From This Moment (27 page)

“Ernest!” she said with a bright smile. “Did you go to the typeface auction in Philadelphia?”

The archivist straightened and adjusted the horn-rimmed spectacles on his face. “Indeed I did! I was able to buy the Caslon type. Can you believe it? There were only two other bidders, and I outlasted them both.”

If Romulus were not so intent on making progress on his injunction case, the discussion of typeface would have been a temptation. A new set of typeface was always of interest, but
today he couldn’t let himself be distracted by the wonderful vagaries of production issues.

Within ten minutes, Stella had pulled two boxes of notes and court filings regarding the old labor union case. They sat at a large oak table, surrounded by acres of wooden filing cabinets that created a cocoon of privacy.

“Start reading through the notes and pay special attention to the names and titles of anyone eager to shut down the labor union newsletters,” Romulus instructed. He still didn’t know who had filed the injunction against
Scientific World
, and the more insight he could get into the people at City Hall, the better. Stella’s slender fingers were capable and efficient as she riffled through a dozen files, extracting relevant meeting notes. Soon she had amassed a stack three inches thick for them to pillage.

The paperwork was lethally dull, but he did his best to skim each page for relevant details. The burden was going to be on the government to prove his magazine was a danger to the public, which gave him an advantage, but it was still aggravating. How was he supposed to pay his employees next week? Evelyn always handled such details, but it would be up to him now.

Evelyn’s shattered face as the carriage had pulled away still tugged at him. She didn’t deserve what had happened to her. And Clyde! How could Clyde function as an engineer if he couldn’t communicate with a team of sweaty construction workers? Design work in a laboratory was a possibility, but Clyde belonged out in the field, battling the elements, building the infrastructure of the coming century . . .

“Concentrate,” Stella murmured beside him.

He glanced at her. “How do you know I’m not concentrating?”

“You’re staring straight ahead instead of at the papers in your hand.”

“And you have perfect concentration?” he challenged. “Even
when your world is falling apart, your friends are howling in need, and everything you’ve worked for is teetering on the brink of disaster?”

“That’s when my focus is strongest,” she said simply.

Something uncomfortable stirred deep inside him. Stella tugged at emotions he’d long since buried and wanted to stay dead, but she made it hard. She did everything at full throttle, with fire and determination and strength.

“That’s what I like about you,” he said. “You never go halfway.”

Her eyes sparkled as she met his gaze. “I think you’ve been doing the same thing from the time you bought a failing magazine ten years ago.”

His shoulders sagged a little. Ever since he’d signed that deal with the New York investors, the proudest accomplishment of his life was no longer
his
anymore. He’d found the perfect outlet for his erratic interests by publishing
Scientific World
, but his zeal came at a cost. He wouldn’t be an easy man to live with, but at least Stella understood the all-consuming appetite for creative expression and exploration. She was a good match for him that way.

She sat three feet away from him, and he had to clasp the arms of his chair to keep from moving toward her. “Time to get back to work, Miss West,” he said, turning his attention to a stack of legal drudgery. This page seemed pointless, so he flipped it over, hoping the next would be more useful. He skimmed the document quickly and, failing to find anything pertinent, went on to the next.

Yes, he would be a terrible husband. In all likelihood, he would have the same trouble Clyde had with Evelyn. When a man was too obsessed with his career, women felt neglected. He should have warned Clyde about how needy Evelyn could be.
Not that he could blame her. Any girl who had been abandoned by her father the way she had was likely to need—

Stella grabbed the page from his hands and set it down. “You’ve lost focus again.”

He glared at her but remained mute. He really hated it when she was right.

“Wait here,” she said as she placed his document back on the stack of unread papers. “I have an idea.”

She walked to the front of the room to speak quietly to the archivist. After a moment, she returned with a ring of keys in her hand. “I’m going back into the stacks. Come with me,” she suggested. She explained that the stacks were where volumes of old books and boxes of records kept track of two centuries of Boston history.

He glanced at the work mounded around them. Her papers were sorted into tidy stacks, with a page of handwritten notes complete with pagination and court case citations. His was a sloppy mound of unsorted papers. His eyes had dutifully traveled across every line of text on those pages, but he couldn’t remember anything of what he’d read.

If she had something in mind to help him make progress on the mess he’d made of the notes, he wanted to hear it.

Stella’s nose twitched at the musty scent of old paper and leather bindings as she traveled several aisles deep into the storage room. Romulus followed, and with every step, she felt her attraction burn brighter. She cared for him beyond reason or restraint. The more she tried to ignore the untimely attraction, the more it magnified.

Which meant she was losing sight of Gwendolyn. She didn’t resent Romulus’s request for help with his court case. After all,
he’d done plenty to help her navigate the quagmire of Boston political circles, and she was happy to repay the debt—but not if he was going to dither and waste time.

She finally reached the back aisle, probably the most isolated, private spot in all of City Hall. She turned to face Romulus and fought to maintain a calm expression. “What do you need to do to quit obsessing over Evelyn and Clyde?” she asked.

“How do you know I’ve been doing that?”

“Because you’ve glanced at your pocket watch four times in the last fifteen minutes, and I have a strong suspicion it’s because Clyde is meeting with a specialist today.”

“If all went well, the meeting happened an hour ago. They ought to know something by now.”

“Then put it from your mind and get down to work.”

He slanted a frustrated glance at her. “I seem to be incapable of compartmentalizing pieces of my soul the way you can.” Some people might have taken that as an insult, but not Stella. She was proud of her ability to plow toward a solution to her problems and not wait for rescue.

“All that means is that I am capable of focusing on the task at hand, something you’ve confessed you struggle with. I’m here to help. For the past five days, I’ve neglected my search for A.G. or anything else relating to my sister’s death to help you with this legal injunction, and all you can do is stare into space and fiddle with your watch. So quit wasting my time, Mr. White. Spill out all your vexations so we can get back down to work.”

An avalanche of frustration came tumbling out. “Clyde and Evelyn are great, shining, idiotic fools!” he said. “They always have been. They’ve squandered the best years of their lives being angry at each other, and now any hope of reconciliation is almost lost. So, yes, I’ve been distracted. I count it as a sign of human compassion and a beating heart.”

“Aren’t you also guilty of squandering the best years of your life? You had a failed love affair as a young man, and now you’ve avoided any romantic liaison that delves deeper than the admittedly fine tailoring of your silk vest.”

Wading into these waters was risky, but Romulus didn’t seem to mind as he drew an inch closer to her. His face had an alive, alert look that always took her breath away. His scattered concentration was gone. His lids lowered, his voice softened, and he appeared entirely captivated by this conversation. “And why should the manner in which I carry out my romantic liaisons, or lack of such, be of any concern to you, Miss West?”

Never had she heard a voice so laden with goading, and it spurred her onward. This might turn into the biggest mistake of her life, but she’d never wanted a man as desperately as she longed for Romulus White.

And when a person wanted something this badly, it was only natural to reach out for it with both hands. She risked terrific humiliation, but there were worse things than enduring a little embarrassment. Going through life only half living was one of them.

She stepped closer, resting her hands on the lapels of his suit jacket, a faint smile hovering on her mouth. “I disagree with your arbitrary declaration of forty as an end to your eternal bachelorhood.”

“Too soon?”

“Too cowardly and timid. And you don’t strike me as a timid man.”

She stood on tiptoe and touched her mouth to his. For a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. Then, to her immense relief, he leaned down and kissed her back. A moment later, his arms hugged her close, and the world tilted and swayed as he curled her tighter into his embrace.

She’d been kissed before, but not like this. There was a sense of urgency and need that was impossible not to respond to. And when she withdrew, the faint grin on his face made her heart turn over.

“Why did you do that?” he asked softly.

“Because I care for you. And life can be short. I don’t want to waste a single hour daydreaming about what might have been. I’d rather work toward making it happen.”

His fingers were light as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, all the while smiling down at her with fondness. With affection. And something else she couldn’t quite name. Regret?

“You know this is a mistake,” he said pointedly.

“I don’t see why it has to be.” It felt absolutely perfect, but even now Romulus was glancing over her shoulder, his eyes widening as he scrutinized something directly behind her. The faint smile on his lips grew wider.

“Miss West,” he whispered in a voice full of wonderment, “do you know there is an original edition of Audubon’s
Birds of America
on the shelf behind you?”

Impossible! But when she whirled around, there it was, laid flat on a shelf to prevent damage to its antique binding. For any scientific artist,
Birds of America
was the Holy Grail, the
Mona Lisa
, the alpha and the omega of excellence in illustration. A labor of love filled with 435 full-color illustrations of birds painted in exquisite detail. No other collection of paintings came close to the stature of
Birds of America
. Her fingers trembled as she touched the dry leather binding.

“Let’s find a table and explore,” Romulus urged.

“Okay,” she said breathlessly. It was impossible to tell who was more excited. She’d seen unbound plates from Audubon before, but never an entire volume. She didn’t trust her trembling hands to carry the oversized book, but she trailed after Romulus
as he carried it to an oak work table set deep in the stacks. The volume was three and a half feet tall and barely fit on the table.

“I’ll bet you shirked your duties to the Transit Commission to come down here and gawk,” he said with a grin.

“If I’d known it was here, I surely would have.”

She held her breath as Romulus carefully opened the volume, revealing the splendid plumage of a belted kingfisher, the cerulean feathers of the bird’s outstretched wings beautifully offset by black bands of color.

“Your dress matches the bird,” Romulus whispered, making a bubble of laughter escape with a snort. He continued to point out the similarities in shade, striping, and the ruffle of her collar to the kingfisher’s feathers. Then he asked if she could emulate the squawking rattle of the kingfisher’s ungainly call.

“Stop,” she begged. “We are looking at John James Audubon, the man in whose shadow I am destined to live in perpetuity. You’re not demonstrating the proper degree of reverence.”

“Don’t tell me you are intimidated by Audubon.”

She let her gaze devour the next illustration of a wood stork’s weirdly asymmetrical body leaning over to pluck a snail from a marshy swamp. Its brilliance was humbling, and her ego needed a little propping up. “I am a peasant compared to Audubon. I’ll never be this good . . .”

“Darling, you’re twenty-eight years old. You have plenty of time to improve.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, and she grinned as she elbowed him in the ribs. He replied by pulling her into his arms for another round of kissing. It went on until she was breathless and had to pull herself away.

“Audubon’s engravings were all colored by hand,” she said. “Each one took weeks. I can produce forty impressions per minute on a high-speed lithographic press.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Romulus sighed, but he was smiling as he turned back to the volume. She loved the way he teased her. Most men were intimidated by her, but not Romulus. He knew precisely how to let the steam out of her ego without truly hurting her feelings, and she adored him for it.

The next hour was possibly the most magical of her life. They turned pages and admired the masterpieces of the greatest naturalist painter ever to have lived. Time and again, they stopped to laugh, kiss, and flirt outrageously. But it didn’t take long to get pulled back into the book beside them and marvel at the perfect dovetail of art and science in the antique volume.