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“And now we’re going to have to torture all of the books in your library in order to find the key to this coded diary.”
“There are too many books. How are we to narrow the search?” he asked.
“Sort through the books to see if any of them have any marks, any letters underlined or papers stuck between the pages. Or perhaps you can think of a book that had a special significance to your brother?”
“I told you he wasn’t much of a reader.”
“May I keep the diary for now, Your Grace?”
“You obviously have a talent for this sort of thing. Please do keep it. Perhaps you may be able to determine the pattern of the cipher, even without the key.”
“Thank you.” Her heart warmed at the thought that he recognized her talents and asked for her help. He really should stop being the exact opposite of what she’d imagined him to be.
“And perhaps my sister can assist you. She certainly loves torturing words until they reveal their origins,” he added, making it even more difficult for her to distance her emotions.
A gentleman who recognized the talents and capabilities of young ladies, didn’t feel threatened by them, and actively sought occasions for encouraging those talents to be put to use.
Oh dear. Mina was going to have to work much harder to protect her heart. He was launching quite the attack on her defenses.
She couldn’t lose her head, or her heart. He was a means to an end.
She was glad to have the opportunity to crack the code. If this diary held the information she thought it did, it wouldn’t be safe for anyone else to read it. She fully expected to find that Lord Rafe was after Le Triton.
“We ought to go and find Lady Beatrice now,” Mina said. And then she’d go home with Grizzy—she couldn’t wait to begin attempting to decipher the code.
They walked back through the corridor. “What’s that room with the closed door?” she asked.
“A storeroom.”
“In the center of the hallway? Seems a more likely place for a sitting room.” She tested the knob. “It’s locked. Do you have the key?”
“I searched that one already this morning. There’s nothing there.”
“That’s what you said about the study. I think we’ve already established my usefulness at finding things you may have missed—it shan’t take but a moment.”
“It’s just a storeroom where Rafe keeps odds and ends.” His gaze shifted away from her.
“You don’t want me to go inside. Why?”
“I misplaced the key. We can’t go in.”
“That’s no impediment.” She knelt in front of the door and plucked a hairpin from her hair. She wedged it inside the lock and jiggled the mechanism until she heard the telltale click. “There. It’s unlocked.”
Drew was unlocked... unmoored. His mind still murky. He’d nearly had one of his attacks. The dark specks had started dancing before his eyes, his breathing had grown ragged and then... and then she’d placed her palm on his chest.
Her hand over his heart, warming his skin through layers of linen.
The dancing specks had receded. Vision had returned. Her hand over his heart like sunshine on his face.
Their bodies linked.
Her hand warm, melting the ice over his heart. He shook his head, pushing away these dangerous thoughts.
“It’s just an ordinary sitting room,” she announced.
If MissPenny didn’t examine the room too closely, there would be no harm done. He walked past her. “You’re right. Just a storeroom that used to be a sitting room. Ordinary chair. Ordinary lacquered cabinet. Some unremarkable lamps.”
“You’re acting strangely.”
