Dangerous 01 - Dangerous Works Read Free Page A

“Anigrus” didn’t appear and was likely a proper noun in any case, but she wondered what or who it was. Any man with a half-decent education probably knew.
    She resented her own ignorance. She didn’t know how the nymphs moved. Walk was the simplest translation, she suspected, but she wanted to know how they walked, what sort of movement the poetess was trying to depict. Lack of knowledge frustrated her.
    She picked up a shabby little book from the scattered pile and ran a finger over it affectionately. Stewart’s Advanced Greek for Young Scholars , her oldest and dearest friend. She smiled at the odd conceit. Her oldest Greek reference perhaps, though she had few enough friends. She opened the cover. A neatly copied inscription covered the frontispiece.
    To Lady Georgiana, with wishes for success.
    Respectfully,
    A. Mallet
    She was seventeen when he found her lurking behind the palms in her father’s conservatory, contending with an abbreviated passage from Plato. Andrew acted as though it was perfectly normal for a girl two years his senior to struggle alone over material he had mastered many years before. Fear of discovery and her mother’s bile had made her very careful. Only Andrew knew, and he never revealed her secret to her parents. Two weeks after the encounter, an anonymous parcel arrived. It contained Stewart’s.
    Andrew didn’t think like the others. She savored his suggestions. He helped her through Pindar. He helped her through Paul. He told her she did “amazing work.” She refused to believe that life had changed him, no matter what passed between them in the end. A glimmer of hope sparked back to life in her. She rose abruptly.
    “Call for the carriage, Eunice. We’re going into Cambridge.”
    The placid face didn’t alter. Eunice seemed quite used to her mistress’s sudden odd starts. “Yes, my lady. Shall I bring a basket for goods? Are we going to the bookstore?”
    “Yes, bring it, but we probably won’t need it. Fetch my parasol. Once we get there, we’re going for a walk.”
    Andrew Holden may not want to further our acquaintance, but he will. Oh yes, he most certainly will .

Chapter 3
    “I don’t care if it is the Duchess of Devonshire or Prinny’s latest flirt. I said I am not in!” the voice roared. “And stop pushing that posset in my face. It doesn’t help, and it tastes like hell.”
    Georgiana felt heat rise in her face. She sat ramrod straight. Her rigid shoulders didn’t touch the back of the narrow wooden chair in Andrew Mallet’s front parlor. Her mood, dark and growing blacker, contended with the sunny little room; its whitewashed walls hung with seascapes, its windows with blue chintz.
    Her mother’s voice echoed in her head, “Who would receive you, Georgiana, you great awkward oaf, you with your freakish starts?” She heard that voice often enough. Indeed, she heard it still whenever custom or her parents’ dictates forced her to endure her mother’s presence.
    She heard the manservant—Harley, she remembered—muttering to himself while he descended the enclosed stairs. “I’m not your bloody go-between.” It was obvious that she didn’t need a go-between. She heard it all for herself.
    Harley rounded the last step and looked her over with an impertinent glare. She thought she knew what he saw. At thirty-five, she was no longer young, and she believed she would never have been described as pretty. She hoped she at least projected dignity and culture. Her attempt to freeze him with a look failed. The man didn’t freeze.
    “I inquired like you said. He ain’t in.”
    He knew her story about a walk along the River Cam and coming upon Little Saint Mary’s Lane for the foolish tale that it was. He tried to warn her. “Mr. Mallet ain’t in,” he said, but she insisted he “inquire.”
    She lifted her chin another notch and rose from her seat in the single graceful movement her mother so ruthlessly taught her. “I regret that Mr. Mallet is not at