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Gabriel nodded Would his life feel different if the footht not

There was a light showing under the library door, so he walked in Rafe’s library was of the ancient, tired, and slightlytype The carpets were al The books were expiring slowly into powdery heaps of dust that ers and collected in the corners of the bookshelves There wasn’t much of luxury about the roo or not reading, sitting here ss were blackened and the books suely like wood fires

She was seated at the library table, her head bent over a sheet of foolscap His heart hiccuped He’dand proper young lady She was too cool, too out of reach, and entirely too beautiful for hi all his own promises

She looked up and rubbed her eyes unself-consciously, as if she were a irl of five or six Tendrils of bronze hair curled about her neck and teement on her head

"Ithe part of Mrs Loveit her role She seeave me a note from her today"

"Loretta wrote Rafe a note?" Gabe asked without thinking

Miss Pythian-Adalanced up at him, and then said: "Yes, Miss Hawes inquired about the play, so Rafe passed the letter on to me"

Gabe stared at her face She had the chiseled perfection of a saint, the kind of clear beauty that one saw in statues--not lush Italian statues, but the ascetic northern saints He’d forgotten that she knew that Loretta had once been hisdoithout further cere a former mistress to the house of a noblerateful for the help," she said, with a little, exhausted sigh

"You read the lines, and I’ll write them down"

She read, and he copied all the impertinent, silly lines of the hysterical Mrs Loveit

"He shall nofool," Miss Pythian-Adams said

Gabe looked up to find that her eyes were on his face Her mouth was set in a line of deliberate coh?

"She was neverthe foolscap "We had a brief, if foolish, encounter And I truly did knock her doith my coach, Miss Pythian-Adams"

"I have no need of these details, Mr Spenser Surely I would never ask you to clarify"

"I think those eyes of yours see many human foibles, do they not?"

"These are the only eyes I have, and there are certainly many foibles to be seen," Miss Pythian-Adanity

Gabe couldn’t help it He liked baiting her, this self-contained gentlewoman "And what do you think of ht of the candles on the table "I think…" She closed her book "I think you are a beautiful man, Mr Spenser"

His mouth fell open

"I expect that you use your beauty to htful situations If I understand the matter correctly, Miss Hawes is unlikely to have suffered by your attentions, be they ever so brief"

Gabe felt as if he had been struck to the ground by a large rock

Miss Pythian-Adaain: "He shall nofool he has done"

Gabe hadn’t the faintest intention of picking up his pen