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the matter go. “Five long years. You’ve never done anything like this. Are you feeling okay? You haven’t slipped into an early midlife crisis, have you? I mean, for the cost of dinner at Di Serrano’s you could probably buy a used Ferrari.”
    “I haven’t done anything like this before, have I? It’s probably high time I did,” Damien answered absently. He pulled Brice’s manuscript back toward him. “Listen to this! ‘The Guiccioli girl is better—and will get well with prudence—our amatory business goes on well and daily. Her doctors insist that she may be cured, if she likes. Will she like? I doubt of her liking anything for very long, except one thing, and I presume that she will soon arrive at varying even that.’ ”
    He dropped the papers. “Where does this woman get her information? I must know. It’s like she was sitting in the wardrobe of the bedroom taking notes while it happened. She understands it all—the cause of the affair, and also the spiritual claustrophobia that drove him to seek solace in women’s arms.”
    “Ah. The light dawns,” Karen said, coming to sit on the edge of Damien’s desk. Her eyes were a little wide. “She’s a sort of mystery to you, then—a puzzle that must be solved at any cost.”
    “She’s certainly a detective. This kind of research borders on true mania! Writers with obsessions interest me.”
    “And she’s ferreted out information about Byron that you didn’t know.”
    “No—not exactly. But she’s ferreted out things that no other scholar has. This next bit is from one of Teresa’s own journals. She was with Byron when he wrote Don Juan ,” he added, in case Karen didn’t know. His secretary admired Byron’s poetry, though she liked Shelley’s more—but she’d never been much interested in any of the poets’ personal lives, in spite of her employer’s obsession with the literary giants of that era.
    “Listen. ‘His pen moved so rapidly over the page that one day I said to him, “One would almost believe that someone is dictating to you!” “Yes,” he replied, “a mischievous spirit who sometimes even makes me write what I am not thinking. There now, for instance—I have just been writing something about love!” “Why don’t you erase it then?” I asked. “It is written,” he replied, smiling. “The stanza would be spoiled.” And the stanza remained.’ ”
    “Miss Ashton makes it all come alive, doesn’t she? By using letters and journals in the subject’s own words instead of paraphrasing,” Karen said, watching her employer’s face. His expression was rapt. She quashed the tiny tendril of jealousy that dared to reach for her heart. She was genuinely fond of Damien Ruthven, and she nobly hoped that he had finally had enough of intellectually and emotionally lopsided romance. Perhaps he was ready to try something different: an affair with someone who would be his equal, who might love him in spite of his quirks—and whom he might be able to love in return. “Usually history is bone dry,” she said at random, wondering just how old Brice Ashton was. Could she be under fifty? Karen hoped so.
    “Yes.”
    “And the biographies even worse. But this sounds special. Unique even. Something that could even be…popular.”
    There was a slightly asthmatic wheeze from under his desk, and Damien reached down for a moment.
    “Yes,” he said again, not looking up from the papers in front of him. “Except for Byron’s own memoirs, there has been nothing like it.”
    “I’ll go make those reservations,” Karen said. She rose decisively. “Hopefully, the florist can scare up gold irises. They’ve been kind of heavy on the poinsettias the last few weeks.”
    “No poinsettias,” her employer ordered. “They’re so common. And please cancel my reservations for this weekend. Skiing can wait until after Miss Ashton’s visit.”
    “Shall I order up a Christmas tree while I’m at it?” Karen asked. She’d wanted to