Page 8 of Meet A Rogue At Midnight
Outside, he hadn’t noticed the ivory for the heavy dirt smears, but he did catch how the words ivory and money rolled off her tongue, the syllables full of reverence and need.
“At present, snow is falling on your valuable furniture.”
Livvy glanced at snow collecting on the chair. She nodded and, without a word, eased her grip on the rope and backed away from the window. He leaned further out, the advantage of his height, and held the chair away from the wall. Cautiously, he hauled in the rope hand over hand until he set the piece on the floor and untied it.
“Where do you want your prize?”
“If you’d put it there—” she pointed at the east hearth and shut the windows “—I’d be most grateful.”
Another canvas cloth was spread across the floor. He placed the relic on the canvas, catching Livvy watching him out of the corner of her eye. A bucket was tucked against the wall, full of paring chisels, a gimlet, pitsaw, and auger among other furniture maker’s tools.
Had she stolen tools from the Captain?
Livvy stood at a table, her thumb idly brushing the corner of a mosaic. “The chair is acurule chair, unique because it’s intact. A discovery from a Roman campsite a farmer uncovered in Learmouth.”
“I recall reading about the find. Over a year ago wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said, not meeting his gaze. “The Antiquarian Society was thrilled. To think, it all started when the farmer’s plow dug up a Roman sandal.”
The Antiquarian Society, or more correctly,The Antiquarian Society for Historical Study and Preservation,was an odd lot of historians who loved digging in the earth for pieces of the past. When he was seventeen, Jonas had shoveled dirt, loads of it, on an excavation with Livvy’s father in Scotland. The treasure hunt would’ve been worthwhile, but Mr. Halsey and his antiquarian friends searched the remains of an ancient Pictish village, ecstatic over a broken loom and textile remnants. He smiled, recalling how he and the other laborers had thought the antiquarians a bit daft. Gold was worth a man’s excitement; moldy cloth was not.
Hands clamped behind his back, Jonas strolled the circular room. He stepped over a rusted Roman gladius, a soldier’s sword, on burlap. Sections of a breast plate rested beside it like pieces of a puzzle to be done. Nothing fit. Mr. Halsey was order itself, yet this room was chaos with artifacts on the floor, a thing the old man would never countenance.
And there was the uncertainty in Livvy’s voice.
He stopped at a scribe’s desk facing the wall. Scribbled pages cluttered the surface. Four books lined the desk’s upper shelf, one name embossed on the spines: Mr. Thomas J. Halsey. Jonas lifted a volume off the shelf.
“Where is your father? Isn’t he coming?” He flipped through pages of Viking art styles.
Footsteps scraped behind him. A feminine hand, the nails trimmed short, skin dry at the knuckles reached for the book. Livvy hugged the tome to her brown and yellow stomacher. Torn lace hung from her elbows. Stains streaked her vinegar-scented skirt.
“You know he’s not coming.”
“I know nothing of the sort.”
Her chin lifted. “You haven’t figured out what’s going on here?”
He drew a patient breath. “Call me dim-witted. Plumtree’s fine folk have done as much.”
“You are nothing of the sort,” she said, her grip relaxing on the book. “You have a quiet strength. Quick to listen and slow to speak, yes. But a dull mind? Never.” Her face tilted as if a new facet revealed itself. “You have always been a man of few words. An excellent quality.”
The room’s glow couldn’t match the glimmer in her eyes. He stood taller, basking in Livvy’s unexpected praise. Candlelight shined on her mussed copper hair. He wanted to stroke the length of it from the crown of her head to the braid’s tip dangling at her tiny waist. The square neck of her bronze-colored gown barely contained plump, white mounds above the book.
“You’re not saying much,” she murmured, closing the gap between them.
Because the sight of her made his mind spin.
His fingers flexed and curled at his side. The country girl of his youth had grown into a provocative woman with an air of innocence. Coppery wisps traced Livvy’s cheek, dangling soft as down on her collarbone. With his gloves still on, he brushed away her loose hair and traced the slanted collarbone to her shoulder and back to the center of her chest. Little goosebumps danced across her breast’s upper curve.
Livvy inhaled fast.
“Do you like what I’m saying now?” he asked.
Chapter Three
His touch demandeda kiss.
She rocked up on her toes and mashed her lips to his. It was the only way to take control; otherwise Jonas would have the upper hand.
