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That was it! The book. When he’d seen her in his cottage she had been hunched over his copy of Bacon’s ESSAYS.
A flash of memory, and he saw himself trying to pick up her little red book the day he’d met her. S
he had panicked—practically leaped in front of him to get her hands on the little tome first. She must have thought that he’d somehow managed to get his hands on her book.
But what the hell was in the book?
Chapter 6
He watched her all day. He knew just how to trail a person, slipping around corners and hiding in empty rooms. Elizabeth, who had no reason to think that anyone might be following her, was never the wiser. He listened as she read aloud, watched as she marched back and forth across the hall, fetching unnecessary objects for his aunt.
She treated Agatha with respect and affection. James kept listening for signs of impatience or anger, but whenever his aunt acted in an unreasonable manner, Elizabeth reacted with an amused indulgence that James found enchanting.
Her restraint in the face of his aunt’s whimsies was nothing short of awe-inspiring. James would have lost his temper by noon. Miss Hotchkiss was still smiling when she left Danbury House at four in the afternoon.
James watched from the window as she strolled down the drive. Her head was bobbing slightly from side to side, and he had the strangest, warmest feeling that she was singing to herself. Without thinking, he started to whistle.
“What’s that tune?”
He looked up. His aunt was standing in the doorway of her drawing room, leaning heavily on her cane.
“Nothing to which you’d want to know the words,” he said with a rakish smile.
“Nonsense. If it’s naughty, then I certainly want to know it.”
James chuckled. “Aunt Agatha, I didn’t tell you the words when you caught me humming that sailors’ ditty when I was twelve, and I’m certainly not about to tell you the words to this one.”
“Hmmph.” She thumped her cane and turned around. “Come and keep me company while I have tea.”
James followed her into the drawing room and took a seat across from her. “Actually,” he began, “I’m pleased you invited me to join you. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your companion.”
“Miss Hotchkiss?”
“Yes,” he said, trying to sound disinterested. “Petite, blond.”
Agatha smiled knowingly, her pale blue eyes crafty as ever. “Ah, so you noticed.”
James pretended not to understand. “That her hair is blond? It would be difficult to miss, Aunt.”
“I meant that she is cute as a button and you know it.”
“Miss Hotchkiss is certainly attractive,” he said, “but—”
“But she isn’t your sort of woman,” she finished for him. “I know.” She looked up. “I forget how you take your tea.”
James narrowed his eyes. Aunt Agatha never forgot anything. “Milk, no sugar,” he said suspiciously. “And why would you think Miss Hotchkiss isn’t my sort of woman?”
Agatha shrugged delicately and poured. “She has a rather understated elegance, after all.”
James paused. “I believe you may have just insulted me.”
“Well, you must admit that other woman was a trifle…ah, shall we say…” She handed him his tea. “Overblown?”
“What other woman?”
“You know. The one with the red hair and the…” She lifted her hands to the level of her chest and started making vague, circular motions. “You know.”
“Aunt Agatha, she was an opera singer!”
