Once Upon a Page by Jessie Clever

Author:Jessie Clever [Clever, Jessie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780998419244
Publisher: Someday Lady Publishing, LLC

Chapter 13

One must always be keen on the opportunity to improve one's skills.

From The Adventures of Miss Melanie Merkett, Private Inquisitor

* * *

The next day they were back in a carriage.

Samuel wanted to feel a measure of relief at this, thankful to not be crossing unknown country side on an unfamiliar horse, jostling, intimately no less, against the thing he most wanted to avoid. But other thoughts clamored for attention in his mind.

The possibility that they had passed the professor.

The possibility that they had not and he would reach Edinburgh first.

The identity of their shadow.

His thoughts bounced from one to the other only to travel back to the first, scouring it for a detail he had missed. Carrying on with their journey was the only prudent thing to do. As a detective inspector, he relied on his training to help him see the obvious answer. In this case, there simply wasn't one. However, he had faith he had chosen the best option.

It wasn't as if Penelope helped in making him feel assured of his decision. Although, to be fair, that wasn't her duty. She sat across from him. Happily scribbling on a scrap of paper atop her writing box as the carriage bounced its way across England.

He had sent off her missive to the Earl of Wickshire. He hadn't bothered to read it before she'd sealed it. He was certain her text would be adequate in updating the man on their voyage. Samuel had his own missive to send off before they went anymore off track.

They were due to pass Manchester that day. The rain had taken them wildly off course, and they were much further west than they ought to have been. It was this that had his thoughts bouncing between whether or not they had truly passed the professor. The coachman Samuel had hired had sworn to have driven this route several times over and promised Samuel he'd be sleeping in an inn in Lancashire that night.

Samuel doubted exactly how much sleeping would happen. He'd spent the previous night in a chair by the stove, refusing to share the bed with Penelope. The image of her standing in the grooms' quarters, bared to the waist ricocheted in his mind like a nightmare. A sensual, enticing nightmare. He didn't trust himself to be in the same room with her, and he damn sure didn't trust himself in the same bed as her. No matter that she wore a nightdress that looked as if it could cover the whole of Parliament in its folds. He knew what lie underneath it, and the billowing fabric only taunted him to pull it off.

And she would let him. Damn the woman.

He adjusted himself on the bench, crossing one foot to the opposite knee to relieve his agitation.

"Feeling cramped?"

He moved his eyes over to Penelope. She sat with the writing box in her lap still, her pencil poised above the paper.

"I'm fine. Thank you."

"You do not look it. For all I can tell, you've sat on a bee.

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