“One moment, sir,” the young man called down the hall, then handed the map back to her. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.” He dashed down the hall with admirable agility.

Why did women have to be burdened by so many skirts and layers? On the farm she usually wore her father’s old denim pants to scramble up into haylofts or tend the goats, but that probably wouldn’t go over well in Washington.

Muffled voices leaked out from a closed door at the end of a hall, and a few moments later, Otis returned with his hand outstretched.

“Mr. Delacroix overheard our conversation. He wants to see the map.”

Annabelle tightened her grip on it. If Mr. Delacroix wanted to see the map, he could meet her like any other civilized person. “Oh dear . . . it is a very valuable map. I hate to let it go. Perhaps I can make an appointment to come back and show it to him at a more convenient time?”

Given the uneasy look on Otis’s face, it didn’t feel right to paint him into such an awkward position, but she needed to meet Mr. Delacroix in person.

“Otis, send her back here,” the grumpy voice hollered.

Hope welled inside her, and she followed Otis down the hallway. More antiques hung on the wall, where dour-looking people in white wigs frowned from old family portraits. She was shown through a door into a book-lined study. When she got a look at the man behind the desk, she gasped.

The surly expression on his face darkened. “Don’t worry. I’m not contagious,” he said.

But he looked horrible! He wasn’t even dressed properly, wearing only a loosely tied dressing robe. He had bloodshot eyes and unkempt black hair, but most appalling was his skin. He was sickly white and soaking wet, with trails of perspiration rolling down his face and dampening his robe. His untidy appearance didn’t stop him from rudely looking her up and down.

“You’re short,” he said.

She straightened. Her height was always the first thing people noticed about her, but rarely were they so rude as to comment on it. “And you are very ill.”

“But not contagious,” he said bluntly. “And I want to see this valuable map. Where is it?”

Maybe he wasn’t contagious, but there was something seriously wrong with him. She took a single step forward and extended the rolled map, then retreated the instant he snatched it.