“Thank you, my lord.”

The room fell into silence and Thea found that place where the story took her away and she didn’t notice anyone or anything until the room grew dark and Lord Flemming was gone.