What Happens in London (Bevelstoke #2)(9)

“Olivia?” someone said.

She blinked, realizing that she’d been silent for a beat too long. “It’s nothing,” she said, giving her head a little shake. “Just thinking.”

“About Sir Harry,” Anne said, a little smugly.

“It’s not as if I’ve been given the opportunity to think of anything else,” Olivia muttered.

“What would you rather be thinking about?” Philomena asked.

Olivia opened her mouth to speak, then realized she hadn’t a clue how to answer. “Anything,” she finally said. “Almost anything.”

But her curiosity had been piqued. And Olivia Frances Bevelstoke’s curiosity was a formidable thing indeed.



The girl in the house to the north was watching him again. She’d been doing it for the better part of a week now. At first Harry had thought nothing of it. She was the daughter of the Earl of Rudland, for God’s sake, or if not that, then some sort of relation—if she were a servant she’d surely have been sacked by now for all the time she spent standing at the window.

And she wasn’t the governess. The Earl of Rudland had a wife, or so Harry had been told. No wife allowed a governess who looked like that into her household.

So she was almost certainly the daughter. Which meant that he had no reason to suppose she was anything other than a typically nosy society miss, the sort who thought nothing of peering at one’s new neighbors. Except that she had been watching him for five days. Surely if she were curious about only the cut of his coat and the color of his hair, she’d have completed her perusal by now.

He’d been tempted to wave. Plaster an enormous, cheerful smile on his face and wave. That would put a halt to her spying. Except then he would never know why she was so interested.

Which was unacceptable. Harry never could tolerate an unanswered “why.”

Not to mention that he was not quite close enough to her window to see her answering expression. Which defeated the purpose of the wave. If she was going to be embarrassed, he wanted to see it. What was the fun in it, otherwise?

Harry sat back down at his desk, acting as if he hadn’t a clue that she was peeking at him from behind her curtains. He had work to do, and he needed to stop wondering about the blonde up at the window. A messenger from the War Office had delivered a rather lengthy document earlier that morning, and it needed translating right away. Harry always followed the same routine when converting Russian to English—first a quick read, for the overall meaning, then a closer look, examining the document on a more word-by-word level. Only then, after this thorough perusal, did he pick up a pen and ink and begin his translation.

It was a tedious task. He liked it, but then again, he’d always liked puzzles. He could sit with a document for hours, and realize only when the sun went down that he had not eaten all day. But even he, who was so enamored of the task, could not imagine spending the day watching someone translate documents.

And yet there she was, once again at her window. Probably thinking she was so very good at concealment and he an absolute dunce.

He smirked. She had no idea. Harry might work for the dull branch of the War Office—the one that dealt with words and papers instead of guns, knives, and secret missions—but he was well trained. He’d spent ten years in the military, most of them on the Continent, where an observant eye and a keen sense for movement could make the difference between life and death.

He’d noticed, for example, that she had a habit of tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear. And because she sometimes watched him at night, he knew that when she let it down—the entire, unbelievably sunshiny mass of it—the ends hit right in the middle of her back.

He knew that her dressing gown was blue. And, regrettably, rather shapeless.

She had no talent for holding still. She probably thought she did; she wasn’t a fidgeter, and her posture was straight and direct. But something always gave her away—a little flutter of her fingertips, or perhaps a tiny elevation of her shoulders as she drew breath.

And of course, by this point, Harry couldn’t possibly not notice her.

It did make him wonder. What part of his being hunched over a sheaf of papers was so interesting to her? Because that was all he had been doing all week.

Perhaps he ought to liven up the spectacle. Really, it would be the kind thing to do. She had to be bored silly.

He could jump on his desk and sing.

Take a bite of food and pretend to choke. What would she do, then?

Now that would be an interesting moral dilemma. He set down his pen for a moment, thinking about the various society ladies he’d had cause to meet. He was not so very cynical; he fully believed that some of them, at least, would make an attempt to save him. But he rather doubted any possessed the necessary athletic skills to make it over in time.

He’d best chew his food carefully.

Harry let out a long breath and attempted to refocus his attention on his work. His eyes had been turned toward his papers the entire time he’d been thinking about the girl at the window, but he had not read a thing. He’d got nothing done in the past five days. He supposed he could draw the curtain, but that would be too obvious. Especially now, at half noon, with the sun high and bright.

He stared down at the words before him, but he could not concentrate. She was still there, still staring at him, imagining herself concealed behind the curtain.