Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) Read Online Free PDF

realized, had been there from the outset—deepened in her eyes. “If you really were Mr. Glendower, you would know that. It was all arranged properly with . . . your agent in London—he would have informed you of the change.”
    She’d been smart enough not to give him the name. As she started to edge the door shut, he replied, with more than a touch of acerbity, “If you mean Drayton, he would not have thought the change of sufficient importance to bother me with.” With a brief wave, he indicated his damaged self. “For the last five years, I’ve been otherwise occupied.”
    At least that served to stop her from shutting the door in his face. Instead, she studied him, a frown blooming in her eyes; her lips—quite nice lips, as it happened—slowly firmed into a thin line. “I’m afraid, sir, that, regardless, I will need some proof of your identity before I can allow you into this house.”
    Try to see things from the other person’s point of view. He was still having a hard enough time doing that with men; she was a woman—he wasn’t going to succeed. Thomas stared at her—and she stared back. She wasn’t going to budge. So . . . he set his mind to the task, and it solved it easily enough. “Do you dust in the library?”
    She blinked. “Yes.”
    “The desk in there—it sits before a window that faces the side garden.”
    “It does, but anyone could have looked in and seen that.”
    “True, but if you dust the desk, you will know that the center drawer is locked.” He held up a hand to stop her from telling him that that was often the case with such desks. “If you go to the desk and put your back to that drawer, then look to your right, you will see a set of bookshelves, and on the shelf at”—he ran his gaze measuringly over her—“about your chin height, on the nearer corner you will see a carriage clock. In the front face of the base of that clock is a small rectangular panel. Press on it lightly and it will spring open. Inside the hidden space, you will find the key to the center drawer of the desk. Open the drawer, and you will see a black-leather-covered notebook. Inside, on the first leaf, you will find my name, along with the date—1816. On the following pages are figures that represent the monthly ore tonnages cleared from the two local mining leases I then owned.” He paused, then cocked a brow at her. “Will that satisfy you as identification?”
    Lips tight, she held his gaze steadily, then, with commendable calm, replied, “If you will wait here, I’ll put your identification to the test.”
    With that, she shut the door.
    Thomas sighed, then he heard a bolt slide home and felt affronted.
    What did she think? That he might force his way in?
    As if to confirm his incapacity, his left leg started to ache; he needed to get his weight off it for at least a few minutes or the ache would convert to a throb. Going back down the three shallow steps, he let himself down to sit on the porch, then stretched his legs out and leaned his cane against his left knee.
    He hadn’t even learned her name, yet he still felt insulted that she might imagine he was any threat to her. How could she think so? He couldn’t even chase her. Even if he tried, all she would have to do would be to toss something in his path and he would trip and fall on his face.
    Some people found disfigurement hard to look upon, but although she’d seen his scars, she’d hardly seemed to notice—she certainly hadn’t allowed him any leeway because of his injuries. And, in truth, he didn’t look that bad. The left side of his face had been battered, leaving his eyelid drooping, his cheekbone slightly depressed, and a bad scar across his jaw on that side, but the right side of his face had survived with only a few minor scars; that was why he’d been so sure the Gattings would know him on sight.
    The rest of his body was a similar patchwork of badly scarred areas and those relatively unscathed, but all that was