Page 25 of A Baron's Scandalous Quill
“Well, you do not get my job in life without breaking a rule or two,” she confessed with a shrug.
“So I see, Mr. Baxter.”
She laughed heartily at his sudden address of her pseudonym.
“Come on, one hint?”
He froze with the papers, his eyes on the curve of her neck and the way she was leaning toward him. It would be so simple in this room, when they were completely alone, to lean toward her and kiss her, to show her through action rather than words exactly what he was thinking.
“I should not,” he said eventually, his voice deep once more, though she was smiling now, as if she had guessed a little of it. He realized that his eyes had wandered, and it was that she had noticed. She didn’t look away or move away from his gaze but sat perfectly still. “God’s wounds,” he muttered, forcing his gaze down to the papers in his lap. “I am going to focus on these papers right now, or I’ll say or do something you may regret provoking out of me.”
“I may not regret it.”
“Becca.”
“Ha! You are fun to tease, my lord.”
“William,” he said again, but she simply smiled in response and stood. He longed to have her back close to him as she moved around the room.
She gathered more and more papers together from the shelves, sorting them into piles.
“Is there anything else in this room we should know about?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking over the list of names in his lap. He felt keenly that this list should be published so all on there would know they had been conned. Perhaps there was a way too that he could seek to pay them back. He certainly had the money to afford such an idea.
“I mean, did your father have a safe or anything in this room he liked to keep secret?” She placed her hands on her hips and spun slowly on the spot, her eyes darting over the shelves.
“Well…” A sudden memory coursed through William’s mind. He remembered peering through the door as his father picked a certain book off the shelf, not to read it, but to reach behind it, fiddling with something in the wall. When George had realized William was watching him, he was furious. William could still recall the way his father’s shouts had echoed off his eardrums. “There is one thing.”
He stood, leaving the papers on the armchair behind him and moving toward the shelf bearing the book. He passed close to Becca, and their arms brushed. They didn’t jump back from one another, but both looked at each other, blushing.
“Was that something you were thinking of doing?” she asked, biting her lip.
“Not exactly.” He walked on, thinking Becca was quite dangerous to him. With her forward way of speaking, the fact that nothing was out of bounds was an allure indeed. He felt completely free speaking to her.
He halted by the shelves and pulled out the same book he had seen his father fidgeting with. Behind it, in the wall, was a small handle. He shifted other books to the side, revealing a little door.
“A hidden cupboard?” Becca whispered, moving to stand behind him.
“Whispering that close to me is not helping things.”
“What’s it not helping?” she teased him. “I am simply here to assist in writing your commission, my lord.”
“Such an innocent tone,” he teased her, and they laughed together as he reached for the cupboard door to open it.
Inside was a bundle of letters and numerous papers. He gathered them together, startled at the amount which had been hidden away. Some of the papers were curling and turning yellow with age. Becca took some of the papers from where he deposited them on the desk behind him. She opened a small wooden box he lifted out of the cupboard, too, heavily engraved with vines, leaves, and grapes.
“A marriage certificate?” she whispered. “I thought you said your mother’s name was Anne?”
“It was Anne,” he said, his eyes on the other papers.
“Oh.” Becca froze. The air of flirtation vanished from the air as she stared at the page in her hand.
“Becca? What is it?”
“Was your father ever married before?”
“No. Why?”
