CHAPTER ONE THE INVISIBLE SCHOLAR #5
A strange awareness moved through Eleanor.
Gabriel’s voice had lowered slightly. The library seemed smaller than it had a moment before, the candlelight warmer.
She imagined entering a room upon his arm.
She imagined men looking at her and assuming Gabriel had touched her.
The thought should have embarrassed her.
Instead, heat gathered low in her stomach. She pressed her fingertips together.
“What would the upper gallery require?” she asked.
“A second token. Members receive them privately. Guests must be sponsored.”
“Could you obtain one?”
“Yes.”
“Could you bring a woman into the gallery?”
“Yes.”
“Then the obstacle is not access.”
“The obstacle,” Gabriel said, “is that the woman upon my arm would have to appear entirely unsurprised by being there.”
Eleanor met his gaze.
“And entirely comfortable with your reputation?”
His mouth curved.
“She would need to behave as though being desired by me were neither surprising nor particularly important.”
Frances made a faint choking sound. Catherine handed her wine.
Eleanor continued looking at Gabriel. He expected her to blush.
Perhaps he expected her to look away or retreat behind the quiet manners everyone mistook for timidity.
She did none of those things and considered the problem.
Her entire life had been constructed around avoiding notice.
She softened her voice so her father’s colleagues would speak freely before her.
She wore colours no one remembered. She lowered her eyes and allowed men to assume silence meant ignorance.
Being overlooked had become both defence and weapon. It had also become a prison.
At the lecture, men discussed her work without imagining she understood it.
Her father accepted praise because no one thought to look toward the woman at the back of the room.
Publishers would print her translations beneath a male name.
Scholars congratulated themselves for teaching her ideas she had given them.
To enter the Mercury Club, she would have to become someone else.
Not merely a widow. A woman who expected to be seen.
A woman who could stand beside Gabriel St. Clair while others imagined his hands upon her body and feel no shame.
The thought returned with unnerving detail: his hand at her waist, his mouth near her ear, that beautiful, knowing face turned toward hers without laughter.
Eleanor looked down at the programme before her.
“When is the next Society meeting?” Gabriel asked.
“Tomorrow,” Arabella said.
“Then I shall speak with Julian and obtain what information I can concerning the tokens.”
“You are leaving?” Beatrice asked.
“I have a dinner.”
“With whom?”
“A woman whose husband believes Greek refers exclusively to food.”
Beatrice rolled her eyes. Gabriel rose. As he stepped behind Eleanor’s chair, his sleeve brushed her shoulder.
The contact was slight, almost certainly accidental, yet her skin tightened beneath the fabric of her gown.
He paused. For one suspended instant, she wondered whether he had felt it too.
Then he moved on, charming Arabella, provoking Amelia and promising Frances that he would explain the upper gallery only after she swore not to attend disguised as statuary.
The concealed door closed behind him. Every woman at the table looked at Eleanor.
She lifted one eyebrow. “What?”
Beatrice smiled slowly.
“Nothing.”
Eleanor disliked that answer immensely.
* * *
The meeting ended after eleven. Eleanor remained behind to gather the programmes, preferring the useful task to enduring Beatrice’s knowing expression in the corridor.
The others departed in pairs through the concealed passage.
Arabella left last, saying she wished to speak with Barlow about a servant’s wages.
The hidden library became quiet. Eleanor stacked her notes, placed them inside a leather portfolio and pressed the false book that released the door.
She stepped into Arabella’s visible library. Gabriel stood beside the fireplace.
He had removed his evening coat and draped it over one arm. Without its structured lines, his white shirt revealed more of the breadth of his shoulders. His cravat had loosened slightly, exposing the strong column of his throat. Eleanor stopped. He turned.
“I thought you had a dinner.”
“I escaped.”
“Was the Greek insufficiently edible?”
“The husband arrived.”
“Most inconsiderate.”
Gabriel smiled, but his attention remained upon her.
Eleanor closed the concealed door behind her.
The sensible course would be to wish him good evening and return home.
She could speak with Arabella tomorrow, develop a false identity and find another man to escort her into the Mercury Club.
Except another man would not possess Gabriel’s access.
Another man might also mistake instruction for ownership.
Gabriel did not seem inclined to own anything he could charm into following him freely. She placed the portfolio upon a table.
“I require lessons,” she said.
His smile deepened. “In Greek?”
Eleanor held his gaze.
“In seduction.”
For the first time since she had met him, Gabriel St. Clair had no immediate reply.