“Put that down!” She rushed around the desk and snatched uselessly at the paper.
“Indulge me.” He stepped sideways and started to read, then frowned. He put down that page and reached around her for the next. After a few minutes, he replaced the pages and lifted his head to stare at her in shock. “It’s you.”
She scowled, panting with annoyance at his high-handed behavior. He rather liked that she made no attempt to charm him. Women always strove to turn him up sweet, however disreputable his birth. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Dr. Barrett isn’t the brilliant mind here. His daughter is. You write the articles.”
Genevieve paled and backed against the desk. Her hand clenched on her ruined manuscript, crushing the damp paper into a ball. “Don’t be absurd. I’m a mere woman.”
He laughed, genuinely delighted. “That’s the first coy thing I’ve heard you say.”
Her jaw set in a mutinous line. “Any article written in this house is published under my father’s name.”
“It’s all your work.” He watched her struggle to deny the truth. But the lightning intelligence and sharp perception demonstrated in the articles, and lacking in the vicar, were clear from the first line. “Come, there’s no point nay-saying. I know you’re the scholar here.”
Briefly he wondered whether he could turn this knowledge against her, use it to obtain the jewel. Would she sell him the heirloom in return for his silence on her authorship? He tucked the thought away to consider later, even as he recognized his reluctance to resort to blackmail. Ridiculous when the whole purpose of this masquerade was to winkle out the chit’s secrets.
“I have no qualifications.”
“Apart from a brain the size of St. Paul’s. And a lifetime in scholarly circles.” Still, he was impressed at what she’d achieved without formal education. Ignoring her resistance, he lifted the hand curled around the soggy paper and placed a kiss across her knuckles. For once he wasn’t being seductive. “Deny the fact until Christmas, but it won’t do any good. I’m in awe, Miss Barrett.”
She cast him an uncertain glance under her lashes. Another woman might mean flirtation, but he’d concluded that Genevieve Barrett had never learned the wiles of her worldly sisters.
When he let her go, she began to shred the paper, her hands working nervously in front of her extravagantly pocketed pinafore. “You can’t share your suspicions. They could destroy my father’s reputation.”
After lifting some books off the seat, he moved a chair from the wall to the desk. Dust flew and he sneezed. Sirius started up in surprise from where he lay in sleepy contentment. Sitting, Richard surveyed her with unfettered admiration. “Your brilliance should receive acknowledgement.”
Her voice expressionless, she retreated to sit behind the desk. “Papa offered to credit me as coauthor after I turned twenty-one, but that is yet to eventuate.”
Genevieve’s careful neutrality indicated that this was a sore point. No wonder she resented her father. As a man familiar with parental betrayal, Richard felt for her. “Surely people suspect.”
“There’s no reason they should.” In her eyes, he read displeasure at how quickly he’d uncovered her secret.
“I knew the moment I read that first page.”
“A lucky guess.”
“Perhaps we’re particularly attuned, Miss Barrett.”
Her expression didn’t lighten. “Stop flirting. This is serious.”
He laughed softly and leaned back in his chair. “Believe me, flirting is a serious business.” He sobered. “Fairbrother must have an inkling.”
Lord Neville strove to make Richard feel like an interloper. Richard had immediately recognized that the man protected his territory. The question was—what was his territory? Scholarly pursuits? The vicar? The vicar’s dangerously unsuspecting daughter? Or all three?
A cynical light entered Genevieve’s eyes. “Lord Neville’s interest is his collection, not scholarship for its own sake.”
An interesting opinion. And one that wouldn’t please his overbearing lordship, Richard thought with unworthy satisfaction. “You can’t hide in your father’s shadow forever.”
The tension drained from her shoulders and she answered with unexpected readiness. Perhaps the relief of sharing the truth with someone, even his unworthy self, encouraged confidences. “I’m publishing an article about the Harmsworth Jewel under my own name.”
Holy God above. No wonder she didn’t want to sell the artifact. He barely stopped himself choking with appalled astonishment.
He struggled to act as if this revelation incited only mild curiosity. “What?”
“That’s it.” She pointed at the enamel and gold object, as if he needed help locating it. “My findings should set the scholarly world abuzz. Or at least that section of the scholarly world interested in the Anglo-Saxons.” Her tone turned wry as she acknowledged that this esoteric field rarely impinged on the wider public.
She lifted the jewel, her hands sure, almost careless. His belly clenched with conflicting impulses. The urge to grab the girl. The urge to grab the jewel.