Dangerous 01 - Dangerous Works Page 8

  “Andrew? Did you hear me? My translations!”

  Abrupt descent to reality and the direction of his mind and body shamed him. She didn’t notice the desire he thought must be obvious. Look at me, Georgie. Take a good look, he thought, but she went on without seeing him.

  “The translations are serviceable. I know that my work is accurate and precise, but it is not …” Her even white teeth caught her lower lip. She sought the right word. “It isn’t subtle or stylistically sophisticated enough to give the writers their due.”

  She looked at him finally. “What I need, Mr. Mallet, is a mentor or, barring that, a tutor. Your assistance would be of great value to me.”

  She held her breath. The same Georgie he found behind the palms in her father’s orangery, who struggled alone through her brother’s schoolboy Plato, stared out at him and defied him to criticize or laugh.

  Humiliation made him mute. Caught up in her own objectives and how he might suit her purpose, she didn’t see him. His feelings, his desires meant nothing. His instincts longed to refuse her, shut her out, and remove her from his house.

  He opened his mouth to do so, but he watched her stand her ground while every nuance of her fear and uncertainty radiated from her posture and face. He could no more resist her courage now than he could when they were young. He drew a slow, deep breath.

  “Let me recapitulate,” he said. “You, for your part, are prepared to feed me, assist with the housekeeping, and relieve my man of his nursing duties—things which, you must be aware, I am perfectly capable of providing for myself. Is there anything else you can offer me?”

  She looked dumbfounded. She opened her mouth as if to speak and shut it again.

  “No?” He leaned back. “Then I, for my part, am to give you the benefit of my training, share the subtlety of my mind, and jeopardize my respect in the classics community of Cambridge, for your sake. Does that summarize your proposal?” All benefit to you at great cost to me.

  He watched her chin rise in the characteristic Hayden gesture of superiority. In Georgiana the expression represented her armor, her shield against hurt. He had loved her for it. She didn’t speak. Neither did she back down.

  “Well, then, your proposal seems fair enough,” he said with obvious sarcasm. “I am afraid, however, that I’m not up to the labor today.”

  “Of course not, I—” Her words came in a rush but not fast enough.

  “I shall have to sink deeper into your debt, my lady,” he said with finality. “Shall we begin at the beginning of next week? Some rest and I believe I will be ready.”

  “As you wish, Mr. Mallet. Do we have a contract?” He could tell she didn’t know whether to believe him. Hope lurked in her eyes.

  “Yes, my lady, I believe we do.”

  “Shall I take my leave for today?”

  “Please.” No demurring. “I will come to you when I am able.”

  “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “No. No, you will not come to Helsington. It will be a long time before you can come with some frequency, and make no doubt, Mr. Mallet, I will require your assistance with frequency. I’ll arrange for my work to be transported here. Shall we say one week?”

  The condition worried him, but he rapidly lost strength to protest. He would figure a way out when he recovered.

  “Very well,” he said. “One week. But there is one more thing.”

  He had her attention.

  “Hire whomever you will, but under no circumstances do I wish to eat your cooking. It will increase my debt to you if you wouldn’t force me to do so.”

  The raised chin appeared again. She was fierce, his Georgie.

  “Very well, Mr. Mallet. Very well. I agree to your terms.”

  Chapter 10

  Every jolt of the carriage over Little Saint Mary’s cobbles sent a spasm of anxiety through Georgiana. Transporting her life’s work terrified her. Why did I refuse Andrew’s insistence that he come to Helsington?

  The carriage lurched to a stop and swayed for several moments under its suffocating burden. Georgiana leapt down, waved off her footman’s helping hand, and ran to peer around the back. The precious cargo was in place. Relief flooded her. Her babies had arrived safely.

  She turned to discover the avid faces of her servants studying her. With a snap to her skirts and tug to her sleeve, she summoned her dignity and said, “You may announce me to the household.”

  She caught sight of a woman peering through curtains across the street. Two more paused down the lane and openly stared at her. She wondered if they recognized her and saw that an unmarried lady visited the scholar’s house.

  She suspected the nosey neighbors puzzled over the mountain of boxes delivered with her and hoped that, at least, gave value to the commotion she caused. She remembered what Mrs. Potter had told her? “Give them something to chew on, Georgiana, and they’ll ignore the rest.”

  “I see the contents of the great library at Alexandria have been located. And to think that for centuries we thought they were lost in the fire.”

  Georgiana spun on her heels. Andrew stood in his doorway. Quick assessment showed excellent color, confident posture, and no sign of his staff. Relief trumped his irony. She followed him in.

  “It is quite a lot,” she admitted.

  John Footman, she saw, had begun to neatly stack the first few boxes in Andrew’s little sitting room just to the right of the front door.

  “I suggest we place my boxes upstairs in your study,” she said.

  She suspected her boxes would fill the little sitting room on the ground floor, and she longed to work in his book-lined study. She gestured toward John Footman who hesitated in the doorway, another box in his hands, silently commanding him to go up the stairs.

  Andrew blocked his way.

  “I work upstairs,” Andrew said with authority that brooked no contradiction.

  “Yes. The work belongs in the study, and—”

  “If I turn my study into a warehouse, I won’t be able to work. If I am unable to work, I won’t be able to provide you the tutoring you require. Your papers will be safe and dry in my sitting room, my lady, or I wouldn’t have ordered it. You can trust me with them.”

  She hoped that her doubt was evident on her face. She bit her tongue and glared until she saw fires ignite in his eyes. “Very well.” She squeezed her lips tightly and spat. “The boxes can be brought above stairs one at a time.”

  “Perhaps you could describe the general contents, and I will decide what to do.”

  Stubborn man. She forgot that about him. No one bullied Andrew Mallet. He knew his own mind and did as he chose. Could anyone bully such a man into joining the army? He had said, “I will call on you tomorrow,” and he meant it. Then he disappeared from her life for eleven years. That wasn’t like him. This vexatious stubbornness was.

  Georgiana opened her mouth to ask him why he joined the army so abruptly all those years ago. She shut it again.

  “Whatever you are going to say, don’t. I know what I am doing. Can we get on with the work?” He looked thoroughly annoyed. She found it oddly endearing. “The work, my lady?”

  “The work, yes.” She had won one battle. For now it was enough.

  Andrew immediately regretted demanding an overview of her boxes, but he let her continue with the description. How can a few fragmental poems take up so many boxes?

  “Let me begin with the individual boxes. There is one for each author. You will note that some boxes are fuller than others. Some have only a few scraps.” She hefted one to show him how light it was. “Those are cases in which I have been unable to find much for the poet other than a name and a line or two.”

  Andrew noticed the carefully lettered name of a poet on each box. Only her organization kept his sensation of drowning at bay. At least the fool woman injected some method into her madness.

  “Within each there are papers, folders, and parcels. On top of each is the original in Greek.” Sh
e opened one to demonstrate. A neatly transcribed text on one sheet of paper rested on top of other sheets and scraps of notes.

  “Under that is my current translation, such as it may be. On the bottom is my research—sometimes extensive, sometimes sparse—into the poet, what I know of the period, the location, and so on. That, by the way, is the hardest part, and I—”

  “We will talk about the specific work later. What is your global view of this body of work?”

  She blinked, visibly confused.

  “What holds the individual works together? How do you envision the final product?”

  “I, that is, I don’t know. I think of each one as its own self.”

  “What is your vision for them?”

  “I have none. They just need to be heard.”

  “Voices that need to be heard. Fair enough.” He had no doubt whose voice needed to be heard.

  Georgiana fussed about on one side of the worktable in his study, reviewing the contents of just one box; two others identified by their labels as related notes rested nearby. He kept the well-worn table between them and tried to concentrate on the work.

  Georgiana reached for the papers he perused and smiled. “Korinna. She gives me great difficulties but also great rewards.”

  He deliberately set his face into its best schoolmaster mask.

  “This body of work is much more extensive than I realized, my lady. I will require time to review the whole before I can begin to address your questions and the individual translations.”

  Her protests were loud and immediate. “I wish to begin work today.”

  “If you want my tutelage, you will permit me to become acquainted with the whole first.”

  “But you will need my explanation and—”

  “I asked for your brief description of the treasures you’ve scattered over half of my sitting room so that I would know what is in each. Finish, please, and then I will need silence.” He nearly growled that last.

  “Mr. Mallet, I—”

  “Lady Georgiana, which of us is the tutor? Do you want my help or not?” She agreed in the end to a week.

  She described each box and its contents for another hour, giving him a clear commentary on the general state of each part of the work. She managed to communicate most of her questions at the same time.

  He resorted to a firm hand on her elbow and steered her to the door.

  “I do have a question, Lady Georgiana.” Her eyes, instantly alert, met his. He hesitated. One question had plagued him since he encountered her leaving Mr. Peabody’s premises, a personal question that he hesitated to ask.

  “What is it?” she rasped.

  “Your own health. I believe … that is, it seems as if there may be concerns. Forgive me if I intrude, but will your health interfere with this work?”

  An alarming shade of red flooded up her neck and exploded onto her cheeks. He couldn’t decide whether she felt anger, embarrassment, or both.

  “I apologize,” he murmured, “if I overstepped.”

  “My health, Mr. Mallet, isn’t your concern except for this—I will finish this work!” She swallowed, shook off his hand, and steadied herself. “There may be times, periodically, you understand, when weakness prevents me from being as industrious as I wish, but those are becoming fewer. It won’t be a problem.”

  She looked back at the boxes with a wistful expression, stricken like a mother who was leaving her only child.

  “Georgiana, I will care for them as though they were my own. Your work is safe with me.” Her given name came naturally to his lips. She didn’t seem to notice. He longed to comfort her and take her in his arms, but he didn’t.

  Three weeks later Andrew watched Georgiana frown glumly at an open book and scribble notes in furious bursts of activity. She had visited him every day for two weeks, save Sunday.

  He thought that he should interrupt and help her with the passage she was struggling with, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. For one thing, the sight of her at work in his study gave him more pleasure than he ought to allow, so much pleasure that he tried again today to insist that he should come to Helsington.

  “Don’t be absurd, Mr. Mallet,” she had declared. “However much good Mr. Peabody has done you—and I beg to reserve judgment about that matter for some weeks longer—you aren’t ready for a daily carriage ride.”

  “Daily is perhaps excessive, my lady.”

  “Daily, weekly, however long it takes. It won’t do for you to travel to me. If your reputation cannot sustain visits from a lady and her companion, I can arrange to—”

  “I shudder to think what you might arrange. I have no desire to go from pan to fire.”

  Andrew had given in, but concern for her reputation vexed him. He knew Mrs. Potter gleefully put it about that he had taken a student. She gave Georgiana the cover of her sterling reputation in Cambridge. He ought to be grateful, but he didn’t like it. Still, he knew that whatever maggot Georgiana got into her brain next might be worse. Her obsession with the work outran her common sense.

  The second reason he chose not to interrupt soon proved fruitful. His father taught him that a student learns best when he reaches conclusions on his own. The teacher merely provides the opportunity.

  “This is no use.” Georgiana tossed down her pen and glared at him. “How can it be translated any differently? The words mean what they mean. Too literal they may be, but they are what they are.”

  “Think for a moment Geo—uh, my lady. In English you might describe an incident thusly, ‘the Countess, who wore white, overturned the cup and expressed herself in high-pitched tones.’ It would be accurate, but not the entire truth.”

  “How so?”

  “Compare that to ‘The white clad countess shrieked when she spilled the wineglass.’”

  “They are the same,” she considered, “but the second one provides more of a picture.”

  “What else?”

  “Emotion. The Countess is furious,” she grinned, “and afraid she has ruined her court dress in front of the upper ten thousand.”

  “It doesn’t say that,” he pointed out.

  “It does when you word it right.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But I know that because I know the Countess–or ladies very like her–and I know court dress and the world in which she moves. How can I possibly know those things for Korinna?” Georgiana wrinkled up her brow.

  “You can’t, at least not as precisely anyway. You can, however, read about her world, compare her words to the words of other authors, and make a shrewd guess at what nuance and emotion lay beneath the words. You are able to be shrewd, are you not?” The quirk to his crooked lips belied seriousness.

  “Not today. I confess I am weary.”

  Her pallor worried him. He wanted to know how much of her desperation about her translations—and he saw the desperation daily—came from fear about her health. She wouldn’t talk about it, and he wouldn’t make the mistake of asking again.

  Andrew leaned back, and they passed a long moment in comfortable silence, black eyes on blue, each one lost in thought. She reached up at last and brushed back the coarse black hair from the rim of his spectacles.

  “Andrew, how did you get this terrible scar?” Her graceful fingers traced the puckered line across his face. An electric shock trailed behind her finger. He took her wrist firmly and replaced her hand gently on the table. “A French saber,” he said without breaking eye contact.

  Questions formed and reformed on her expressive face. “Waterloo? That is to say, I know there were other battles, but it is fully healed. Was it long ago?”

  She would flay him alive yet. “Yes.”

  “Which?”

  “Yes, long ago. No, not Waterloo.” No amount of pushing would get her more. He wouldn’t describe the horrors of a French prison to this lady, and by God, he didn’t plan to relive it himself.

  He rose and gestured toward the door. She held her seat, with avid interest on
her face.

  “Give it up, my lady.” He emphasized those last two words. He fought to keep formality between them. “Some things are not fit for polite company.”

  He regretted that approach immediately when she pounced on his words. “Nonsense! I am no frail flower.”

  “That may be true, but my face isn’t a topic for discussion.”

  Outrage exploded across her face. He suspected that she thought he accused her of attempting to criticize his looks. He let her believe it.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Mallet. It is of course your private business.” She sputtered and began to pack her work slowly.

  “The other scars—” she began, coloring deeply. He remembered her face when she saw him in his dressing gown, her eyes on the long red line that snaked up his leg and around his knee.

  “—are none of your business, my lady, but yes, some are from Waterloo and some from the good Mr. Peabody’s attentions.” He took her firmly but gently by the elbow and guided her to the stairs.

  “I think we can dispense with tomorrow. One day’s rest will clear your mind.” He put a finger to her mouth to silence her when she would have protested. “No,” he whispered, fascinated by the sensual spot where his finger lingered. “Enough Georgiana.”

  He felt a slow smile curl under his finger when she heard the sound of her name.

  “Very well, Andrew” she whispered back.

  His boundaries had already slipped. He had agreed that she could come to him just for the pleasure of seeing her seated at his writing table, surrounded by his books, warmed by the sun through his diamond-paned windows. Now she called him Andrew. He would regret it. This road led to nothing but trouble.