Page 39 of Sir Andrew and the Authoress

“I promised I would tell no one where she takes herself when she wishes to be alone.”

“And how did you come across this hidden hole of hers?”

“Quite by accident, I assure you.”

“Humph.” The dowager duchess strode to the windows overlooking the courtyard. “She is neglecting our guests. Do tell her I said so when you see her, Sir Andrew. You may also tell her I am both displeased and impressed with your ability to keep her confidences.” Then she turned and strode from the room, regal as an empress, without saying another word to him.

His shoulders fell, and he stared after the dowager duchess in shock, but moments after she vanished from the doorway, one of the guardsmen-playing-footman appeared. Sterling, one of the duke’s favorites.

The guard bowed, then returned to his soldier-stiff stance. “Sir Andrew. As a servant to His Grace, I must ask that you reveal Lady Josephine’s whereabouts to me. I am under orders to keep the family safe.”

“The family is safe.” Andrew sighed and rubbed at his temple. “Josephine is in the castle, and so long as she is within its walls, you needn’t be her shadow. Correct?”

The guardsman appeared uncertain. “That is true. However, my position requires that I know each member of the family is protected. I understand and honor your promise to my lady. I ask instead that you ensure she is where you think her to be, and if she is not, that you find myself or one of the other guardsmen immediately, so we might search her out.”

Andrew couldn’t fault the man for fulfilling his duty. Josephine would have to endure another invasion of her haven. “That is acceptable.”

The guard bowed in thanks, then withdrew. Andrew picked up his book from where it had fallen, then left the library. To ensure he wasn’t followed, Andrew wove through the castle as carefully as possible. He went through multiple rooms, even down to the kitchens, where he liberated several small items from the pantries. Then he slipped through servants’ hidden halls, and finally darted into the closet that concealed the entrance to the tower.

Though he’d never admit it, not even to himself, an excuse to look in on Josephine had been precisely what he was waiting for.

* * *

Finding a moment to slip away to her tower hadn’t been easy for Josephine. Not for the last two days. Finally, she decided the only thing for it was to take no more than toast for breakfast and leave the dining room before anyone else had entered it.

The clock she had taken from the corner of a room where no one noticed it kept her abreast of the time. Everyone else would have finished breakfast an hour or more ago, and she had been hard at work on her manuscript for nearly two hours.

When she heard a noise from the stairs, she stilled the scratching of her quill. Then looked at it with a scowl. Bother the pens. She ought to have bought one of the newer variety in London when she had the chance. She was quite tired of repairing her instrument and would use pencil were it tidier.

“Josephine?” Andrew’s voice startled a blush from her, and it preceded him into the tower room. She looked up from her work but did not rise from her cushions. She tucked her feet closer.

“I am here.”

Andrew emerged from the staircase wearing a grin and carrying a cloth bundle. “I knew you were here.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Had you any great need to find me? I cannot imagine one.”

Andrew sat without waiting for an invitation, taking the same place as before, against the stone between two stained glass windows. “Your grandmother set everyone in the household to looking for you.”

“Oh.” Josephine put down her pen and clutched her shawl closer to her shoulders. The tower was somewhat cold this morning. “I did not think my company was wanted this morning.”

“There’s an eligible nobleman in the castle,” Andrew said, tone suspiciously light. “Of course the dowager duchess wishes you present.”

“Bother. Does that mean I need to go to my grandmother?” She prepared to stand, gathering her skirts in hand.

“I made your excuses,” he said, looking away from her. “And I might have told her I knew where you were.”

Her skin prickled, and everything went cold. “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone—”

“And I didn’t,” he rushed to say, making a calming motion with one hand. “No one knows your precise location. But I had to reassure her, so she did not send out a search party. The guards were also concerned. I thought Sterling might try to force your location out of me.”

She covered her mouth with one hand. “So you told everyone—”

“Your grandmother and Sterling,” he corrected.

Josephine put as much fierceness in her glare as she could, but the panic bubbling up in her chest was no less palpable. “You told both of them, which might as well have meant announcing it from the ramparts, that you know where I disappear to? When no one else does?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “It was that or let them keep looking for you until they’d grown frenzied with worry. No one knows where you are for certain, only that you are safe inside the castle.”