The Scoundrel and I: A Novella Read Online Free Page B

she said. “No. I—”
    “Heard it in your voice when you said his name. His pen name, that is.”
    “What?” Warmth was flooding into her cheeks. “No. I—What did you hear?”
    “Softness,” he said. “You admire him.”
    “I admire
her
. The reforms she propounds are meant for the good of all Britons. He disagrees with her about everything, of course.”
    “You like him.”
    “I don’t.”
    His lips curved into the gentlest smile. “If you say so.” He nodded toward the machine. “Now, what’s upset you about this type?”
    For a moment as he studied the forme she stared at him, and understood how he must command men aboard ship: not with intimidation or even with severity, but with a natural, subtle shift from thoroughly focusing on a person’s face and feelings to the business at hand. If she were not so peculiarly sensitized by the ale she would not have noticed it.
    “The other night,” she said, “I was carrying this chase—this frame full of type—down the street. When you galloped by, I was so startled that I dropped it, and it broke. Yesterday I collected the pieces of type, but I have not been able to retrieve them all.”
    “How many pieces are missing?”
    “Fifty-three.” Abruptly her stomach felt like lead again.
    “This don’t seem like a particularly long page.”
    “This
does not
seem like a particularly
lengthy
page,” she mumbled. “It is not, in fact.”
    “Must be more type somewhere.” He looked past the press. “There.” As though he could see through the back of the huge case on the other side of the machine, he went around to the front of it and drew off the cover, revealing a sloped tray of dozens of little open boxes of type.
    “Here’s a veritable mess of the stuff,” he said. “Why don’t you fill in the holes and that’ll be that?”
    Her chest felt like lead too now. She went to his side and stared down at the tray. Most of the boxes were still nearly full of type.
    “I could. But my employers will discover the missing type when they return from holiday in a fortnight.”
    “Wondered about that detail,” he murmured. “Don’t seem the sort of girl to steal right out from under somebody’s nose.”
    “What is that supposed to mean? That I am cunning?”
    His attention shifted from the type to her face. “No. That you’re intelligent.”
    “Oh.” She could not hold his gaze. “This publication is quite brief. When we set the pages of large books, though, this tray is often nearly empty. But it is more than that. My crime is twofold. I should never have taken the chase out of the shop to begin with. Not even out of this room. Even if I had not lost any pieces of type, if my employers discover that I borrowed them for a few hours they would have grounds for terminating me.”
    “Well, then why not purchase the type that’s gone missing? They needn’t ever know of this little mishap.”
    “I wish I could! The type for this particular press cannot be replaced easily.” Even if she could afford such a purchase. The happy haze from the ale had entirely dissipated. “There are few such presses in all of Britain. It is an original Warburg, and only three were sent to England from Germany. It is an extraordinarily valuable machine, Mr. . . .” She looked up, past his broad, blue-clad shoulder decorated with a gold epaulette, to his handsome face, and her tongue went dry. “Lieutenant . . .”
    “Captain,” he said in his marvelously deep and easy voice, the full, glorious force of his intensely beautiful gaze not upon her eyes. But on her lips. “Captain Anthony Masinter, miss. At your service.”
    One of her feet fell back. Then the other. “You should not be here. You should go.” She dragged her gaze away and went to the door. “You must go. Now. Please.”
    “Can’t.” He remained where he stood. “Not without first finding a solution to this.”
    “No. There is no solution. None. I shall simply have to suffer the consequences of