Panic sent his heart shooting to his throat.
He looked at the empty seat vacated by the quiet gentleman with the pasty white face and thin lips. The ghostly figure who hid in the shadows, watching his home.
Damnation!
Lucius’ gaze shot to the table. The scientific artefacts remained, but some light-fingered beggar had snatched the journal from the oak bookstand.
“Damn him to the devil!” Lucius dragged his hand down his face while he contemplated his next move. He rounded on Miss Atwood. “Must you persist in being such an annoying distraction?”
The lady blinked. “Evidently, you have no control over your temper, sir. Must you persist in being rude to the point of—”
“Good day, Miss Atwood.”
Lucius had wasted enough time trying to make the woman see sense. Ignoring her shocked expression, he took to his feet and raced from the room. Barging past the few men conversing on the landing, he gripped the polished bannister and practically flew down the two flights of stairs.
“Mr Daventry! Wait!” His nemesis’ frustrated voice trailed behind. “What on earth—”
“Go home, Miss Atwood!” he shouted as he skidded along the tiled hallway and shoved more than one man in the back in his bid to reach Gilbert Street.
As one would expect at eleven o’clock on a Monday morning—on a street so close to the museum—scholars laden with books and letter cases and portable writing slopes crowded the pavements. Tourists hurried from their lodging houses, eager to reach the building of wonders located on Great Russell Street.
“Hellfire!” Lucius cursed almost to himself. It was impossible to identify his quarry amongst a sea of black top hats.
“Mr Daventry?” Miss Atwood came to an abrupt halt next to him. She clutched her chest and gasped a breath. An action that drew his gaze to her heaving bosom.
Saints preserve him!
He must have wronged someone to deserve this fate.
Lucius forced himself to study the people on the street. “I’ve nothing more to say to you, Miss Atwood.” He pitied Mrs Cavanagh, for the poor woman was left trailing behind her irate friend. For the last fifteen minutes, she had sat in silence, deep furrows a permanent feature on her brow. “Mrs Cavanagh has heard enough of our petty quarrels for one day.”
“The j-journal,” Miss Atwood panted. It took every effort not to steal another glance at her flushed cheeks and parted lips. “The one you displayed on the table. It’s … it’s gone.”
The distress in her voice was unmistakable. Part of him wanted to maintain the charade, make her think the object of her desire was lost, stolen by the fiend who had sat quietly throughout the proceedings and waited for the opportune moment to strike. Perhaps then she might put the past behind her and live the life Atticus intended.
But Lucius knew Miss Atwood better than that.
Besides, if there was one thing he couldn’t bear, it was seeing pain and suffering in her eyes. Hearing grief in her voice at the loss of something precious would be like a barbed arrow to his heart.
“I suspect the fellow with the sallow complexion is the culprit.” The truth hung like a heavy weight on his tongue. Honesty was his only option lest she take to her heels and chase after the blackguard. “There is something you should know, Miss Atwood.” He could feel her penetrating stare long before he turned to face her. “The stolen book is not your father’s journal.”
Relief replaced the fear in her eyes. “Yet it looked so similar.” The twinkling of those vivid green gems made it easier to raise his defences.
“My morals may be questionable on occasion, but I would never risk losing Atticus Atwood’s work.” That was far from the whole truth, but it would be enough to appease her.
“Only on occasion?” she challenged. “Is there a woman in the ton you have not bedded?”
The muscles in his abdomen clenched when the obvious answer sprang to mind. If she were anyone but Atticus Atwood’s daughter, he would bed her in a heartbeat. “Opinion is not reality. Perhaps you should remember that when you make your veiled accusations.”
He expected a witty retort, but instead, she narrowed her gaze and studied him with some curiosity. “Come now. Mrs Sinclair is your fourth mistress in as many months, is she not?”
The fact the lady had been monitoring his movements to such an extent proved flattering and terrifying at the same time. “You’ve been taking notes. When did you develop a deep interest in my personal affairs?”
“One can hardly help but take note. You engaged in an amorous clinch in Craddock and Haines’ bookshop!” She gestured to Mrs Cavanagh, who was pretending not to hear their conversation. “We both saw you.”
“A man might devour numerous pages in a book before he decides if tackling the volume will be worth the effort.” Perhaps he should tell Miss Atwood that he had known she was there, that he had staged the interlude for her benefit. It was better if she believed he was the most dissolute man of the ton. Better for them both. “You saw me because you were following me around town dressed in widow’s weeds.”
“You stopped responding to my letters. How else was I to learn of the auction?”