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“Then you’ll realize that it’s never a good idea for a young lady to enter a rogue’s bedchamber at night and you’ll march right back down those stairs.”
When she didn’t move, he growled, “Now.”
“I’m not here for you, Ford. I’m here for ancient manuscripts.”
“Whatever you’re searching for can wait until tomorrow morning.” He would have bundled her out the door by now but he couldn’t stand up yet. Not until his arousal subsided.
“No, it can’t. If I’m right about my interpretation of my aunt’s letter, then I could own one of the very first works authored by a woman in English!” Her head swiveled as her gaze swept the room. “I know theRevelations of Divine Loveis hidden here somewhere. It’s a fourteenth-century book of mystical devotions written by the anchoress Julian of Norwich. The original manuscript has been lost, but there were several copies made which have been seen or heard of from time to time, but never found.” She rounded on him, her eyes shining. “I had a feeling that Aunt Matilda was speaking in code in her letter. She obviously feared that someone was going to try to steal the manuscript after her death. She couldn’t entrust it to anyone but me. I’m the one she chose.”
Ford let go of the book for a moment to rub at his eyes. “What’s it going to take to get you to leave?”
“A quick search for the book and then I’ll be on my way.” She waved an elegant hand toward the bed. “And then you may slumber.”
“In her letter, my aunt says, ‘I hope you will divine my meaning and that this Revelation of Love helps you to be brave, and not hide yourself away. Allow me to point the way.’”
Ford groaned. “Very well. Let’s consider that literally. Is she pointing at anything in her portrait?”
“The portrait! I hadn’t thought of it.” She approached the bed, lifting her candle to the painting. “She’s looking downward, but her chair and her knees are pointed”—she turned her head—“to her writing desk. The manuscript could be secreted there.” She hastened to the desk and set down her lantern.
All of this wide-eyed racing around the room and breathless exclaiming was not helping Ford’s situation. He still couldn’t leave the chair.
She searched through the desk drawers and then bent over the desk, pointing her round backside in his direction. She slid forward until her bum was in the air and her head pointed toward the floor. Her toes lifted and dangled a few inches above the floor.
Definitely not helping.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice strangled and thin.
“The book... could be hidden... behind the desk,” she said, her voice muffled by the desk. She moved her hands over the back of the desk. “You could... help me, you know.”
No, he couldn’t. Unique lost manuscripts were all very good, but what he had in his sights was aunique and very present woman in the exact position that he’d fantasized about—over a desk, her feet swinging off the floor as he rolled up her skirts and feasted his eyes on the contours of her body before running his hands . . .
He was having very, very bad thoughts.
He pressed down on the book in his lap.
He closed his eyes. Think about the most nonerotic thing imaginable.
Dukes.
Dukes who were elder brothers of bookish ladies.
Dukes who held the fate of one’s family in their hands.
She turned her head toward him, spectacles askew and bosom squashed against the hard wood surface. “Nothing back here. Perhaps there’s a hidden drawer beneath the desk?” Her toes hit the floor and she dropped to her knees in front of the desk. “I can’t find anything.”
“Usually valuable possessions are hidden in safes.”
“That’s it! Help me lift the portrait—there could be a hidden safe behind it.”
She was so focused on finding this book that she wouldn’t notice anything untoward about his anatomy. As long as she didn’t glance down.
He rose on unsteady legs and lifted the portrait off the wall, setting it carefully aside. He dragged his hands over the wall. “Nothing.”
She gave a frustrated sigh. “The bookshelves?”
“They don’t swivel. I tried them.”
“The glass! It could be behind the looking glass.”
