AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“This is mad,” she breathed.
Mr. Farrington snorted. “A bit late for regrets.”
“My arrangement with Mr. Gibbs was a convenience. He obviously misunderstood the terms. There was no need to break his—”
Suddenly, he clasped her shoulders, pivoted, and forced her down onto a chair beside the hearth. Then, he bent close, bracing a hand on the chair’s back. “I’ve traveled six hundred miles in seven days in the middle of bloody winter to the middle of bloody nowhere because my private secretary wanted a bloody box.”
She nudged her spectacles higher. “It’s more than a—”
“It’s abox,Miss Sinclair. And you were willing to wed a perfect stranger to obtain it.Maddoes not begin to describe this.”
His eyes were the color of old coins, his dimples nowhere to be found. She’d never seen Andrew Farrington this furious. Not even when the thumbless merchant had stolen their money and fled on their camel.
“It was Uncle’s dying wish that his Sinclair collection be completed,” she rasped.
“Your uncle is still alive. Likely he’ll outlive his assistant, particularly if Gibbs ever touches you again. What the devil was Arthur thinking, sending you on this ludicrous crusade with a drunken lecher?”
To Euphemia, it didn’t matter what he’d been thinking. It didn’t matter that this mission was mad. She owed him everything.
Arthur Sinclair, while absentminded and a bit fanciful about their Scottish heritage, had offered her employment when she’d had nothing—no parents, no funds, no prospects for marriage. A historian who’d spent his life tutoring young gentlemen at Oxford, Uncle Arthur had invited Euphemia to become his research assistant at seventeen, following her father’s death. It was an unconventional choice, hiring a female. But he hadn’t cared a whit. And he’d never treated her as anything other than capable.
Before he’d retired several years past, Arthur had introduced her to Andrew Farrington, his former pupil and fellow member of the Society of Antiquaries. He’d meant to secure her future with a new employer, and he’d chosen well.
Mr. Farrington was the son of a baronet. His cousin—more of a sister, really—was the wealthy Marchioness of Rutherford. He could have lived in comfortable indolence on his family’s allowance until he’d inherited his father’s title and estate. Instead, having developed a keen interest in archeology as a young man, he’d entered the antiquities trade. By the time he’d hired Euphemia, he was among the most prominent dealers in England. His aristocratic connections gained him clientele initially, of course, but his success wasn’t the result of a name. It was entirely the man’s nature: ambitious, persuasive, fair-minded, and incisive.
Everything she had, including her position with Mr. Farrington, was thanks to Uncle Arthur. Compared to that debt, traveling to Scotland to retrieve a box—even one she must wed a stranger to acquire—was a mere inconvenience.
“My assignment is no more ludicrous than your quest for the marble of Aristaeus,” she argued, raising her chin against his blazing disapproval. “A quest which, need I remind you, necessitated my donning your pantaloons and that appalling fringed hat.”
“You were never in a moment’s danger.”
“The carpet trader offered to purchase me for the night!”
“And I declined his offer, if you recall.”
“Heaven knows what might have happened if he’d discovered I was female.”
“Nothing. Had he pressed the issue, I would have run him through.”
“Don’t be silly. You are not a violent man.” She waved her fingers in a sweeping motion. “Recent indiscretions notwithstanding.”
His glare hardened. “Every man is capable of violence, given sufficient incentive.”
She clicked her tongue. “My point is this: Uncle Arthur believes the swan chest is the final relic necessary to complete his Sinclair collection. Ivolunteeredto help, and he provided his new assistant as a travel companion. How was he to know Mr. Gibbs had a weakness for Scottish whisky?” She clutched the wool of his coat tighter around her. Heavens, his mouth was close.
His eyes flared. His fine lips tightened. With a finger, he swiped away a bit of slush from her right ear. Then, he adjusted the wire of her spectacles behind the same ear, helping straighten them.
For some reason, the casual touches sent shivers rippling across her body. Warm shivers. Confusing shivers.
When the cottage’s front door opened, he straightened away from her. A frigid gust made the peat fire dance.
“Couldnae find the blacksmith,” said the old woman who entered with a bearded man in tow. “So, I brought the goldsmith and his son.”
The lanky, middle-aged man frowned. “I’m the innkeeper.”
The old woman lowered her plaid off wild gray hair and squinted up at him. “Ye are? Then, who’s the lad outside tendin’ the horses?”
“The blacksmith’s apprentice. One of the Ross clan, I reckon.”
