Page 10 of The Lady Plays with Fire

Of course, a man like him had not thought of getting a glass for her.

Mere companions, or poor relations, or whatever part he imagined she played, evidently did not require—or perhaps deserve—refreshments.

“Perhaps he will yet do the polite thing,” Mrs. Hayes went on, “and agree to share the box with us.”

Julia dipped her head to hide the incredulous laugh that rose to her lips. Polite? She doubted the man even knew the meaning of the word.

Besides, having to spend an hour or two in company last night had likely confirmed Lord Dunstane in his reclusive ways.

With any luck, he was already on his way back to Scotland.

Then at least they might be left to enjoy his—their—box in peace.

* * *

Porter’s Antiquarian Bookshop was not the sort of place that stocked titles to amuse Mrs. Hayes on a dull autumn evening. It was, however, the location of the makeshift editorial office for Mrs. Goode’s Magazine for Misses. Once each month, any of the writers who happened to be in Town met in the room at the back of the shop to discuss matters of business and plan future issues. The rest of the time, the space was used for storage, which explained its perpetually disheveled state.

Behind the counter near the front of the shop were three things of interest to Julia: a pigeonhole in which messages could be left for “Mrs. Goode,” a key to the back room, and a clerk who knew enough to look the other way when Julia slipped a folded note from her reticule and reached across into the cubby.

With the tip of her finger, she could feel that the little box was half full of paper. Lady Stalbridge’s servant had not yet come to collect her messages, then. Miss on Scene’s column might be the last one in, but once it was shuffled in between Miss N.’s News and Miss R.’s Arts and Accomplishments, no one need be the wiser.

It was something of a stretch to reach the pigeonhole, and its rounded opening required her to refold her column to make it fit. On her second attempt, she turned her head, the better to extend her arm, and made two discoveries.

The first was that the hook from which the key to the back room ordinarily hung was empty.

That, in and of itself, was not surprising, though today was not a meeting day. Miss Cooper, the artist behind the magazine’s regular cartoon, “What Miss C. Saw”—a satirical look at people and places about Town, which readers had instantly dubbed the “Unfashionable Plates”—often worked in the back room, though in Julia’s estimation, the light was rather poor for drawing.

Constantia Cooper had not taken any of the staff members into her confidence, so no one, with the possible exception of Lady Stalbridge, knew where she lived or anything about her family. It required no great stretch of imagination to guess that someone at home disapproved of her sketching hobby. But that begged the question of how she then got away to spend hours at Porter’s, evidently unchaperoned.

Neck twisted, shoulder strained, Julia was weighing whether to investigate after—or rather, if—she managed to get her blasted letter into the blasted box, when she made the second discovery.

Lord Dunstane was headed her way, a curious—well, it might be more accurate to describe it as disapproving —expression on his face.

“Miss Addison?”

Yes, definitely a note of disapproval, though she could not seem to help liking the way her name sounded on his lips, the way his slight brogue made the vowels curve in unexpected ways.

“My lord,” she answered, sliding slowly down the counter on which she had been half-propped as if it were the most natural posture in the world. Should I drop the note? Or—? Her hand brushed against the binding of a book, and without a second thought, she snatched it up. In the half a moment it took for him to close the gap between them, she managed to slip her column between the book’s pages and now dipped into a curtsy.

When she looked up again, he was watching her expectantly, obviously awaiting an explanation for her odd behavior. Were his eyes gray? Or possibly green? Even the midday light streaming through Porter’s front window was not bright enough for her to determine. And she was certainly not going to stare.

“I, er—” she began, then giggled, then despised herself for giggling. “I came in to fetch a book they were holding for Mrs. Hayes, but I couldn’t get the clerk to help me, so I had to reach it myself.”

At that, the clerk—who had been standing a few feet away, leafing through a stack of orders and steadfastly not looking in her direction as he had no doubt been instructed—glanced down at her over the top rim of his spectacles, gave a little harumph of irritation, and strode off toward another customer.

With a triumphant smile, Julia held up the small, battered volume, bound in dull brown leather. “I’ve managed it, you see,” she said, belatedly tugging on the sleeve of her spencer to straighten it.

Surely this little display would send the man scurrying through the shop door behind her.

“May I?” he asked instead, and held out his hand, palm upward, for the book.

“May you . . . Oh. You wanted to see . . . oh, yes, of course.” As she rambled, she surreptitiously tucked the folded letter more securely between the book’s pages before surrendering it.

Lord Dunstane was, objectively speaking, a handsome man. More handsome than any man with red hair had a right to be, as far as Julia was concerned. If it had been the pale red shade, tending toward blond, that Constantia Cooper sported, Julia could have dismissed him more easily. But his hair was darker, not quite auburn. And he wore it unfashionably long, the better to frame a collection of sculpted features, the sort of face that made her curious what it would take to soften his expression, why he never smiled.

Not, she supposed, that their two encounters had been especially pleasant from his perspective either. Though her appearance today might at least be worth another sardonic curl of the lips, as she had glimpsed last night.

But a real smile? Coaxing one of those would be a challenge, indeed.