For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

slid open the stuck drawer with only a faint murmur of wood on wood, but it sounded loud in the quiet room. What would they do if the assistant came back? A trickle of perspiration slid down between her breasts. Cressida sucked in a shaky breath. She was not born for sneaking around like this. Uncertainly she turned to the shelves and started poking through the books, no longer sure of what she was looking for, when the major whispered to her.

He had a large book open on the desk. When he beckoned to her with one hand, she hurried back to his side in relief. He leaned his head close to hers and murmured, “Say something.”

“What?” She had trouble speaking. His lips had almost brushed her skin, his words skimming her cheek like a lover’s murmur.

“Keep talking as if to him.” He jerked his head in Mr. Prenner’s direction. “The long silence will be suspicious if anyone comes by the door.”

“Oh.” Cressida wet her lips. “Mr. Prenner,” she began in her normal voice, “it really is imperative that you tell me anything you know about my father. Not only have we been quite worried about his absence, but the people in the government have begun asking questions…” She was babbling, saying anything that crossed her mind while she watched the major’s finger skim down a column of names and payments. “Turner” leaped out at her, then again. The major didn’t say anything, just tapped his fingertip on the entries to call them to her attention. Cressida nodded each time he did so, noting the date and the sum beside the name. Mr. Prenner had paid Papa a good amount of money, at regular intervals, even more than indicated in Papa’s ledger. But it didn’t say why…until the major turned back a page to previous entries, dated more than two years ago. One line contained a single extra word: lithos.

Lithographs, Cressida mouthed. What lithographs?

The major, looking intently at her, gave a slight shrug. He turned a few more pages, but no more entries with Papa’s name turned up. With a glance at the door, he closed the ledger and put it away, silently sliding the drawer closed once more. “Time to go.”

Cressida nodded immediately. “Then good day to you, sir!” she said loudly to the unconscious Mr. Prenner. The major, already by the door, opened it for her and she rushed out, feeling as though every eye in the shop must be trained her way.

Perhaps it was. The clerk who had showed them in appeared in front of her with a smile that looked menacing to Cressida’s nervous eyes. “May I show you out, madam?”

She could feel the color in her face. The major, hovering at her side just in her range of vision, bowed his head slightly. She was supposed to say yes, even though the man’s eyes made her skin crawl and the thick air of the print shop was suffocating her. “Yes, please. I feel a little faint.”

“This way.” He swept out his arm and Cressida followed, pressing her handkerchief to her face. The major didn’t make a sound behind her. They were drawing the man away from Mr. Prenner’s office, so he didn’t go inside at once and find Mr. Prenner knocked out cold. She understood, and appreciated why, but when they stepped into the street and the door was closed behind them, she drew in a long, shaky breath.

“Bloody hell!”

Chapter 13

Her curse amused him. She could see the curve of his mouth as they walked, and she didn’t care. She was more shaken than she cared to admit by the visit, and took refuge in fury. “Of all the insufferable—” She stopped and rounded on him. “Did you know?” she demanded. “Did you know he would be so—so awful?”

“No.” His smile grew a little wider. “I did suspect.”

“Oh—oh!” She could hardly speak. “That rat! That weasel!”

“Both at the same time?” He took her arm to propel her through the street. She let him, still seething.

“Yes! If I had a torch, I’d set his hateful little shop ablaze.”

“We could light it on our way out of town,” Alec said mildly.

“I am very tempted. I wish I had never laid eyes on that place.”

He grinned. “What a turnaround. I should go back and thank Mr. Prenner for convincing you of that when I failed so completely.”

“Oh, stop!”

He just laughed. Cressida knew he had earned that laugh at her expense, but she was still shaking with temper and nerves so she just strode on. He was so calm, so unruffled; he had assaulted a man! And very neatly, too. Cressida could only glance at him from time to time in mingled shock and admiration and a tiny bit of envy. She certainly would have liked to punch Mr. Prenner herself.

He caught her looking at him and raised one eyebrow. “All right?”

She jerked her eyes to the front. “Fine.” From the corner of her eye she could see he was still grinning.

He left her at the inn, saying he had an errand to run before dinner. Cressida went up to her room and stared out her window at the busy London scenery for a long time. She hardly knew what to think about this. Papa had been in business with that wretched Prenner, selling lithographs of some sort. She could see why he hadn’t told them, especially if the lithographs in question looked anything like the other prints in Prenner’s shop. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise her. Papa had a habit of drawing little cartoons on the rare letter he sent home, all rendered with a sharp eye for humor. When he came home, he would always draw miniatures of her and Callie to take with him on campaign. She didn’t think Mr. Prenner was paying for sketches of rabbits and birds, though, nor of her and Callie.

Cressida sighed. Perhaps nothing she