Read Online Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) by Penny Vincenzi - Free Book Online

her carefully documenting what had been sold and went across to her.
    ‘I was so grateful for your help,’ he said, ‘thank you.’
    ‘Don’t be absurd,’ she said, ‘it was nothing. I enjoyed your talk,’ she added, and went back to her task; he felt at once dismissed and encouraged.
    ‘I get so tired of it,’ he said, and ‘Of what?’ she said, looking up after a long moment, as if distracted, and unwillingly so, from what she was doing.
    ‘The talk. I do it so often, and it seems to me to be so boring. It probably is,’ he added, ‘but they seemed to enjoy it this afternoon, didn’t they?’
    ‘Oh, yes, I think so,’ she said.
    ‘And quite a good number of people, didn’t you think?’
    ‘Oh, I did. Yes.’
    ‘It’s always a strain, you know. Wondering if anyone will come, wondering if they’ll laugh at the right moment, all that sort of thing.’
    ‘I imagine, yes.’
    ‘You never get used to it. Not really. Absurd, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes. I mean no.’ She looked at him very levelly. ‘Mr Brooke – I don’t want to be rude. And I did enjoy your talk and I’m sure everyone did. But I would like to finish this now, it’s getting late.’
    ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. How self-centred and selfish of me. Do forgive me. And thank you again.’
    ‘That’s perfectly all right. Good night.’
    ‘Good night Miss—’
    ‘Harvey. Pandora Harvey.’
    ‘Sebastian Brooke,’ he said, and only realised when he had gone upstairs with Mr Jarvis, the assistant children’s librarian, how absurd she must think him, absurd and self-aggrandising.
     
    He had stayed the night in Oxford, having business to discuss next day with the manager of Blackwells; and then, drawn by what seemed some totally irresistible force, had walked into the Bodleian. She was actually walking out of it at precisely the same time, to go to lunch and then to stay with her mother for a week; he had often wondered since, and trembled at it, what might have happened if his conversation with Blackwells had lasted for even five minutes longer. He smiled and said how very nice to see her again, and might he perhaps take her for tea to show his gratitude for her kindness the night before and his remorse at his fatuous and self-centred attempts at conversation, and she laughed and said she had enjoyed the conversation and could not remember any kindness, that tea would be nice and perhaps even a sandwich since she was hungry.
    After that, they went for a walk by the river and then he drove her in his motor car down to the Trout pub on the great wild flats, where she surprised him by asking for half a pint of beer and they watched the peacocks and discovered they shared a passion for (amongst a great many other things) the paintings of Modigliani, the music of George Gershwin and the literary works of A. A. Milne. ‘If you wouldn’t find such fondness for a rival author offensive,’ Pandora added anxiously.
    Sebastian, who was growing accustomed to such remarks, said that of course he would not. And then she agreed to telephone her mother and tell her she wouldn’t be arriving until the next day and he bought her dinner at the Randolph. They sat there talking until they were quite alone in the restaurant and the waiters were half asleep, and Sebastian said that he didn’t suppose she would take it at all seriously, but he appeared to be falling in love with her and she said (with a glorious lack of foolish feminine guile) that she would certainly like to take it seriously, and also to think about its implications.
    A week later, she telephoned him from her small house in Oxford and invited him to dinner on the following Saturday evening; Sebastian arrived with a bottle of very fine claret, a large bouquet of white roses and a signed, first edition of The House at Pooh Corner . A few other friends were coming, she said, which disappointed him a little, but by one o’clock in the morning and after a very happy evening, and a wonderful