Two minutes later Jack was rewarded for his patience by the sound of feminine footsteps in the hall. Grace’s footsteps.
He pretended to be engrossed in his book.
“Oh, you’re reading,” she said, sounding surprised.
He carefully turned a page. “I do so on occasion.”
He could practically hear her roll her eyes as she walked in. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
He looked up and affixed a smile. “And yet here I am.”
She stood hesitantly in the doorway, her hands clasped tightly before her. She was nervous, he realized.
He hated himself for that.
He tilted his head in invitation, motioning to the chair beside him.
“What are you reading?” she asked, coming into the room.
He turned his book toward the empty seat at the table. “Have a look.”
She did not sit immediately. Rather, she rested her hands at the edge of the table and leaned forward, peering down at the open pages. “Art,” she said.
“My second favorite subject.”
She gave him a shrewd look. “You wish for me to ask you what your favorite is.”
“Am I so obvious?”
“You are only obvious when you wish to be.”
He held up his hands in mock dismay. “And alas, it still doesn’t work. You have not asked me what my favorite subject is.”
“Because,” she returned, sitting down, “I am quite certain the answer will contain something highly inappropriate.”
He placed one hand on his chest, the dramatic gesture somehow restoring his equilibrium. It was easier to play the jester. No one expected as much from fools. “I am wounded,” he proclaimed. “I promise you, I was not going to say that my favorite subject was seduction, or the art of a kiss, or the proper way to remove a lady’s glove, or for that matter the proper way to remove-”
“Stop!”
“I was going to say,” he said, trying to sound beleaguered and henpecked, “that my favorite subject of late is you.”
Their eyes met, but only for a moment. Something unnerved her, and she quickly shifted her gaze to her lap. He watched her, mesmerized by the play of emotions on her face, by the way her hands, which were clasped together atop the table, tensed and moved.
“I don’t like this painting,” she said quite suddenly.
He had to look back at the book to see which image she referred to. It was a man and a woman out of doors, sitting on the grass. The woman’s back was to the canvas, and she seemed to be pushing the man away. Jack was not familiar with it, but he thought he recognized the style. “The Boucher?”
“Ye-no,” she said, blinking in confusion as she leaned forward. She looked down. “Jean-Antoine Watteau,” she read. “The Faux Pas.”
He looked down more closely. “Sorry,” he said, his voice light. “I’d only just turned the page. I think it does look rather like a Boucher, though. Don’t you?”
She gave a tiny shrug. “I’m not familiar enough with either artist to say. I did not study painting-or painters-very much as a child. My parents weren’t overly interested in art.”
“How is that possible?”
She smiled at that, the sort of smile that was almost a laugh. “It wasn’t so much that they weren’t interested, just that they were interested in other things more. I think that above all they would have loved to travel. Both of them adored maps and atlases of all sorts.”
Jack felt his eyes roll up at that. “I hate maps.”
“Really?” She sounded stunned, and maybe just a little bit delighted by his admission. “Why?”
He told her the truth. “I haven’t the talent for reading them.”
“And you, a highwayman.”
“What has that to do with it?”
“Don’t you need to know where you’re going?”
“Not nearly so much as I need to know where I’ve been.” She looked perplexed at that, so he added, “There are certain areas of the country-possibly all of Kent, to be honest-it is best that I avoid.”
“This is one of those moments,” she said, blinking several times in rapid succession, “when I am not quite certain if you are being serious.”
“Oh, very much so,” he told her, almost cheerfully. “Except perhaps for the bit about Kent.”
She looked at him in incomprehension.
“I might have been understating.”
“Understating,” she echoed.
“There’s a reason I avoid the South.”
“Good heavens.”
It was such a ladylike utterance. He almost laughed.
“I don’t think I have ever known a man who would admit to being a poor reader of maps,” she said once she regained her composure.
He let his gaze grow warm, then hot. “I told you I was special.”
“Oh, stop.” She wasn’t looking at him, not directly, at least, and so she did not see his change of expression. Which probably explained why her tone remained so bright and brisk as she said, “I must say, it does complicate matters. The dowager asked me to find you so that you could aid with our routing once we disembark in Dublin.”
He waved a hand. “That I can do.”
“Without a map?”
“We went frequently during my school days.”
She looked up and smiled, almost nostalgically, as if she could see into his memories. “I’d wager you were not the head boy.”
He lifted a brow. “Do you know, I think most people would consider that an insult.”