Julia Quinn - What Happens in London

“I will. As soon as you’re through with it.”

She looked as if she were about to agree, and indeed she opened her mouth to speak. But then she froze, and her eyes narrowed dangerously.

This, he reminded himself, was a woman with two brothers. She would know how to fight. Deviously.

“I think you should read it with me,” she said to him.

Harry had all sorts of thoughts about that, most of them fed by his usual practice of reading novels before bed.

In bed.

“Buy another copy,” she said.

His lovely little daydream popped and disintegrated.

“We shall compare notes. It will be like a reading club. One of those literary salons I am always rejecting invitations to.”

“I am flattered beyond imagination.”

“As well you should be,” she said. “I have never invited anyone else to do the same.”

“I don’t know that the store will have another copy,” he said.

“I’ll find one for you.” She gave him a bit of a smirk. “Trust me, I know how to shop.”

“Why am I suddenly frightened?” he murmured.

“What?”

He looked at her and said more loudly, “You scare me.”

She appeared to be delighted by that.

“Read me a passage,” he said.

“Now? Really?”

He settled himself on the ledge, leaning his back against the window frame. “The beginning, if you will.”

She stared down at him for a few moments, then shrugged and said, “Very well. Here we are.” She cleared her throat. “It was a dark and windy night.”

“I feel as if I’ve heard that before,” Harry commented.

“You’re interrupting.”

“So sorry. Go on.”

She gave him a stare, then continued. “It was a dark and windy night, and Miss Priscilla Butterworth was certain that at any moment the rain would begin, pouring down from the heavens in sheets and streams, dousing all that lay within her purview.” She looked up. “This is dreadful. And I’m not sure the author used ‘purview’ correctly.”

“It’s close enough,” Harry said, although he agreed with her completely. “Continue.”

She shook her head but obeyed nonetheless. “She was, of course, shielded from the weather in her tiny chamber, but the window casings rattled with such noise that there would be no way she would find slumber in this evening. Huddled on her thin, cold bed, she blah blah blah, hold on, I’ll skip to where it gets interesting.”

“You can’t do that,” he scolded.

She held Miss Butterworth aloft. “I’m holding the book.”

“Toss it down,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

He nudged himself off the ledge and stood on the floor, poking his upper body out the window. “Toss it down.”

She looked most dubious. “Will you catch it?”

He laid down the gauntlet. “If you can throw it, I can catch it.”

“Oh, I can throw,” she returned, clearly insulted.

He smirked. “I’ve never met a girl who could.”

At that she hurled it at him, and it was only thanks to his quick reflexes, honed by years on the battlefield, that he managed to get himself in place to catch it.

Which he did. Thank God. He was not sure he could have lived with himself had he not.

“Next time try a gentle toss,” he grumbled.

“What would be the fun in that?”

Forget Romeo and Juliet. This was much closer to The Taming of the Shrew. He looked up. She had pulled up a chair and was now sitting right by her open window, waiting with an expression of exaggerated patience.

“Here we are,” he said, finding the spot where she’d left off. “Huddled on her thin, cold bed, she could not help but recall all of the events that had led her to this bleak spot, on this bleak night. But this, dear reader, is not where our story begins.”

“I hate when authors do that,” Olivia announced.

“Shush. We must begin at the beginning, which is not when Miss Butterworth arrived at Thimmerwell Hall, nor even when she arrived at Fitzgerald Place, her home before Thimmerwell Hall. No, we must begin on the day she was born, in a manger-”

“A manger!” Olivia nearly shrieked.

He grinned up at her. “I was just making sure you were listening.”

“Wretch.”

He chuckled and read on. “…the day she was born, in a small cottage in Hampshire, surrounded by roses and butterflies, on the last day before the town was ravaged by pox.”

He looked up.

“No, don’t stop,” she said. “It’s just starting to get interesting. What sort of pox, do you think?”

“You’re a bloodthirsty wench, did you know?”

She cocked her head to the side in a gesture of agreement. “I’m fascinated by pestilence. I always have been.”

He skimmed quickly down the page. “I’m afraid you are destined for disappointment. The author gives no medical description whatsoever.”

“Maybe on the next page?” she asked hopefully.

“I shall continue,” he announced. “The epidemic took her beloved father, but miraculously spared the baby and her mother. Also among the fallen were her paternal grandmother, both grandfathers, three great-aunts, two uncles, a sister, and a second cousin.”

“You’re having fun with me again,” she accused.

“I’m not!” he insisted. “I swear to you, it’s all here. It was quite an epidemic there in Hampshire. If you hadn’t chucked the book at me, you could see for yourself.”

“No one writes that badly.”

“Apparently someone does.”

“I’m not sure who is worse, the author for writing this drivel, or us, for reading it.”

“I’m having great fun,” he declared. And he was. It was the most unlikely thing, sitting here at his window, reading an excruciatingly bad novel to Lady Olivia Bevelstoke, the most sought-after young lady of the ton. But the breeze was lovely, and he’d been cooped up all day, and sometimes, when he looked up at her, she was smiling. Not at him, although she did that, too. No, the smiles that seemed to tingle through him were the ones on her face when she didn’t realize he was looking, when she was simply enjoying the moment, smiling into the night.

She was not just pretty, she was beautiful, with the sort of face that made men weep: heart-shaped, with perfect porcelain skin. And her eyes-women would kill for eyes of that color, that amazing cornflower blue.

She was beautiful, and she knew it, but she did not wield her beauty like a weapon. It was simply a part of who she was, as natural as two hands and feet, ten fingers and toes.

She was beautiful, and he wanted her.

Sir Harry?” Olivia called out, coming to her feet. She leaned against the sill, peering out past the darkness to his window, where he sat silhouetted against a flickering rectangle of light. He had gone so still, and so suddenly, at that.

He started at the sound of her voice, looking up at her window, but not quite at her. “Sorry,” he muttered, and he turned quickly back to the book, searching through the words to find his place.

“No, no, don’t be,” she assured him. He really did look a little odd, as if he’d just eaten something that had gone off. “Are you all right?”

He looked up at her, and then-it was really quite impossible to describe, or even understand-what happened. His eyes met hers, and even though it was dark, and she couldn’t see the color, that rich, warm chocolate-she still knew it. And she felt it. And then, quite simply, she lost her breath. Just lost it. Her balance, too. She stumbled back into her chair, and sat there for a moment, wondering why her heart was racing.

All he’d done was look at her.

And she’d…she’d…

She’d swooned.

Oh, dear heavens, he must think her an absolute fool. She had never swooned a day in her life, and-and, oh very well, she hadn’t really swooned, but that was what it felt like, this strange, floaty thing, all fizzy and queer, and now he was going to think she was one of those ladies who had to carry a vinaigrette with her everywhere she went.

Which was bad enough, except that she’d spent half her life poking fun at those ladies. Oh dear oh dear. She scrambled back to her feet and poked her head out the window. “I’m fine,” she called out. “Just lost my footing.”

He nodded slowly, and she realized he wasn’t entirely with her. His thoughts were far, far away. Then, as if quietly coming back into place, he looked up and begged her pardon. “Woolgathering,” he offered as explanation. “It’s late.”

“It is,” she murmured in agreement, although she did not think it could be very much past ten. And all of a sudden she realized that she could not bear to have him say good night, that she was going to have to do it first. Because…because…Well, she didn’t know why, she only knew that it was true.

“I was just about to say that I should really be going,” she said, the words tumbling from her lips. “Well, not going, I suppose, as I don’t really have anywhere to go, since I’m already right here in my room, and I’m not going anywhere but bed, and that’s just a few feet away.”

She smiled at him, as if that could make up for the nonsense coming from her mouth. “As you said,” she continued, “it is growing late.”

He nodded again.

And she had to say something more, because he wasn’t doing so. “Good night then.”

He returned the farewell, but his voice was so soft she didn’t really hear it, rather saw the words on his lips.

And again, like his eyes, when he looked at her, she felt it. It started in her fingertips, floating up her arms until she shivered and exhaled, as if she could set the strange feeling free with her breath.

But it stayed with her, tickling her lungs, dancing across her skin.

She was going mad. That had to be it. Or she was overtired. Too tense from a day with a royal prince.