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Don’t ask anything else. I have nothing else to give.
She stared into his eyes for a long moment. “You’re afraid,” she whispered. “What are you afraid of?”
He turned his head away. They were so different. She flung herself headfirst into danger and he’d replaced his fear with routine. Their futures diverged.
His place was at Thornhill House, sleeves rolled up as he tested the soil, propagated plants in his conservatory, designed new ways to irrigate fields.
She wanted to become a spy for the Crown, as her parents had been. She wanted to avenge their deaths.
“There’s something you’re not telling me, Drew.” She turned his words back on him. “Something about the kidnapping. How did you free yourself? There was only a brief mention of it in the Duke Dossier.”
He stared at her. How could she know that he’d freed himself? No one knew that. And what in Hell was a duke dossier? “Thewhat?”
“Oh, I forgot that I never told you about that. My uncle compiled a background document on you. He called it the Duke Dossier and it detailed all four of London’s eligible dukes, with you being the number-one choice. That’s how I knew all about your treatises on crop rotation techniques.”
“I wondered why you’d been reading agricultural journals.”
“He probably had you watched for weeks, months, even. Was there any new addition to your household staff in the weeks before you came to London?”
He thought about it. “A new scullery maid.”
“My uncle is very thorough.”
“So you know everything about me. That puts me at a decided disadvantage, I’d say.”
“You care about the plight of the tenant farmers of England, you introduced a bill on tenant rights that was laughed out of Parliament, you retreated to Cornwall where your estate now serves as a model for a true end to famine. You sounded very noble and rather boring, if I’m being truthful.”
“Ouch.”
“I didn’t say that I found you boring. When I met you, I learned there was more to you than what my uncle wrote. For example, he neglected to inform me that you were a former rake. I suppose he thought that information inappropriate for a young lady.”
“You discovered that part all on your own.”
She lowered her skirts and covered her breasts with her bodice. “I certainly did.” She rested her head on his chest.
He played with strands of her hair, the texture as soft and smooth as silk. He pulled the coverlet over them. “There’s one thing I still don’t understand. Why would Rafe write a coded diary and hide it in a secret room? No one else could have found and deciphered it but you.”
“Or someone like me. Someone raised on spy craft. I’d say he kept the diary out of a sense of pride and perhaps as a legacy. If anything happens to him, he’d want there to be a possibility that someone, someday would know what he’d tried to do.”
“He’s always been a hothead. Never thinks things through. The idiot will get himself killed.”
“He may even have left another coded letter for my uncle somewhere, using one of the ciphers common to our organization. He’s doing all of this to prove himself to Sir Malcolm.”
“You know we can’t just run off together, Mina. You’d be ruined.”
She raised her head and caught his eye. “Does it seem to you as though I’m concerned about my reputation?”
“I don’t want to be the cause of your options being limited.”
“Then we’ll take Beatrice with us. She’ll be thrilled. We can leave her at Thornhill House in your library and she won’t emerge for a year.”
“Mother won’t like it. The Season isn’t over and she still has hopes for finding Beatrice a match.”
“Beatrice has no desire to wed. Find a way to convince your mother that Beatrice is miserable. She hates going to balls and dancing with shallow dandies. Allow her into your life for once. She’s not only longing for your library, she wants to be your friend. She wants your love and your acceptance. This is your chance to forge a real connection with your sister.”
“She can ride this Season out. It will give me time to continue renovating Thornhill.”
“If you truly care about your sister, you’ll let her choose her own destiny. You’ll let her be free to make her own choices.”
