fresh journals to cut. Then all was ready. Evie took a deep breath. This was peaceful work, work that was both useful and relaxing. She could lose herself in the drawing just as she did with sewing, her mind absorbed by the process of bringing something to life with a stitch of thread, the shading of a pencil. The first item was a jewelled comb. Evie laid it on her table and began.
Sketching in the morning was pleasant. There was a light breeze that filtered in regularly, enough to keep the workspace cool without ruffling the papers. Drawing in the afternoon, however, was less pleasant. The breeze had stopped and the heat had increased. So too had the flies. Nothing horrendous, she told herself, swiping at the pesky fly for the hundredth time, merely inconvenient. This wasn’t the desert after all. And she had only to look across the work site to appreciate the comforts of her space. Out in the direct August sun, men laboured with carts and rocks, brushing, sifting, hauling, while they strained and sweated, the Prince among them. Archaeology was dirty labour. His hair had come loose, his shirt untucked. He didn’t look terribly royal at the moment, just a man. Perhaps that was why he liked his work so much...
‘Evie!’ A shadow fell across her table, startling her. ‘What are you doing here? I would have thought you’d have left by now.’ Andrew moved some papers aside so he could sit on the table’s edge.
‘Careful! The ink isn’t quite dry!’ she squawked, appalled at his thoughtlessness.
Andrew jumped up and stepped back, glancing down at his trousers. ‘Thanks for the warning, I wouldn’t have wanted to stain these trousers. They’re new.’
‘I was thinking about the paintings,’ Evie said crossly, still alarmed at how close she’d come to losing the afternoon’s work to a careless gesture. ‘They took hours to complete.’ His trousers! Hah! The drawings were much more important. Andrew had at least twenty pairs of trousers. The man was a clotheshorse. Usually she admired that.
‘Why, Evie,’ Andrew drawled, looking at her with more careful consideration than he’d given the drawings. ‘I do believe you’re put out with me.’ A boyish grin teased at his mouth and he looked devilishly handsome in his clean, creased buff trousers and coat of blue summer superfine.
He looked immaculate and cool, not a speck of dust on him. Quite the opposite of herself. Suddenly self-conscious, Evie pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, hoping she didn’t look as hot as she felt. Of course Andrew would see her now when she wasn’t looking her best or apparently acting it.
She really had behaved like a shrew and to Andrew of all people. Surely that wasn’t how one got a man’s attention. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that these drawings are one of a kind and they took hours.’ Andrew wasn’t an artist. He couldn’t be expected to appreciate things like wet ink.
Andrew studied the drawings, seeing them for the first time. He held a few of them up, while she cringed and hoped they’d dried sufficiently to be touched without smudging. ‘Evie, these are good, really good.’
‘Thank you.’ She could feel herself blush. When had Andrew ever complimented her? This was a first.
‘We should be thanking you.’ Andrew put the drawings back down on the pile. ‘Dimitri will be pleased. Speaking of which, did he find anything of interest today?’ He gave her a wide smile, his blue eyes twinkling.
‘Nothing from the dining room yet, they’re still working.’
‘That’s too bad. I know he has high hopes for it.’ Andrew reached for the box of catalogued artefacts. ‘What’s in here?’
‘There is a jewelled comb.’ Evie flipped through the pages of her drawings. ‘It was the first one I did today.’ She handed it to Andrew, pleased that his eyes lit up. She’d thought it the best she’d done all day. It had been a challenge to portray the tiny pieces of emerald that were still
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