Page 166 of The Ladies Least Likely
“Captain Vierling whisked Miss Pettigrew away from the chapel where she was to wed Joseph and has carried her to Scotland to be married,” Amaranthe translated.
“Viktor?” Mal was astonished. “Did he even know the girl?”
“He’ll know her now!” Joseph cried. “He did something to make her set her cap for him. She led me on a merry chase, but him—” He sagged between them, deflated. “She ran off with him in an instant.”
Mal opened Amaranthe’s door and shoved Joseph into the house, leaving her to escort her brother upstairs and settle him. He went into her parlor to wait.
The room was cluttered in a way he found appealing, with a fresh stack of parchment on one chair and bottles on a small shelf, ink waiting to be mixed. He wondered what errands the costermonger was running for Amaranthe. Shopping? Contacting booksellers? Something else?
Her Book of Hours sat displayed on a gilded stand atop a small table, given pride of place, and a manuscript lay open on the small desk next to her chair.
It was the rather hefty tome Ned found in the Hunsdon library. Mal remembered how Amaranthe’s face had transformed as she looked at it. He’d thought at the time that he’d give a great deal to be the reason that starry, wondrous look entered her eyes. He’d seen her wear that expression since, soft and dazed, as if her feet had left the earth. She’d worn it after he kissed her. He smiled to think of her bending over this manuscript with the same loving attention she’d shown her Book of Hours and drew near to see what part she was reading.
She wasn’t just reading. There was a parchment page secured to her work easel by the small wooden bar, her penknife and quill lying beside it. It was a title page, heavily decorated with foliation that looked vaguely Moorish in inspiration, with many loops and swirls.The Book of Secrets, the title read in large, black, heavily embellished script,or Kitab al-Asrar. Some foreign letters stood beneath this, Arabic he presumed.Written by Muhammad al-Razi, followed by more Arabic letters. And in smaller print at the bottom:Englisht by Theocratus in 1532.
Amaranthe was making another book. But it did not have her name on it.
She appeared in the doorway of the parlor wearing a faded day gown. She’d removed her cap and gloves. Her curly hair frizzed in soft puffs about her head. Violet hollows made her eyes look huge in her face. He itched to put his hands on her, but whether he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her, or put his fingers around her neck, he wasn’t quite sure.
“I have not seen you in days.” The words leapt from him, an accusation he hadn’t meant to make. He’d meant to be nonchalant, insouciant. Just in the neighborhood, passing through.
Her lips turned downward. “Joseph—hasn’t been well. I have my hands full with him when he’s here, so I must work when he’s away tutoring.”
“The children keep asking for you. They want to hear every detail of your travels.” He wanted to hear it, too. What she and his aunt Beatrice had talked about after he left. How she had fared on her return to London. What she meant to do next.
“I haven’t had time for social calls, I’m afraid.”
“Is it true that Viktor absconded with Miss Pettigrew?”
“I was hoping you might tell me.” She stepped into the room, and her scent surrounded him. Pull her into his arms and kiss her; that’s what he wanted to do.
“I haven’t seen Viktor since I returned, nor heard tell of him. He may very well have eloped, though how he met Miss Pettigrew, I can’t begin to imagine.”
“Who she chose doesn’t really matter. All that concerns us is that she did not choose Joseph.” She kneaded her forehead with a wince of pain.
No, he wanted to wrap his hands around her throat and shake her. Why didn’t she come to him for help? Why didn’t she tell him Joseph was blue-deviled? He stepped toward her, but she drew herself up, straightening her shoulders, and he halted. He couldn’t bear it if she stepped away.
“Tell me what’s happening with the duchess.”
“My charming stepmother Sybil—” he spat the word— “has returned from Paris with Popplewell, the once-faithful steward, trotting at her heels. She’s resurrected her challenge to my father’s will with the demand she be made guardian of the estate and the children. Our case is to be heard in Chancery Court on Tuesday.”
She blinked in surprise. “That seems expedient. I thought cases in Chancery dragged for an age.”
“This one has, but someone’s taken a new interest in it. I don’t doubt Sybil’s been pulling as many strings as she can. We’re to be heard by one of the Masters in Chancery, nearly as good as going before the Lord Chancellor himself. I’m hoping the case will dismissed on grounds that she robbed the estate and fled the country.”
She searched his face, her eyes wide and wary. “Is there anything I can do?”
Oh, so many things. Step into his arms and let him hold her, for one. It would make him feel better. But she was on her guard again, and now that he had seen her work, he knew why. An icy despair washed through him, an acknowledgement of the inevitable. He never truly expected things would work out well for him. He had too much prior experience that told him the opposite.
He wanted to believe that not every woman he knew would betray him. His mother hadn’t meant to leave him; she’d been ill since before he was born. Sybil had shown signs of her own complete self-absorption from the beginning. He’d never relied on her for anything, though he had hoped she would at least prove an adequate overseer to the children.
And now Amaranthe, who had come into his life like an unbidden angel, was every bit the thief he’d been warned she was.
“You can explain this,” he said in a tight, controlled voice, and stepped aside to indicate the easel and its damning contents.
She quivered, but then set her shoulders firm and straight. She lifted her chin. “I should think it obvious.”
“You are making a copy of the book Ned loaned you from our library.”
