Judith Ivory by Untie My Heart

for her pen. All she found though—
    She straightened up onto her knees immediately. “Oh, no.” Ink. She lifted the bottom of the coat, the mark of her pen having been there: a black ink splotch the size of her fist on the fur.
    “It will”—he said, as she hung on the low-voiced word while it seemed to take an eternity to leave his mouth—“come out,” he finished.
    “It won’t. It’s India ink.” How on God’s earth was she to fix his coat?
    And why try? another voice asked inside her. The stupid sheep-murdering scoundrel didn’t deserve a perfect coat: He’d certainly made a mess of her lamb’s.
    How annoying to find his stature, his speech, his face, his blessed clothes interesting, beautiful. When they should only serve to remind her of how difficult he was to contact, how hard it was to discuss with him any disagreement, how many times she had been turned away by others, his minions: how many people stood between him and anything he didn’t wish to deal with.
    Your nervy bum , she reminded herself. Mung beans. Local squabbling.
    Then found herself being drawn upward by her elbows, his thumbs resting in the bends of her arms—and she knew itfelt wonderful, despite herself. A capable, powerful man pulling her up to her feet, paying her so much attention. She was aware she liked it, and so was he. That was what he was watching; he was gauging her interest in him—
    No, no, she told herself. The idea made her giddy to contemplate. The irony overwhelmed. The man she was going to take for fifty pounds by the end of the day seemed struck enough by her she could have worked him over for a hundred fifty. A thousand fifty. If she could have kept her own head long enough. If she had wanted to do it.
    If the whole notion of taking him for anything at all didn’t—for no explicable reason—suddenly, mildly unsettle her all at once.
    They stood up, and his coat dropped back down around him with a waft of that warm, faintly Eastern scent. The fabric held a rich, spicy fragrance; frankincense, myrrh. While Emma was left to stare bewilderedly at the floor, a “stenographer” without a pen.
    She murmured, “I—I’m the, um”—she actually stammered—“the, um, temporary amanuensis—”
    He said nothing. For one uncanny second, she thought, He has difficulty with English. It’s not his first language. Yet that would make little sense. Wherever else he’d been, he’d been raised up the road from her till the age of six.
    She continued, “Provided by the bank, of course,” she said boldly. “Since we understand your amanuensis was delayed.” Now everyone thought the other had hired her, and gentlemen didn’t dirty themselves, bless them, with discussions of filthy money when the matter had already been settled. She pointed toward her coat. “I, ah—I was just getting a new nib for my pen, when—well—” She couldn’t think where to go with the rest of the sentence.
    Behind her somewhere, someone cleared his throat, while before her the viscount’s gaze remained steady. In the shadows of the brim of his top hat, he had the eyes of an Arab, large, heavy-lidded eyes, sad somehow, the whitesglowing in his dark face: the eyes of a snake charmer or rug salesman who hawked his wares in the streets of Baghdad. Unfathomable.
    As if to further the illusion, like a magician, with a turn of his wrist at the end of his black-gloved fingers, he produced her pen, worn nib up. “Yours?” he said. The question was rhetorical—a bass-deep assertion spoken so softly the word wouldn’t have carried two feet: just for her.
    “Aah.” She blinked, opened her mouth, then could only answer, “Well.” Still nodding her head, “Thank you.” She took the pen, then attempted to smile sweetly, though her efforts faltered.
    His face remained stoic, contemplating hers: keen interest without a hint of returned friendliness, not a speck. Though finally he said more than one sentence, a huge outpouring for him, and