* * *
When he woke it was early evening. A thin but bold amber shaft pierced a slit between the curtains, pouring in from a decidedly low western angle. He had slept like the dead; Patrick appreciated it when he wrestled up from the mattress to spy his and Amelia's meager baggage stacked neatly in a corner beside the fireplace. He hadn't heard a sound of the occurrence, not even when her pirate chest had been heaved in. "Laboratory equipment," he muttered ahead of a yawn, scrubbing hands over his eyes.
Then it occurred that several hours had passed and Amelia was still out. He threw back the quilts and leapt out onto a cold floor, ready to search. Then he realized that he had no idea where to look for her. By now she could be climbing the peaks, sheep-legged and with skirts hitched, up the crags in search of her baron. Patrick wasn't certain if the image left him relieved or terrified; perhaps both.
Curious and alone, he shuffled to her things, staring down at a brown and pink hatbox. It was round and striped like a candy, nestled beside two tapestry valises which would have been humorous if carried by a man. The thought of tiny Amelia Blake hefting them about was side-splitting.
He grasped the black lacquered handle of the first bag, and pulled it back with a hesitance that might have warned an entering stranger of a snake, or at least a possum. There, atop a neatly folded surface of white lawn underthings sat Amelia's much-celebrated 'A Patient Heart'. A stack of bundled letters beside it tempted his hand. The ribbon-wrapped correspondence might hold the answer to every mind bending question he'd had about the confounding Miss Blake. She was so delightful, so trusting; feeling ungentlemanly at his first impulse, he settled for his second, and rested his hand on the blue canvas book cover instead. Maybe it would offer some insight, too.
A large round table, a piece of furniture that appeared reconstructed from something less reputable, held court before the window and offered a perfect spot to peruse the novel. Patrick tugged back a curtain, folded into a protesting chair, and stretched out his legs. For a long moment he didn't read or move, but closed his eyes and inhaled a summer evening breeze perfumed by lilacs, and felt the first real distance from his burdens.
He didn't start at the beginning of the novel, because in his experience that was usually the least interesting part of a book. Instead he let fate take a hand and palmed the front and back cover so that the book fell open as it wished.