Page 4 of The Claiming of the Shrew
“No—a velocipede? A really fast centipede? Wait, does it mean a bicycle?”
“Yes,” Hester said. “It’s an old word for bicycle. Can we keep walking while we have this conversation? I need to help Joy unload the muffins.”
“Yes—yes, of course.” Leah fell into step with her, surreptitiously looking around for Mister Handsome and Suspicious. “Well, I’ve been using that word wrong all these years, nice to know. Anyway, he took one look at your lodge detective and sprinted off across the grounds. I call that suspicious.”
I really need to find him again.
“He doesn’t know you’re my—wait, you’re not the lodge detective,” Hester said. She looked as if she was about to say something else, but clamped down on it.
“He was standing right there,” Leah pointed out reasonably. “He could have heard every word we were saying.”
“He—well, all right, that’s not impossible, he might have. But?—”
“I’ll just find out his name anyway when I run into him coincidentally behind the woodshed.”
“Why would you be behind the woodshed?”
“Looking for clues,” Leah said.
“And he would be there because ...?”
“Lurking.”
Hester sighed. “All right, his name’s Fawkes. You didn’t hear it from me.”
“Fox? Does he turn into one?”
“What? No.” She enunciated more clearly, emphasizing the vowels. “Fawkes, like Guy Fawkes.”
“His name is Guy Fawkes?” Leah said, nonplused. That would be hard to get used to. On the other hand, for those eyes and that jawline and the pecs that were definitely hiding under that beat-up faux leather jacket he’d been wearing ... she could make an effort. Guy, Guy—okay, screaming “Guy!” at the height of passion might be difficult, but she figured it was a grenade she could throw herself on, assuming she could also throw herself on Guy Fawkes at the same time?—
“No, no—Fawkes is his first name,” Hester said, interrupting Leah’s runaway and derailing train of thought. “Fawkes Bridges.”
“Oh my God, the poor man. Anyway, what room is he in?”
“I ... really can’t tell you that.”
“But would you tell Detective Shrew, ma’am?”
“You’re not a detective,” Joy declared, popping up at her elbow with a box of muffins.
“I am now,” Leah said.
Joy turned a quizzical look on Hester.
“Long story,” Hester said. “I may have made a mistake. Let me show you where to put those.”
They went off to discuss muffins, leaving Leah to ponder matters of missing guest valuables and a guy named Fawkes.
She knew she could come on a bit strong. But she hadn’t even had a chance to come on strong! Or come on at all! He hadn’t given her a chance. He just said one word to her and took off practically running.
That, Leah thought, was not how a mate meet-cute was supposed to go.
Also, if he really was her mate—or at least if he’d felt the same electric snap of connection that she’d felt—he ought to be looking for her.
She took a long look around. No Fawkes.
Damn.
