Page 53 of The Mysterious Miss Lydia
He reached into his pocket and handed it over with a flourish. “I thought you’d never ask.”
15
Good grief, his heart was racing like he’d just run up a mountain.
What was it about this girl that made him feel like this? Like he was only now opening his eyes for the first time?
Like he was seeing everything with fresh eyes, experiencing everything with senses he’d never known he’d had.
His whole life he’d thought calling upon a lady was...well, boring. But maybe it was only the ladies he’d known who’d been boring.
There was nothing dull or ordinary going on behind those lovely green eyes. Whatever she was thinking, whatever she was feeling...
He was desperate to know it.
He watched her as she peered down at the passage. It was simple enough, just a few paragraphs transcribed from the same novel. He’d already compared the passage word for word with the novel’s passage to see if there were any missing words or added letters—anything out of the ordinary that marked it different from the novel. But there’d been nothing noticeable, at least to his eye.
Lydia’s lips pursed in concentration and her brows drew down as she read it. Truly, he hadn’t spent enough time on the passage. If he still worked in the Home Office, he’d have had assistants to help him with work that he found too tedious.
Too boring. He was no expert in encryption, and he knew it. He’d been content to let that sort of work be handled by men who worked at desks.
He ran a hand over his hair and drew in a deep breath. Lud, all these years perhaps he’d been clinging to the childish notion that adventure and intrigue were only to be found...out there.
On battlefields and in the dark shadows of night. It had never occurred to him that adventures could be found in a book passage, or that passion and curiosity and intrigue could be found sitting still in a darkened drawing room with a clever, bookish young lady.
But as he watched the mystery before him—the darling, sweet, quiet mystery that no one had sought to uncover his perspective was flipped on its head. Now all he was certain of was that anyone who mistook quiet for boring was a simpleton, every person who’d overlooked this young lady was foolish...and anyone who thought passion could only be felt in the midst of battle had never fallen in love.
“Will you speak to me now?” he asked when she’d stopped reading and had stared off into the distance.
Her gaze lifted with surprise. “P-pardon?”
He gestured to the drawn curtains and the extinguished candles. “Is it only being seen that frightens you? Or is there something more I can do to put you at ease?”
She nibbled on her lip, her cheeks pinkening as she held the passage to her bosom. “Why are you interested in what I have to say? No one else is.”
“Ah, but no one else enjoys a mystery as much as I do.”
She smiled but he saw a flicker of sadness in her eyes that he despised. “You’ll be disappointed.”
“Never.” It came out low and gruff. But he couldn’t imagine ever being disappointed in this woman.
She moved slightly, shifting closer to the shadows. “You think I am a mystery, but I am just a coward.”
“No,” he said slowly and with a shake of his head. “I think that mind of yours is always racing.”
“Perhaps, but only because I fill it with fictional stories.”
“If that’s the case, then you have lived far more than most,” he said.
She smiled, her gaze searching his in the shadows. “That’s how I used to think of it. When I was a child.”
She hesitated, and he felt his lungs hitch.
“Go on,” he urged.
She lifted her shoulders. “I was sick as a child. Often.” Her lips twitched. “All the time, really. The doctors said I would surely die.”
His heart twisted at the casual way she said it. “I’m sorry.”
