Washington, District of Columbia—August 1908
After the rest of the office dispersed for the evening, Ora found herself alone with Guy Ledford. It was a common occurrence, owing to their mutual competitive streaks, a genuine love for the work, and neither one having someone expecting them at home.
“While I know you were just trying to help with Fleming earlier, I wish you hadn’t,” Ora said after a long while of silence.
Guy sighed. “Ora, I’m not going to sit here and let them—”
“It only makes me look weaker.”
“You aren’t weak, though.”
“I am aware. But what I actually am and what I look like I am are not always the same. Almost never the same,” she immediately amended. “It’s a game. I must play it strategically. I cannot have you inserting yourself—”
Guy let out a childish bark of laughter.
“Let me rephrase. I cannot have you interfering in my business.”
“I hate to see you tormented by those dunces. You are my friend.”
“Yes, and as such, you should listen to me when I ask that you simply let it go next time.”
“Fine,” he agreed, though not very convincingly.
He watched as Ora reread John Morse’s letter for the tenth time today.
“I thought you were cataloging, but it appears that you’ve become distracted.
” She glanced up to find Guy flashing her a charming smile that she knew was a precursor to trouble.
“Those must be some particularly titillating sketches he’s sent you this time.
That shade of pink stretching up your neck as you read…
I know a lady’s excitement when I see it. ”
“I must presume you’ve read about it in a book, then, as I know you have never provoked any yourself,” she quipped without looking up.
Guy laughed as he leaned back farther, bringing his elbow down on her desk. “I think we both know quite well what I can provoke, Ora,” he whispered playfully.
She narrowed her eyes before stating with as little feeling as possible, “We agreed we aren’t doing that anymore.”
Guy Ledford was a man who was difficult to wrap her mind around sometimes, but to her chagrin, her legs did not seem to find doing so nearly as challenging.
He’d wound up in her bed more than once over the past six months, his charm, friendly affection, and discretion a potent enough mixture to counteract most arguments against it.
“I know. But it’s so much fun to fluster you.” He grinned as she stuck out her tongue at him. “Besides, I can tell that even if I succeeded in convincing you to let me keep you company tonight, your heart wouldn’t be in it. It beats solely for Mr. John Otis Morse nowadays, does it not?”
Ora nearly bit her tongue in the process of getting it back inside her mouth to retort, “How could you say— Why, that’s absurd. I have never even met the man!”
Or rather, she hadn’t met him yet. Each time she read Morse’s latest letter again, when she came to the part where he expressed how he wished she could see his mystery bird with her own eyes, she became more and more convinced that this might be the perfect opportunity to not only advance her career but see if the connection she’d developed with the illustrator over the course of their months of correspondence might translate in person.
Not that she was about to admit that part to Ledford; his teasing might come from a place of fondness rather than the bitterness her colleagues drew upon, but in some ways that made it harder to ignore. Harder to keep from embarrassing her. Even if that wasn’t his intention.
Besides, she was still considering whether she wanted to convince their supervisor to permit her the time to travel out to Catoctin for fieldwork.
There was the cataloging project she’d been assigned—much to all the men’s chagrin, as everyone considered it a chance to show Mearns that one was worth being considered to accompany him to Africa with President Roosevelt next year.
It was important. So important, in fact, that she knew Guy would be only too pleased to take it over for himself.
Then again, if this bird was as Morse described it, it was unlike anything she’d ever seen or read about before.
Discovering a new species would be a massive win for her professionally.
Guy could have the cataloging project to himself, then, for all she would care.
“Oh, you will meet him someday, I’m sure,” he said with a faux-wistful sigh. “And then he will whisk you away to a barn somewhere and whisper sweet nothings into your ear about his favorite ways to portray plumage variation using watercolors as he makes love to you.”
“Jealousy doesn’t particularly suit you,” Ora said, trying not to let on that her mind had quite gleefully run away with that image.
Not of the bizarre conversation, but the act during which it would take place.
She didn’t know what John Morse looked like, of course, but she was long past letting that stop her from fantasizing.
A barn, hmm? Her libidinous thoughts had never wandered into that setting before, but now…
“Is that what you think I am?” Guy asked sweetly, folding his arms atop her desk and resting his chin upon them.
“I promise you, darling, that I am not jealous in the least. In reality, Ora, if such a thing were to occur, I would be nothing but thrilled. You know that I want you to be happy above all.”
“That is very kind of you,” she said, knowing that what Guy truly wanted above all was for Guy to be happy. Still, she did believe he held her in the highest regard he could hold anyone who wasn’t himself.
“And in the meantime, while you wait for the day when you will meet your Mr. Morse, I offer my own servi—”
“No.”
“Mm. Can’t blame a man for trying,” he said casually, and turned back to his own desk where they worked in companionable silence for several more hours before Guy saw her safely home.