Page 77 of A Lady’s Guide to Subterfuge and Science

“Why didn’t you let me out?”

An uncertain expression crossed his features. “Because you’d have been found out. And ruined.”

“Ruined for being a woman in men’s clothing?”

“Ruined for being a woman in men’s clothing holed up with a man inside of a supply closet,” he corrected.

He was right. She knew he was right, and still she was furious. Furious that Jennings had his hands on her work, furious that she had no idea what he intended to do with it, and furious that—that—

“I shouldn’t have come here,” she ground out, exiting the supply closet and marching out of the room.

Oliver trailed behind her. “Whatever Jennings intends to do—”

“What does he intend to do?” Kalila burst out, leaving the building and leading them back toward Rosewood. She needed to fetch her wig or at least figure out how to solve the issue of her hair before the day began.

“I don’t know,” Oliver said, scrambling to keep up with her. “But I promise you that—”

“Don’t,” she snapped, whirling around to face him. “Do not make promises you can’t keep. That paper was—is everything to me. It’s my life’s work.”

And I abandoned it.

“I know,” he said. “I know it is. But we don’t know what Jennings intends to do with it.”

“No,” she said, trying to calm herself, “I suppose not.”

“There’s really only so much he can do,” Oliver continued, taking her by the elbow and leading her to Rosewood.

Kalila wracked her brain in an attempt to run through every possibility. What could he do with a paper that was so obviously hers?

She let out a long breath. “Still, he was being very suspicious about it.”

“Jennings is always like that,” Oliver told her, leading her into the house. “I’ve never seen him behave otherwise. But the paper is yours, Kalila. Everyone knows it. The worst he could do is destroy it.”

“But you’ll help me rewrite it.”

He smiled then, dazzling and comforting all at once. “There you go. Everything you wrote is still in that head of yours, my clever girl.”

There was that endearment again. As before, it caused her heart to skip a beat.

Well, two. But she’d never admit to that.

“There you are.”

Hughes approached them with a perfect bundle of blond curls in his hands.

“Is that—?” Kalila gasped, reaching out to take the wig from his hands. It looked as if it hadn’t been sopping wet only a day ago. She tugged it over her curls and said, “You are a marvel, Mr. Hughes.”

“Well done, Hughes,” Oliver said. “Saving the day, as always.”

A charming blush came over Hughes’s face. “It was nothing. Will you be taking breakfast?”

“There’s no time.” Kalila fussed with her wig, tucking her stray curls beneath it. “We can’t be late.”

“As the lady commands,” Oliver said, once again following her out of the house and down the road back to the university. The sun was high in the sky now, and the streets were bustling with people.

“I wish I knew what to expect,” Kalila murmured as Oliver opened the door to 107 for the second time that day.

“Indeed,” Oliver said, joining her at a bench, “but I very much doubt we’ll hear more of it tod—”