Page 13 of A Delicate Deception
But there he was, leaning against the gatepost. “If you don’t want company on your walk, I’ll head in the other direction,” he said. “But I thought you might need protection against any vicars’ wives. No hard feelings whatsoever if you’d rather be alone.”
Amelia chose not to investigate the surge of happy nervousness that raced through her. “I packed an extra sandwich,” she said, lifting her basket.
“I brought a sack of plums. We’ll have a feast. In what direction are we walking?” Nan arrived then and gave Sydney her customary greeting, which was a cautious sniff followed by a rather halfhearted growl.
With this, they established a pattern of walking out together every morning. He waited for her by the gatepost, and they each brought food to share. If Amelia were being honest with herself, she had seldom more enjoyed spending time with anyone. Even years ago, before company had started to feel like a burden, she didn’t think she had liked anyone quite this much. She tried not to think too much about what this might portend.
“Your walks have gotten much longer,” Georgiana observed after a few days. “Sometimes you aren’t back until noon.”
“The weather’s too lovely to waste indoors,” Amelia said.
“Amelia, I’ve known you over ten years and you’ve never said such a thing in that entire time. You spent all of last summer holed up in your writing room and didn’t seem to regret one minute of wasted sunshine.”
Amelia busied herself in unlacing her boots. “I’ve been walking with a land surveyor,” she admitted, not sure why it felt like a confession. A week ago she would have told Georgiana everything, from how near she had come to kissing him to the way he looked without his coat on. But now whatever existed between her and Sydney felt fragile, as if she might ruin it if she tried to assign it a name.
“A land surveyor?” Georgiana asked. “Have you taken an interest in geography?”
“I’ve, rather, um, taken an interest in the surveyor.”
Georgiana’s eyes and mouth both rounded comically. “Well. You’re being careful?”
Had Amelia been less skilled in masking her emotions, she would have flushed bright red. “There’s no need.”
“That’s what you think,” Georgiana said darkly. “Men.”
“He seems to be a decent man.”
“Decent men still have penises,” Georgiana intoned. “And probably entirely misguided notions of what they ought to do with them.” Georgiana herself was perfectly indifferent to the charms of men and women alike.
The next morning Sydney wasn’t at the gate. Amelia waited, unsure of whether he was late or if he had chosen not to come. Or perhaps he had gone back to Manchester. It had been nearly two weeks since she had first seen him, which surely was enough time to do whatever it was he was doing. Come to think, wasn’t it a bit peculiar that he never seemed to have any maps or charts with him? Surveyors tended to have an assortment of tools, as well, and he never carried anything more than a satchel with his midday meal.
But then she saw him rounding the bend, and she didn’t make any effort to conceal the smile that broke across her face.
“Good morning, Amelia,” he said, smiling in return.
They grinned at one another, standing too close, looking too long. If she tipped her head up and rose to her toes, they’d already be kissing, and she didn’t quite know why they weren’t. “I thought you might not come today.”
“I was up late last night patching a leak in the roof.”
“At the Swan? I hope the landlord doesn’t regularly ask you to do that sort of thing.”
“No, no,” he reassured her, but a flicker of unease crossed his brow. “Nothing like that.”
He had purplish circles under his eyes, speaking to his lack of sleep, and his hair was adorably rumpled on one side. “Sydney, did you only now roll out of bed? You have a crease from your pillow still on your cheek.” Laughing, she reached up and touched the red line with her thumb, tracing it from the warmth of his cheek to where it disappeared into his beard. “Lazy lie-abed. It’s several whole minutes past dawn.”
He huffed out a laugh. His skin was warm. She hadn’t put gloves on and she was glad of it, because she could feel his skin and the bristles of his beard. He grasped her wrist in one big hand. At first she thought he meant to stop her from touching him, but instead he held her wrist still, almost pressing his cheek into her touch. Then he took a second glance at her hand.
“What happened to you? Did you overturn an inkwell onto yourself?” He held her hand carefully, his thumb moving over the pattern of ink blots on her palm.
“I got extremely upset with Edmund Tudor and broke a pen. The results are what you see before you.”
He blinked. “I see,” he said in a tone that indicated he definitely did not see, but was determined not to act as if anything she said was bizarre or required explanation. She felt a surge of affection.
“I’m writing a book about the Wars of the Roses. Murder, treachery, all those good things. But Edmund Tudor is the worst.” She was braced for questions about titles and plots. Her books weren’t a secret; they were written under her own name—at least the three that wouldn’t get her brought up on obscenity charges. It was just that she preferred not to talk about it, because she did not know how to explain that writing a three-volume history in which Margaret Beaufort went on a murder spree was the closest thing to personal fulfillment she feared she was presently capable of. She did not know how to talk about it without announcing to the world that she was deeply, irretrievably odd.
“They were all pretty bad that century,” he said. “I imagine you’re spoiled for choice as to villains.”
“I know!” she said, delighted. “That’s why I’m writing about it. Do you have a bit of extra time this morning? There’s a spot I’d like to show you.”
