Page 34 of The Number of Love
“I did.” His smile was no doubt far from suave and handsome, but the introduction gave him an excuse to look at her again, anyway. “I thought you didn’t have a name. Your parents forgot to give youone, if I recall.” It took a ridiculous amount of energy to deliver the sentence.
But he was rewarded with a snap of amusement in her eyes and the slightest hint of a smile in the corner of her lips.
Dot’s brows arched upward. “Have I missed something?”
“We met the day you had your interview.” Drake reclaimed his hand from her so he could plant it against the mattress and try to ease himself up another inch. It didn’t feel right being below the level of their eyes. But he couldn’t accomplish the move on his own, and he certainly wasn’t going to ask for help. He cleared his throat. “Sort of. She wouldn’t tell me her name.”
Miss De Wilde folded her arms over her chest, her smile growing another fraction. “You didn’t ask what my nameis, Lieutenant. You asked if Ihadone. And then if I weren’t going to tell you.”
Dot laughed, which turned a few male heads their way. Drake sent a scowl at his neighbors. Until he knew what kinds of blokes they were, they weren’t going to get away with ogling his sister.
“Oh heavens! I wish I’d heard it. I wouldn’t have been half so nervous if I’d had a good laugh before going in there.” Dot shook her head and leaned back in her hard wooden chair. “She’s very literal,” she said in a stage whisper, shielding her mouth from Miss De Wilde’s view.
Miss De Wilde let her smile bloom heart-stoppingly full. “What is the point of language if we don’t use it with precision? When others fail in this, then it’s instructional to point it out with exaggeration.”
Drake kept his gaze on her. “It was a lesson, was it? I had just assumed it was custom in Antarctica not to name one’s children. After all, your parents must have been penguins.”
Her lips settled back down into neutral. “Nonsense. They were albatrosses.”
Drake would have liked to laugh, if it wouldn’t have been agony.
Dot had no such compunction and released another chuckle. “Antarctica?”
“Where she claimed her accent was from.”
“And I imagine she said it with a straight face.” Dot grinned. “I could never.”
“No,” Drake agreed. “You were always miserable at lying.”
“Lying is easy.” Miss De Wilde leaned back in her chair too and folded her hands in her lap. “Especially when one doesn’t actually mean to be believed.”
Blast, thoseeyes. They exuded challenge and questions with every second. And here he was fighting just to stay upright. It wasn’t fair. And he knew well it wouldn’t be long before exhaustion and pain won out.
But in the meantime ... “And when onedoesmean to be believed?”
Her gaze met his, bold and unflinching. “Then it’s a simple matter of mathematics.”
He let his brows ask the obvious question.
She acknowledged it with a tilt of her head. “The correct ratio of truth to falsehood, combined with the proper rate of respiration, blinking, and the angle of one’s spine. Ratios, rates, and angles—mathematics.”
He could see why Blinker Hall called hermy dear. She was clearly a girl cut from the same cloth as their director. He looked back to Dot. “Perhaps you’d better tell me how your new position is going before I begin to wonder if we ought to believe a thing this young lady has ever told you.”
Dot sent him a look. “I’d rather hopedyouwould tellmewhat happened.” She motioned to his stomach.
Blast. He’d not had time to come up with a proper cover story. But hopefully his wince would suffice for now. “Perhaps when the pain and medicine have allowed me to sort through it all myself?”
His sister sighed. But she relented and began to tell him about how she’d finally begun to settle in and feel a proper part of “Blinker’s Beauty Chorus,” as the secretaries were apparently called. “And Margot and I have such fun on our daily walks and meals!”
Fundidn’t seem like a word Margot would use very often—at least, not one she would have defined in the way most people did. But then, Dot was a bit of an odd duck herself, so perhaps their definitions matched.
He wished he could have enjoyed the telling more, could have done more than smile when the tale called for laughter. But the longer she talked, the more aware he became of the pain shooting from his midsection down his legs and up into his neck. He had to move, to lie back down. Even a slight shift might help. But when he tried it, his attempt ended in a wince he couldn’t hide.
Dot’s fingers landed on his again. “Oh, look at me. Rambling on and tiring you out. We’ve already been warned we mustn’t stay more than a quarter hour, and no doubt we’ve been here that long. Sit still, Drake.” She pressed harder on his hand. “Don’t injure yourself. Let me fetch a nurse to help you.”
“You needn’t go yet.” Once they left, it would just be the pain again. He’d rather suffer this position a little longer, with their company.
“Nonsense. You’re exhausted.” She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. “But don’t worry, we’ll be back tomorrow. And every day, after work.”
