The Ravenstone Heir

Chapter Four, Scene 2

I have a crisis on my hands, and the chit worries over her ginger biscuits. Fletch kept one hand clamped on her elbow and urged her toward his grandfather's office until she insisted on stopping a footman to carry her basket to the kitchen. I don't object to getting rid of the benighted basket, but couldn't she have offered me one first? He yanked her forward, irritated at his own weakness, and shut them in the office.

Fletch put the box with the cat in the corner of the room, pulled out the old shawl Anna had used to make a bed, covered the top, and lay books over two corners to keep the shawl in place. All the while, Anna stood in the center of the room, slowly turning in a circle as though she cataloged every corner of the room.

"Where did you find the damned feline?" he demanded, drawing a frown. "If you're going to take offense at my language, we'll never finish this."

She rolled her eyes and meandered to the settee where she dropped to her knees and leaned over to look beneath it. "Under here," she said, her voice muffled where she peered under the thing.

Momentarily immobilized by the view of her posterior, Fletch could only stare.

"I see nothing there," she said, rising to her knees.

"It would make more sense to lift it up, don't you think?" he responded, setting action to words. He easily lifted one end of the settee so they both had a clear view of the floor underneath. No ring.

The woman looked crestfallen. She appeared to honestly expect to discover that her cat had dropped the signet in his lair. "He comes to irritate your beastly raven, I understand. Perhaps..." She circled the cage but found no ring on the carpet.

"He would have had to have climbed onto the desk to get it. I see no footprints," Fletch mused.

"True. Perhaps this carpet rubbed his paws clean before he did." She repeated the search Fletch had done the day before, lifting and moving every object on the desk to no avail. "He might have dropped it though," she said, leaning down to look.

Fletch joined her and the two off them circled the desk on hands and knees, patting the floor as if the ring might not be easily visible in the carpet pattern. He came around the back of the desk to find her coming around the other side. She scooted under the desk in the space where the chair usually went, and Fletch sat back on his heels, waiting.

You really ought not ogle a woman's derriere, Fletcher Graham, he chided himself to no avail. His mind went begging, and it occurred to him her hair had been equally unforgettable.

She startled him out of his reverie when she spoke. "I see something."

"The ring?" he asked.

"I can't tell. It is over in the corner behind the drawers."

Fletch pushed in next to her, his hip next to hers. This whole debacle is not wise was his last coherent thought. The scent of cinnamon and ginger made custard of his wayward thoughts.

"Do you see it?" she asked, pointing to her right, on her other side.

Fletch leaned over, his head brushing hers at the same time. "I see something shiny, but it isn't very big. Can you reach it?"

"I've been trying, but it—" She stretched her arm into the awkward spot, forcing her body against his at the same time and unleashing an entirely inappropriate reaction. "Oh," she whispered, breathless from her exertion. "It's only a stray pen nib." She sagged and began to back out. The sound of the door opening stopped her in her tracks; Fletch put one hand on her arm to keep her there.

"He isn't here! That footman said my brother came in just a bit ago. Perhaps you'd care to wait, while I fetch him?" Gordon sounded genuinely puzzled.

Another voice responded. Fletch couldn't make out the words, but he knew the voice well. It belonged to Amos Walker, his solicitor from Manchester, a Methodist of abstemious habits, whom Fletch knew to be generally disapproving of the upper classes. Fletch cursed silently. Finding his employer under the desk with a woman Walker would draw the worst possible conclusion.

"Make yourself comfortable in that case," Gordon said.

There was nothing for it. They couldn't stay hidden behind—not to mention under—the desk for long. I'll have to brazen it out.

"I have a better idea," Gordon said before he could rise. "Let me write a note and have the footman deliver it. I can explain the situation while we wait."

He was around the desk before Fletcher could do much more than back out. His brother had no warning and blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

"I say, Anna! What are you doing under the desk with Fletch?"