Page 50 of The Secrets of Lord Grayson Child
She resumed her seat behind the desk and rapidly tallied the figures she’d jotted down during the negotiations.
He noticed she added the figures once, paused, then repeated the exercise.
Finally, she laid down her pencil and fixed her emerald eyes on him. “Despite not saying a word throughout, by virtue of the unsettling effect you had on our local gentlemen of commerce, you greatly assisted in more than tripling the printing works’ income from an average edition ofThe Crier.”
Smiling, he arched his brows. “I’m delighted to have been of service.”
She huffed, then glanced at the clock, pushed back her chair, and rose. “I need to see to the layouts. Now we have the major advertising settled, we can finalize those.”
Gray rose and ambled after her. He was increasingly fascinated by all the various aspects of the business and what each aspect revealed of her and her unexpected talents.
The discussion with Lipson and Maguire over the layout table displayed her grasp of her readers’ preconceptions and vanities and how those influenced the way said readers interacted with the pages in their gossip rag of choice.
Gray found the various arguments enlightening; he doubted he would look at a newspaper in the same way again.
Finally, all was settled, and leaving Lipson to start setting up the frames—known as formes—that Maguire would eventually fill with type, Izzy returned to her desk and the article and obituary she was still polishing.
Gray trailed after her and sat in the armchair he was coming to regard as his.
Not long after, reminded by the emptiness of his own stomach, he walked out, chatted to Lipson, then stuck his head into the office and informed Izzy that he was going out to fetch sandwiches and cider for everyone.
She was deep in writing and glanced up, gaze unfocused, then waved him off and went back to her work.
He grinned, left, and following Lipson’s directions, found the nearby bakery nestled beside a shop selling bottled drinks of all sorts.
Twenty minutes later, he returned to the printing works, set his offerings on the counter, and invited everyone to partake, which they all did. Izzy came out and nibbled on a sandwich, poured cider into a mug, and carried it with her back to her desk.
After helping Mary clear away the detritus remaining after the staff had finished, Gray returned to the armchair and settled.
“Stop watching me,” Izzy ordered.
He laughed and closed his eyes.
Several minutes later, Mary knocked on the door frame and, when Izzy looked up, came in, carrying several sheets of paper.
“My article.” Mary brandished the sheets. “It’s as polished as I can make it.”
Izzy set down her pencil and held out her hand for the sheets, and Mary handed them over. Izzy glanced at Mary’s effort, then looked at her own work—the lead article for the hue and cry edition. She hesitated, then looked at Gray. “While I read over Mary’s work, perhaps you could read over mine?”
Genuinely delighted, he smiled and held out his hand. “I’d be happy to.”
Izzy’s lips pressed tight as she fought to hold back an answering smile. She gathered her writing and handed the pages across, then picked up another two sheets and offered them to Mary. “Sit”—Izzy waved toward the other armchair—“and look over these. They’re my notes on the obituary. We’ll need to finalize it by tomorrow morning at the very latest. You’ll see I’ve noted several pieces of information we should find and add in.”
Mary took the sheets and sat, and in the next second, all three of them had their heads down, reading.
After a time, Gray reached out, snagged one of the many pencils rolling about on the desk, and made a note in the margin of her article. She glanced up, gaze sharp, but after a moment, went back to her perusal of Mary’s work, on which she was making corrections.
By the time Izzy had reached the end of Mary’s article, Gray was on the last paragraph of the lead article, and Mary was finished with the obituary.
The instant he looked up, Izzy held out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Let me see.”
He smiled and handed over the sheets. When she queried what his cryptic note meant, he explained, and after some discussion, she amended the ambiguous phrasing that she hadn’t, until then, realized could be read in two diametrically opposing ways.
“Here.” She thrust Mary’s article at him. “I think this is as perfect as it gets, but see what you think.” She then handed Mary the main article. “And you can take a look at that while I work on the obituary.”
They settled in comfortable silence, broken only by the soft scrape of Izzy’s pencil and the rustling of paper.
Eventually, she was satisfied with what she had thus far for the obituary. She set down her pencil and stretched out her hands. “We’re still missing information I think should be there—for instance, where he was born—but we can squeeze that in if we manage to learn it in time.”
