Page 126 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

“Have I slept long?”

“More than two hours.”

“Goodness!”

He closed his book without bothering to mark the page and set it aside.

She stared at him, an odd smile curving her lips.

“What?” he asked. “Why are you—oh.” He smiled wryly and removed his spectacles. “I’d forgotten.”

“I like them,” she said.

“You may borrow them any time you wish.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I like them on you.” Once the words were out her smile turned to an expression of chagrin.

“Do you indeed, Miss Martin?” he drawled.

As he had hoped, she scowled at his teasing. “Yes, as a matter of fact. They make you look clever.”

He laughed. “The perfect disguise, then.”

“What were you reading?” She’d tilted her head to read the spine, but the gilt had long ago been worn off by the hand of some happy reader, no doubt one of the Bellamy chits.

“It is called The Perils of Lady Louisa.” As far as he could tell, the only peril in the book had been the purple language. Or perhaps the suppressed sexual tension that had rampaged through Lady Louisa’s tightly corseted body every time the villain—hero?—had twirled his mustachios in her direction. All that twirling had made him wonder if he should grow facial hair. But then the only time he’d tried, his beard had looked patchy and piebald.

“Is it good?” she asked, a faint twist to her lips.

“Hmm?”

“The book?”

He smiled. “Riveting.”

She laughed. “Why do I not believe you?”

He could have told her that he’d only managed to get through about six pages. He’d never had an easy time reading but was even more painfully plodding since injuring his head during the War. The spectacles helped, of course, but they did not stop the letters from performing their tricks and he could never read for more than a half hour without developing a devil of a headache. He knew not everyone was as dull-witted as he was because he’d made the mistake of once asking Sylvester about the moving letters. His cousin had been startled, and then had laughed, believing Andrew had been jesting. That had been the first and last time he’d mentioned that.

Before Andrew could answer her, her stomach growled.

She set a hand over her midriff, her face flooding with color. “Oh. Pardon me.”

“Hungry?” he teased. “I cleaned the crockery earlier.” He pointed to small collection of plates, cups, and glasses on a dish cloth. “If you set places then I will lay out a feast.”

Her gaze slid to the dishes. “I should have done that.”

That made him smile. “I might be useless in a kitchen, but I can certainly wash a dish.”

“I suspect that is quite rare among the men of our class.”

“Yet one more way in which I am a man among men.”

Again, she laughed.

They worked in companionable silence, the little domestic space already familiar after barely a day.

She must have been thinking the same thing, because she said, “It is astonishing how quickly one becomes accustomed to a new set of circumstances.”