Chapter 2
Two
Eleanor
Eleanor Anne Leonard stared at the professor and wished the rathole beneath her too-large boots would swallow her.
Except for his electrified golden mane, Greybourne appeared as elegant as always in an impeccably tailored dove gray coat and silver waistcoat. His immaculate linen was only slightly disheveled, as it became when his tempestuous humors erupted.
She had to say something if she couldn’t arrange to disappear. Recovering, she grasped with relief that he was here for his manuscript.
“I have your notes.” Hastily tugging at her untied shirt, El stepped deeper into the shadows, leaving Andrew between her and the professor.
“Hide them,” Greybourne ordered before she could escape. “You locked the desk before you left, did you not?”
“Of course, sir,” she said indignantly. “The students would steal your paper and ink and hunt for your lecture notes otherwise. But I thought I might finish copying the pages you left this morning.” She needed the salary he paid her.
He wouldn’t continue paying a female, but he might give her what he owed.
“The desk was ransacked.” He made no attempt to enter when Andrew stepped aside.
“Ransacked, sir?” That temporarily shocked her from her monetary fears. “I assure you, I did not—”
He interrupted her protest with a curt wave. “I know you did not. But I fear the papers are no longer safe.”
His book was a scholarly treatise of contemporary art. Eleanor didn’t dare argue. They needed his wages.
“I have been planning to spend time with my cousin,” he continued abruptly. “I’ll simply leave sooner than anticipated. I take it you have not found new employment yet?”
She sent her twin a wild look of panic. Without her position at the school and salary from Greybourne, they were near enough to penniless. But now he knew she wasn’t Andrew—he could ruin them.
Greybourne finally remembered his manners, entered, and bowed curtly to Andrew, introducing himself. “I need your. . . sister’s. . . invaluable assistance. I don’t suppose you have a fair hand or research talents too?”
Andrew snorted. “I have education but no talent for books. I’ll happily mend your coat, your horse’s harness, or build your shelves, but El is the one who got me through university.”
“Fine. I don’t have a valet. Are you available to accompany your sister?” Haystack mane flowing, the professor stalked irritably up and down the uncarpeted floor, glaring at the books overflowing what little furniture they possessed.
“Accompany?” they both said at once.
El was accustomed to thinking quickly, but this was a little much, with too little information.
But the rent was past due and if they could somehow save her quarterly salary. . .
“We will need a little more information than that.” Andrew recovered first. “I have several jobs arranged, and we cannot just leave this place empty for an unknown time.”
El knew the professor didn’t like being contradicted once he set on a course.
He gestured rudely at the remains of their former life.
“You could burn the place with no loss. I’ll double your sister’s wage, provide a similar sum for you to be my man-of-all-work, and provide food and board for the next six months.
You may pack your belongings and take them with you. I’ll hire a cart.”
She ought to take offense at that insult to their home, but he wasn’t far wrong.
His arrogant, high-handedness only emerged when he was frustrated, which admittedly, was often.
El had worked with him for a year and knew he was also brilliant and fair-minded.
. . witness his not objecting to her duplicitous appearance.
He was quick-witted enough to have already grasped her reasoning.
That he’d accepted that a female could perform the tasks of a male wasn’t necessarily broad-minded, however, so much as expedient.
He didn’t wish to train a new research assistant mid-book.
While the men negotiated, Eleanor ran over the pluses and minuses of such an abrupt upheaval. She saw almost no reason why they shouldn’t abandon poverty to seek better circumstances elsewhere.
It wasn’t as if Greybourne saw her as anything but a tool to be used.
She was the one suffering from delusions if she feared a wealthy, sophisticated aristocrat like the baron might look at an inconsequential female assistant differently. Even if Greybourne saw through her natural invisibility, he’d pay her no attention, as long as she continued his work.
If it meant securing their financial future, she’d happily leave Edinburgh.