Chapter 8

8

"Andrew!"

Andrew was cleaning spots off the glasses behind the bar at the inn when Lily came bounding into the room that morning. She was slightly out of breath, as if she'd jogged here. She was wearing dark ku and a black blouse with the barest hint of a pattern. The look of her legs, barely visible in silhouette through the dark blue of her trousers?—

Andrew forced his gaze up to her face.

She did not say "good morning" or ask how he was doing. Her face left nothing to the imagination. Andrew knew immediately why she had come: she'd discovered the logbook was missing.

Here came the crucial moment. Andrew had to sell his innocence. He straightened and did his best to look like a regular sort of fellow who was cleaning glasses behind a bar at an inn, and not at all like a thief.

"Lily," he said with a smile. "Good morning. How are you?"

"Who cares how I am?" She looked at him, a curious tilt to her head, before squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head so that the buns at each ear jiggled. "It's all my fault. I should have known the place I chose to hide the log wasn't secure. I must tell you something."

Andrew poised himself to look shocked, disappointed, and alarmed.

Her lips pressed together, and she wrinkled her nose. "There's simply no good way to break the news. Someone took the logbook last night."

It was his imagination, he reminded himself, that made the look on her face seem expectant and waiting. His own imagination; his own guilt.

"Last night!" Andrew picked up a glass and examined it. "How horrible. Are you sure?"

"It was there just before I left for the inn," Lily told him. "I checked the drawer again this morning. It's gone."

"Oh. Drat." Did that sound suitably regretful? "What a…what a damnable shock. I can scarcely believe it. Good heavens. I'm horrifically…" Out of verbs. That was what he was.

"Put out?" Lily offered into the lengthening silence. "Disconcerted?"

"That's it. I'm disconcerted." Andrew picked up another glass and rubbed at more water spots.

"You must be…" Lily peered at him. "Very upset by the loss of the logbook. So upset that you're hardly reacting at all."

"It's taking all my ability to, um, keep from losing my composure." He put the glass back in place, lining it up precisely with its fellows. "But, Lily, this is infamous."

"Is it, now?"

"This means someone entered your home without your permission. Are you safe? Was anyone injured?"

She frowned at him. "That is what you're thinking about now? About some strange and uncouth person entering my home?"

"Precisely!" Andrew knew he didn't sound believable. Lily, though, might not notice. "You must have been so frightened."

Lily looked at him askance. "Me? Frightened? But there wasn't even anyone there."

"Never mind."

"I hid the log in the drawer of my underthings alongside a few volumes of my coprological creations."

"Your what?"

"I have books of a sensual nature in my drawer," she said patiently.

Andrew did his best to look like someone surprised to hear that the woman he cared about kept pornography in her drawer of underthings, and not at all like someone who had thought about it a little too much the prior evening.

"The printer?" she told him. "The one I worked for in Hong Kong? They had a backroom filled with illegal and obscene materials. I translated?—"

Andrew could not help but make a scandalized noise. "They had a woman translate that?"

"It's just talking about human bodies," Lily replied. "Everyone has one. Including me. It's ridiculous to say that only men should be allowed to speak of such things."

"Ah?" He rubbed his head. "Probably. And yet…"

"Besides," Lily said, "It starts with a story of Wu Zetian, China's only empress, taking a lover at the age of seventy-five. It's historical. It's educational."

"I think we have very different ideas about what makes educational quality."

"On the contrary. I think more people of every gender should be allowed to read stories in which men can be put to death for an unsatisfactory performance."

There was no arguing with that. "Fair point," Andrew said. "But if—" He caught himself before he finished the sentence: but if satisfaction requires a cock the size of a wine barrel, half the human species would be wiped out in one blow. His heart pounded. He'd almost given himself away already. He coughed instead.

"I know what you're going to say." She rolled her eyes. "I'm not delicate, you know. It's not nearly as arousing as you'd think to steep yourself in translation of illicit materials as a form of employment."

How was she so matter-of-fact about it?

"You spend all your time thinking ‘do I translate this as ‘fleshy instrument' or ‘meaty tool'? Those are the questions that rob the words of all salaciousness. Besides, they paid me a reasonable royalty. The only objectional part of working there was the fact that they wouldn't publish the poetry. Illegal and salacious—that, they welcomed with open arms. Illegal and seditious?—"

"Seditious!" Andrew choked. "Is your poetry seditious?"

"Well, probably not in England," Lily said with a roll of her eyes. "It's all an overreaction on their part. And we have got very far afield. Andrew, what are we going to do about the log?"

Andrew couldn't look at her. Instead, he opened the drawer for eating utensils. These didn't have the excuse of spots: they'd not even used the western pewter last night. It had all been chopsticks.

Still, he neatened them up, nudging pairs together and aligning wooden tips.

" Is there anything to do?" He kept his eyes fixed on the chopsticks. "Some unknown cur has taken the log."

"Unknown?" Lily raised an eyebrow at him.

Andrew felt something dry settle into the back of his throat. " Do we know?"

"The thief?—"

"That cur," Andrew interrupted. "That absolute codworm."

"That codworm, then." Lily bit back a smile. "That extremely unknown person, whoever he might be… He left behind clues."

Andrew's hands stilled on the chopsticks. "Clues. You've been reading that detective story I gave you."

"Yes." Lily waved a hand. "But that's not why I said so. First of all, it had to be someone from Wedgeford who took it."

"What?" Andrew blinked. "Who in Wedgeford would do that?"

"They knew exactly where to go." Lily held up a finger. "They knew exactly when people wouldn't be about. That sounds like someone who knows when people gather at the inn. And nobody noticed a stranger lurking about. You know they'd have remarked upon it."

"Ah." Andrew tried to turn his faint unease into something that looked like approval of her reasoning. "Yes. That does seem logical. But the implication…"

"Unsettling, isn't it?" Lily folded her arms and looked at him. "How could anyone in Wedgeford be so untrustworthy? So despicable?"

"So dastardly," Andrew added. "I can't bring myself to believe it."

"But," Lily said, undeterred, "on to the clue."

His hands were clammy. His heart thumped like a rabbit alerting of danger. "There's more than just that?" Andrew started rearranging the glasses back on their shelf, aligning them as precisely as he could, to give himself something to do rather than look at Lily.

"As I mentioned, I was keeping the logbook in my drawer with my underthings."

"Right. No need to talk about those."

She poked him in the side. "Why are you so embarrassed? You're blushing."

"They're called ‘unmentionables' for a reason." Andrew lined up the front faces of the glasses evenly.

"Prude." She gave a little laugh. "When it's in the drawer, it's just fabric. I'm not wearing it."

"Yes, but what you're telling me is that this thieving fellow saw your underthings." Andrew carefully folded the cloth he'd used to wipe the glasses, aligning each corner precisely.

"Saw?" Lily tapped her lips. "They went through the drawer, and when they were done, they folded everything."

Andrew felt his blood freeze. He could remember doing exactly that. "So, you're telling me they touched your underthings."

"They folded my underthings." Lily gave him a significant look. "With extreme precision. What I am saying is this: whoever stole the logbook is actually very tidy."

Andrew's gaze fell guiltily to the cloth in his hand. Very carefully, he misaligned the corners. That felt too obvious. He made himself ball it up and toss it on the counter. "Orrrr," he said, drawing out the syllable, "they're trying to put you off, and they're actually quite messy."

"I suppose. But there's one last clue to consider."

"Really? One more?" It already felt as if there were a giant red arrow suspended in the air above him, pointing to the actual culprit. "What could it be?"

"It has to be someone who wanted to steal the logbook," Lily said quietly. "Someone who didn't want the news contained within it to get out. Who could that be?"

He met her eyes and rapidly looked away. How was his guilt not obvious? There should have been suspicion in her eyes. There wasn't. All he had seen was compassion and care, and for one moment, Andrew wanted to confess.

I stole the logbook.

I know I'm the earl's son.

I have known it all my life.

It was the key to unlocking everything he was, everything he did, and for one mad moment, Andrew wanted to put the truth of himself in Lily's hands. He wanted her to understand him. He wanted to tell her that he'd never wanted her to leave.

But Andrew's father had married his mother, seducing her from her family and her country, knowing he would be throwing her life into chaos.

Andrew was not his father. He was not the kind of man who would speak sweet words to a woman without thought for the challenges ahead.

Yes, he cared about Lily. That was why he could never, ever risk having her close to the truth.

Lily had found one piece of proof. Perhaps there were more. Maybe what Andrew needed to do was make sure, once and for all, that his father's family had truly eradicated every possible avenue of discovery. He could make sure of his own safety and make Lily think that he actually cared, all at the same time.

"I've been thinking," Andrew said slowly. "The volume I had was the captain's log, which he kept for his own benefit."

"Yes?"

"By law, a captain has to keep an official log of his journey, which he must turn in to the shipping master at the port where he arrives. That log would be the official memorandum of the marriage."

"I know that." Still, Lily looked confused. "What are you suggesting?"

"I should go look for the official log." He folded his arms. "It would be another point of proof, if it could be found." And if it existed, which it likely didn't, he would figure out how to destroy it.

"Where would we go?" Lily asked.

"Bristol. Wait." Andrew frowned. "What do you mean? We?"

Lily huffed. "Of course I'm coming. Aren't I?"