Page 16 of The Viscount's Code
“Are you not a woman who does as is expected of her?”
“Usually, yes,” she said with a shy smile. “But maybe it’s time I do something different.”
“Very well,” he said with a shrug, leaning over to the other side and reaching into his bag. He held out a pair of white gloves, identical to those he wore. “Best put these on.”
She took them from him, their fingers – though his glove-clad – brushing against one another as they did, sending a slight, not unwelcome shiver though her.
Hope slid on the gloves, and he shuffled the book left on the table so that it sat between them, returning it to the first page.
“Go page by page,” he instructed. “You read the left side and I will read the right.”
She nodded. “Very well.”
They worked in silence for a time, with the viscount asking her when she was ready for him to turn the page. She nodded each time, always slightly ahead of him.
“Do not go too fast,” he instructed, and she tilted her head toward him with pursed lips, so that he was aware she was disgruntled at his tone. When she did, she noted how close his face was to hers. It looked different this close. She could see every whisker, every wrinkle, and even his grey eyes held a slight bit of warmth.
“I am not,” she countered, and he raised a brow.
“I am a fast reader,” she insisted. “But I am going one word at a time, I promise.”
“Fine,” he said, turning back to the page in front of them.
It wasn’t until the twenty-fourth page that Hope found what they might be looking for.
“Here!” she exclaimed, and he turned quickly toward where she pointed, careful not to touch the page, even with the gloves. “The wordsummeragain. It’s underlined.”
“You’re right,” he said. “But what does that tell us?”
Hope had no idea and wanted to tell him thathewas the codebreaker, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t be pleased with her if she did.
“There’s a number in the heading on the page,” he said, pointing at the top. “A year. 1457. I wonder…”
He wasn’t speaking now, as he leaned over to look at the second book, and he quickly flipped it to page 14.
“Yes,” he whispered triumphantly, and Hope shifted closer to him just as he was moving back to write on a piece of paper in front of him. Their shoulders collided, and Hope, caught off-guard, tilted to the left. Lord Whitehall reached out with quick reflexes and caught her before she slipped from the chair.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, and she nodded, his hands warm where they rested on her arms now, as he hadn’t yet removed them.
“Thank you,” she said, hating the breathiness in her voice, and he released her so quickly that she nearly fell off her seat again. “What did you find?” she asked, recovering.
“I didn’t find anything,” he said, “but I have an idea on how this clue might be solved.”
“And?”
“I’m on the fourteenth page of the second book. Now I just must determine if I choose the fifty-seventh word or letter…”
“Try the word,” Hope suggested, and he nodded.
“I was going to start there.”
He found the first word, “home,” and wrote it on the paper.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we have to keep reading the first book until we find the word again,” he said. “This is going to take some time.”
“Good thing we have plenty of it,” she said cheerily, and he eyed her critically.
