by Linda Banche
She adjusted the books she held, without turning to leave. Did she want to talk to him?
“Do you like Pride and Prejudice?” His words rushed out in a torrent, sounding like a croak to his own ears.
She quirked an eyebrow. “Yes. My favorite novel. Do you like it, too?”
As Laurence fumbled to make his mind work, a young man, all loose limbs and fidgets, strode under the arch and up to the lady. “Ah, there you are, Ellen. Ready to go home?”
Devil take it, he was too slow. Now she would leave. But at least he had half her name. If he could just find out the rest…
The lady’s mouth flattened for the briefest moment before she nodded. “Yes, Tom. I have everything I came for, including the copy of Mr. Galloway’s book I wanted to study before tonight’s lecture at—.”
Lecture? She was going to a lecture tonight? His heart leaped. He would see her again!
“I would like a look at that, too, before we go. Promises to be a good talk.” The boy’s voice overlaid hers.
Curse the lad! Laurence hadn’t heard where the lecture was. He ground his teeth.
The youth raised his head. Eyes the same startling blue as the lady’s slitted as if he were a wild creature ready to pounce. “Come on, let’s leave.” Casting Laurence another black glance, the stripling—her brother?—caught her arm and towed her away. “I don’t like the looks of that cove.” He kept his voice low, but Laurence could still hear. Protecting his sister from unwanted masculine overtures?
She smiled at Laurence over her shoulder as the lad led her to the counter. Well, not exactly unwanted.
He grinned back.
The clerk pushed aside a book he had been reading. “Are you finished, Miss—”
Something struck Laurence a hard blow on the back. He pitched forward, catching himself with both hands on the tabletop before he could sprawl among the books. He spun around, ready to tear a strip off the clumsy oaf.
A little white-haired lady pushed her wire-rimmed spectacles up her nose. “Oh, I am so sorry, young man. My spectacles threatened to fall off, and I am afraid I hit you as I caught them.” A pile of books lay at her feet. “I lost my books, too.”
Laurence heaved in a breath. “No harm done, ma’am.” He bent over and scooped up the fallen tomes. “Here you are. I hope you enjoy them.”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, I did not like them, and was about to set them on the table. Let someone else enjoy them.”
Laurence dutifully placed the books among the other discards. “As you wish. Good day, ma’am.”
“And to you, too, young sir.” With a surprisingly sprightly step, she marched out of the Reading Room.
And that’s that. Now for Miss Ellen.
The counter was empty, only the clerk, his head bent over a book, there. Where was she?
Heart in his throat, Laurence raced outside. He perched on the top step, and craned his neck. The normal afternoon crowds thronged the pavements on both sides of Bond Street. Carriages, carts and vehicles of all kinds clattered over the cobblestones.
But no lady in grey.
His heart dropped back into his chest with a sickening thud. He had lost her.
Shoulders slumped, he returned to the Reading Room. How could he find her? Perhaps the clerk…
As he approached the counter, the clerk looked up from his book. “May I help you?”
Laurence cleared his throat. The shop assistant had not exactly been helpful. “The young lady who just left. Can you tell me her name?”
The clerk glanced from side to side like a thief making sure no one was about. For once, the library was deserted. He then crossed his skinny arms over his narrow chest. “How do I know you mean her no harm?”
While part of Laurence applauded that both her brother and the shop assistant protected her, another part wanted to bash his head against the wall. “I never harm women.”
Lips pursed, the clerk looked Laurence up and down.
Laurence clenched his fists. Memories of yearning to join the older boys’ cricket team and coming up wanting filled his mind.
Then the shop assistant nodded. “Well, then, I need some information. Your name?”
“Mr. Godfrey Laurence Coffey.”
After the clerk had quizzed him for a quarter hour, demanding and writing down his name, his address, his father’s name and address, everything, it appeared, except the size of his feet, he gave a nod. Then he raised his eyebrows.
Laurence knew that look. He dug a crown out of his pocket and set the coin on the counter.
The shop assistant eyed the bribe. “Her name is Miss Ellen Palmer.”
“Her address?”
The man shook his head. “She has come here only twice, and each time has used a friend’s account.”
Damnation. “She said she would go to a lecture tonight.” But which one? Learned societies abounded in London, and most presented talks that were open to the public. There were probably dozens each night. Where would she go?
“The lecture at the Society for the Arts.”
Laurence blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Miss Palmer said she and her brother would attend the lecture at the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce tonight.” He tipped his chin at a notice pinned on a free-standing board beside the counter.
Large black letters proclaimed The Thermodynamics of the Cornish Steam Engine, being an Exposition on the New Steam Engine Invented by Mr. Richard Trevithick. A lecture by Mr. Elijah Galloway, author of History of the Steam Engine, From Its First Invention to the Present Time.
Well, the Society was on John Street, not far from his rooms at the corner of St. James Square and Charles Street. Steam engines were one of his interests, so if the lovely lady didn’t show up, attending the lecture wouldn’t be a complete waste.
Laurence tossed the clerk the crown
The fellow caught the coin deftly, belying his lack of muscle.
Laurence tipped his hat. “You have still been quite helpful. Thank you.”
Chapter 3
“Tell me again why we are here.” Wynne set the back of his hand over his mouth to muffle a yawn.
Beside him, Laurence lowered himself into his seat in the Great Room in the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce building. Surrounding them on the upper walls, the six panels of James Barry’s paintings, The Progress of Human Knowledge, glared down, as if daring anyone to utter a word.
Laurence stifled an urge to whisper.
Wynne, immune to the paintings’ august presence, yawned again. “I can think of a multitude of other places where I would rather spend my evening.”
Ignoring him, Laurence twisted around to afford himself a better view of the entrance.
Again. She wasn’t here. He blew out a breath and regarded his friend. “We are here to find the lady I told you about.” No one he quizzed knew or knew of Miss Ellen Palmer. Not that he had expected anything.
Wynne cast a bored glance over the rows of high-backed wooden chairs facing a podium at the front of the hall. A few, overwhelmingly male, attendees dotted the audience area here and there. “Dashed silly spot to look for a lady. I am sure there are much better places.”
Not to find this lady.
Laurence leaned out into the central aisle between the rows and looked back once more. The entry to the Great Room opened onto this passage, and Laurence’s chair, about halfway between the podium and the double doors, was the perfect place to lie in wait for his quarry. He had dragged Wynne here early despite his friend’s protests that the lecture would be there whenever they arrived, just so he could appropriate such an observation post.
He tapped his fingers on the chair back. People, mostly men, had appeared in sporadic bursts for the past quarter hour, but now a spate of newcomers blocked the doorway. Two porters took turns ushering members of the ever-increasing throng toward unoccupied chairs. Quite a large turnout, more than he expected for a lecture
on steam engines. Well, steam engines were the future of transportation. That probably accounted for the full house and the preponderance of men.
Laurence stood to allow a scholarly-looking gentleman to enter his row.
Wynne also rose. “Coffey, I cannot understand why you asked me to come.”
The scholarly gentleman murmured his thanks as he passed and then lowered himself into the seat on Wynne’s other side.
“I hope your presence will make lightning strike again.” Wynne had helped Fellowes meet his lady by introducing him to a common friend. Would he know someone here who had Miss Palmer’s acquaintance? He could but hope. His heartbeat, which had raced all day, pounded quicker.
Wynne’s eyes narrowed as he slanted him an incredulous glance. “Lightning? We are indoors. No lightning here. Are you certain you are well?”
“Yes, yes.” Laurence resumed his seat, Wynne doing the same. “Do you know anyone here?”
Wynne raised his eyebrows as if firmly convinced his friend was addle-pated, but he dutifully scanned the crowd. “No one I can see.”
The start time for the lecture approached, and the seats rapidly filled. Laurence sat sideways into the aisle and craned his neck to peer around the spectators seated between him and the doors. She hadn’t arrived yet. Pray she hadn’t changed her mind.
He closed his fist hard on the unyielding wood of the chair back. She had to come! If not, he would bribe the library clerk to find out her address the next time she visited Hookham’s. Or if she didn’t return, he would ferret out whose account she had used and query that person.
Boots and shoes scuffed on the hard wood floor as the audience awaited the lecturer. A low buzz of expectant conversation, punctuated with the occasional laugh or cough, flowed around Laurence.
The spate of newcomers at last thinned to a trickle. A few stragglers hurried in and the doorkeepers escorted each to one of the few remaining chairs.
Finished with their task, the porters resumed their stations at the now empty threshold. The room hushed for a few seconds, and then burst into applause. Laurence swiveled toward the front. A tall, thin man clad in sober black, wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, emerged from a portal at the front of the Room. Clutching an unwieldy sheaf of papers in both hands, he strode to the podium.
Laurence cast a frantic glance back at the entrance. One porter swung the far door shut. The lecture was about to start and she still wasn’t here!
The speaker inclined his head and the clapping died away. “Thank you for coming.”
Wood scraped the floor as the second porter drew the nearer door toward its fellow. He paused at a scuffling of feet in the corridor beyond.
The half-open portal blocked Laurence’s view of the latecomers. His pulse beat a frantic tattoo. Was she finally here?
The panel swung wide once more to admit a tall, gangling youth who faced away from Laurence, and a short woman in grey, her face obscured by the brim of her straw bonnet.
He narrowed his eyes. Was she the one?
The porter escorted the pair to two adjacent chairs at the end of the last row on the other side of the passage, the lady taking the aisle seat. She untied her bonnet ribbons and removed her headgear.
Laurence hissed in a breath. She was here!
Wynne elbowed him in the stomach. “Are you sure you are well? You are wheezing like you are coming down with an ague.”
“I am fine.” Laurence sagged as he pivoted to face the lecturer. She had come. One obstacle removed.
Now, when would there be a break so he could approach her?
***
Ellen settled her hat in her lap atop her notebook and sighed. At last, despite the slowest hackney she had ever ridden in, they were here. Thankfully, the talk had only just started, so they hadn’t missed much.
She leaned out into the aisle. Whenever she could, she sat at the end of a row so she could look down the central passage. She was too short to see over the people in front of her, and she liked to watch the lecturer as he spoke.
A light-haired man farther up on the other side of the aisle leaned out into the passage. He looked back, straight at her. A slow smile curved his lips.
Her breath stuttered in her throat. The gentleman from the library! He had invaded her thoughts all day and here he was.
She had dawdled as she and Tom left the library, hoping the gentleman would follow. A little conversation couldn’t hurt, especially with her brother there. And, while Tom probably wouldn’t have liked it, she could overrule him. But he hadn’t followed. She had spent the rest of the day counting the hours until she could return to Hookham’s and ask the clerk his name.
The mystery gentleman wore the same clothes he had this afternoon, and looked just as fresh and attractive as he had then. She hadn’t liked Cossack trousers before. Why ever not?
She smiled back.
His grin widened and his light blue eyes twinkled with frank male interest.
Her throat constricted. Like in the library, his gaze again caught and held her fast as if she were a cobra transfixed by the music of its handler’s pipe.
She could have cursed Tom when he interrupted them this afternoon. But now she had a second chance. Did she know someone here who could introduce them?
The lecturer coughed. “My topic tonight is…”
The spectator behind the fascinating gentleman tapped him on the shoulder. With a farewell dip of his head, the man of her dreams swung toward the front, displaying broad shoulders outlined to perfection by his well-tailored coat.
Gracious, how forward of her, to smile at a stranger. He was vastly handsome, but he had to have more than a pretty face and form to attract her. They had both reached for the library copy of Pride and Prejudice at the same time. Could he like the book as much as she did? And he was here at the lecture on steam engines. Surely, they must have something in common.
She had dreamed of finding her very own Mr. Darcy. While this man was not exactly how she had pictured the Pride and Prejudice hero—she had always imagined Mr. Darcy with dark hair—he was unarguably a superb specimen of masculinity. Her gaze locked on his broad shoulders. She sighed.
“Ellen, can you see?” Tom, his voice low, bent close. “We can move your chair into the aisle if you cannot.”
“Yes, I think I need the chair out a bit.” That way she could have an unobstructed view of the attractive man. She stood as her brother slid the chair a few inches into the passage. She nodded her thanks as she settled back.
“Better?”
“Oh, yes.” She could see her Mr. Darcy quite well now. But, how could she meet him? A quick scan of the audience from her improved position didn’t reveal a familiar face. That avenue was closed.
Her lips curved into a smile. Well, there was always the handkerchief ploy. She pulled her pencil and handkerchief from her reticule and then opened her tablet as if to take notes. Turning slightly away from Tom, she tore a small scrap of paper off a page and then scribbled on the sheet. She knotted the note into her handkerchief and hid the linen in the folds of her skirt.
Keeping one eye on the well-favored man ahead, she smoothed her skirts over the hidden handkerchief and directed her attention to the speaker. She was ready. But, for the nonce, she really should concentrate on the lecture.
Chapter 4
Laurence fidgeted in his seat. Hang it, would this talk never end? Or at least would the speaker give the audience a break?
He slipped his watch out of his pocket and flipped open the cover. Gads, how could one man speak for an entire hour without stopping? At this rate, they would be here all night.
Although, he had to admit the lecture was interesting. Despite his preoccupation, the topic had caught his attention. Mayhap he should attend more of these presentations. He should also read the man’s book.
He grinned. Since Miss Palmer had taken out the library copy, perhaps he could read it with her.
He leaned out into the aisle and looked back again. F
or at least the tenth time. The lovely Miss Palmer was still there, hands primly folded in her lap, her chair now halfway into the passage. Every time he looked, he held his breath, praying she hadn’t disappeared.
He smiled.
She smiled back.
His heart leaped. She was definitely interested.
“And I thank you for your time.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the lecturer’s bow. Applause rippled through the audience.
Laurence gave a few perfunctory claps. At last. Now to see if I can formally meet her.
The speaker’s voice rose once more above the fading applause. “If anyone has questions, I would be happy to answer.”
Oh, no. Laurence slumped in his seat. He would never get to her.
A man close to the front stood up. “Can you tell us what devices will benefit from the Cornish steam engine?”
Laurence slid farther down his seat. With his luck, they would be here until mostly everyone fell asleep and she would leave while he wasn’t awake.
He peeked back at the lady while several more questions peppered the lecturer. She was still there. His pounding heart calmed.
He fidgeted in his seat, tapped his foot, pulled out his pocket watch, returned the timepiece to his pocket and then once more turned around.
Wynne cast him a myriad of dirty glances.
“Are there any more questions?” The speaker surveyed the now quiet throng. “Then I shall say good night and thank you for coming.”
More applause rang out, some no doubt in relief at the end of the lecture. Then the members of the audience variously shifted to their feet and flowed out into the aisle.
Laurence clapped hard. Finally. He looked back. The youth with Miss Palmer had pulled her chair back into the row.
“What is amiss with you?” Wynne craned his neck around the lecture goers behind them who had risen to leave. “What is back there?”
“The reason I came. Do you see the lady in the last row?”
“The short one in the grey dress?”
“I want to meet her. By any chance, do you know her?”
Wynne shook his head.
