Her chest eased. What had she thought? That this was something from whoever had killed her mother? It could be, she supposed. But if so, it was rather odd that he’d reference the book of poetry that Lukas had given her for her birthday. The one that Drake Elton had also been reading.

She ripped open the second envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. When she flattened it and angled it toward the low gaslights, her lips twitched up. Numbers. Whole paragraphs of beautiful numbers.

Rather obvious of him. But . . . clever too. He knew she couldn’t turn down a puzzle, apparently. Bypassing that imposing stack of newsprint that wouldn’t speak to her no matter how hard she searched for hidden meaning, she turned to her room with its tiny little desk. With its volume of poetry. With its fresh paper and ready pen.

The code was simple, using the poetry book as the key. Like a breath of spring air compared to the work she did at OB 40 every day. And fun because of it. It took her only a few minutes to work it out, flipping back and forth and back again in the book and then writing down the word that corresponded to each three-part number. Page, line, word on the line.

Only once she’d finished did she bother to really read what he’d written her. And even then, it wasn’t the words that struck her—they were flattering nonsense, praising her dark eyes and her wit—it was the fact that he’d written them. Like this. That somehow, though he’d barely known her for a few weeks, he knew her so well.

What was she to do with this? With a man who’d apparently decided that yes, he would pursue her? He’d already said if he did so, it wouldn’t be casually. This, then, was his declaration. He was courting her.

She pressed her hand against the page as too many thoughts swirled, a jumble of words and impressions and feelings where orderly numbers should have been. He was mixing her up. And for some reason, she liked it even as she hated it.

This wasn’t the path she’d set out upon. Get through the war, go to university, conquer academia—that was her future. That was it. She had no intentions of letting a man pursue her when she was only eighteen. There was time enough for such thoughts later. In a decade, perhaps. Or two.

And yet . . . she didn’t know who some future man in a decade or two might be, or how well she’d like him. But she knew who Drake Elton was. And she did like him.