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Will thought for a moment. “I’d try to befriend it. I’d bring it food every day and try to gain its trust. Then I’d see if I could persuade it to follow me home.” Will almost immediately regretted his words. They were too close to his strategy for ferreting out the Irish separatists’ traitor.
“You’d make a pet of it?” Lady Averley asked.
“I wouldn’t lock it up, if that’s what you mean, but something so rare and unique should be protected.”
“Then you wouldn’t bring it to London for all the world to see?”
Will considered. “I don’t think so. Would you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I would leave the creature alone and go home with the knowledge that I knew of a great mystery. A great secret that only I possessed.”
Will took her hand and placed it on his arm, glad for the opportunity to touch her. “One wonders what other secrets you hold, my lady.”
“Very few, I assure you,” she said, her gaze still onTemnodontosaurus platyodon.
“I doubt that.”
And though he still wasn’t certain if she was the traitor, her answers concerning the fossil had been as revealing as his own. She liked mysteries and secrets. His job was to discover what she was hiding.
THEY SPENT ANOTHERhour at the museum. Emily spent most of it among the fossils, and though Mr. Galloway was clearly not as interested in them as she, he did not rush her. He did wish to stop in among the Egyptian artifacts. Emily disliked the Egyptian wing. The mummies and the sarcophagi, the jars and scrolls taken from tombs, seemed macabre to her. The last time she’d come here, she’d had nightmares. That had been when Jack was alive. She didn’t want to remember how she’d wakened in the middle of the night, and how he’d held her and soothed her until she’d fallen back asleep.
But the memory didn’t hurt as it once might have. It made her a bit wistful, that was all. Perhaps she was ready to put away her mourning clothes.
“Are you tired?” Mr. Galloway asked as they left the Egyptian wing and started down the stairs toward the grand entryway.
“Not particularly.”
“Then shall we take a short walk? Soon enough you’ll be back at the palace and at the whim of the queen.”
“I’m hardly at her whim,” Emily answered. “But the idea of a walk does sound agreeable.”
Once outside, she gave up the idea of opening her parasol. It was too windy, and the delicate object would break within moments. She didn’t mind the wind. She rather liked the feel of her voluminous skirts swishing about her legs.
Mr. Galloway led her along Russell Street, and the two admired the exterior view of the museum. She was in no hurry to return to the palace, and he too seemed content to stroll leisurely. He was easy to talk to, and they discussed their favorite attractions at the museum and more memories of Lyme Regis.
Emily would have been happy to continue with such frivolous topics indefinitely, but of course, the conversation turned where she did not wish it to go.
“Have you been a lady-in-waiting to the queen for many years?” he asked.
Emily’s next breath felt sharper, the air colder. “No, not many.” She hoped her short answer would be a sign that she did not wish to continue along that line of conversation. She should turn the topic, but she couldn’t think of another quickly. She was very aware of him walking beside her. She’d been attracted to him since their first meeting, but she had thought it only a superficial attraction. He was a handsome man, after all. But then there had been the conversation about Lyme Regis. After that, she had begun to like him a little.
Still, she had thought she was safe. What could be safer than looking at the remains of extinct organisms? She hadn’t, however, considered the carriage ride. He was an excellent driver, gentle with the reins but still very much in control. She admired that sort of skill. Jack had also been a skilled driver, and she knew it took practice, patience, and respect for the horse.
“How long have you been in service to the queen?” he asked.
“Over a year now,” she said. “It was quite an honor to be asked, as well as a family tradition.”
“How so?” He turned those lovely brown eyes on her. Emily willed herself not to think of the way the muscles under his coat had flexed when he’d had to hold the reins tightly. Had she really been able to see them or just imagined them?
“My grandmother was a lady-in-waiting for Queen Charlotte.”
His brows went up. “Before or after the king went mad?”
“After, I’m afraid, though she said by then he was under the care of the royal physicians, and she never saw him. The queen, of course, was never the same after the king’s decline, and she relied heavily on her ladies as well as her children.”
“I am sure both were a comfort to her, as they seem to be to our current queen, though her circumstances are much more fortunate.”
“Yes, they are. The prince is a good man and a good father.”
