Page 56 of The Scholar's Key
The card was inviting him to a dinner that evening, which likely meant that Lady Percy would also be in attendance.
He couldn’t help but think about her the entirety of the day, and that evening, when he knocked on the door of the house that Ashford had rented, it was with a pounding in his chest.
Which was ridiculous, especially considering all they had been through and had experienced with one another.
“Rowley!” Covington greeted him with a wide grin and a slap on his back after he was shown into the drawing room. Ashford, slightly more reserved than his closest friend, shook his hand.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “And thank you for all you have done for us.”
“It’s nothing, really,” he mumbled, trying to stay present, but his eyes kept straying to the corner of the room where Percy and Lady Covington were sitting close to one another. Percy’s back was to him, but she was talking animatedly, her hands moving fluidly through the air. He wondered if she was telling her friend about what had happened when they went to retrieve the necklace – and how much information she would impart.
He nearly walked over to join the conversation – something he would never even have considered a month ago – when someone else walked into the room, and his eyes widened at the presence.
“Eric?” he said when his brother hit him on the back enthusiastically. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t let my brother have all the fun!” Eric said with a laugh. He was everything that Noah wasn’t – friendly, positive, the life of the room everywhere he went. The very reason why Leticia had chosen him. “When I heard that you had solved this thing – and had stolen back a necklace of all things – I couldn’t help but come see if it was true.”
“It is true.”
They turned at the feminine voice to see that Percy and Lady Covington had walked over to join the larger conversation. Percy looked at Noah with a spark in her eyes.
“Mr. Rowley has become quite the adventurer.”
“Who would have thought?” Eric said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took in Noah. He paused.
“You look… different.”
Noah shrugged, taking a sip of the scotch Ashford had passed him. “How so?”
“Your hair and face. Did you finally see fit to take some of the advice I’ve been offering you over the years?”
“I made a change,” Noah muttered. “Nothing to get excited about.”
“It was part of our mission,” Percy said. “He had to charm a woman.”
“Did you, now?” Eric said, suddenly quite intrigued, and Noah wished that Percy hadn’t said anything. He and his brother may be the best of friends, but they were still brothers, which meant that Eric loved to learn anything he could to irk Noah. “How did you manage?”
“Fine,” Noah said, shooting Percy a look, hoping she would understand that she should change the subject.
“More than fine,” she said, either not picking up on what he was trying to tell her or continuing regardless. “He was invited to the woman’s home.”
“Do tell us more,” Eric said, leaning in.
“Nothing happened,” Noah said, waving a hand away. “I stopped it.”
“Why?”
“Because it… wasn’t right,” he said, even though that was far from the truth.
“As entertaining as this conversation might be, why do we not go into dinner and discuss more about the actual clue that you discovered?” Ashford said, mercifully putting an end to the conversation, which lacked all levels of appropriateness.
They followed him in, taking a seat around the table as the footmen served the first course. Noah found himself seated next to Percy, and he wasn’t sure if he was glad of it or not.
“So,” Ashford said as they all took their first taste of the turtle soup, which was so terrible that Noah wondered if they had brought their cook from Castleton. “The necklace did contain a clue?”
“Yes,” Noah said, glad they were back to speaking about facts and not his part in this entire story. “A small piece of paper, with two words on it –San Sebastian.”
Ashford and his sister exchanged a glance.
