“My dear Mrs. Webster, we both know Professor Moore would give you whole custody of this book at the slightest flutter of your admittedly lovely eyes, along with the patents to his five most recent inventions and the keys to his entire kingdom.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Alva said, after a pause.

“No?” Henry watched her with eyes that measured as they smiled, and she had the distinct sense she was being issued a warning, the most charmingly delivered warning anyone had ever experienced. Finally, he shrugged, and the tension was gone. “Then you’ll have to rely on my word alone, and I say you shall have equal share of the book.”

Alva had forgotten they were talking about a book. “Oh. Well, I’m certainly not going to turn you down,” she said, struggling to regain her flippant tone. “But you must have the first crack at it.”

“I’ll have it delivered to your house in a few days,” he said. “May I escort you home?”

“Thank you,” she said, and gathered her things as he arranged matters with the volunteer—who, Alva noticed with some cynicism, bore no trace of the sourness she had previously displayed.

The streets outside were still covered with a crisp layer of snow, mocking the bright blue sky above it. Only a few people were about, huddled close as they went about their days.

“Have you worked with Professor Moore long?”

“Since I graduated from law school,” Henry replied. “But I practically grew up with him. The Moores were like a second family to me as a child.”

“I met them in New York. They seemed like wonderful people.”

“There’s nothing like them,” Henry said, a softer smile than she had seen before creeping across his face. “Going to a Moore family dinner is like trying to sit down and eat right in the middle of a circus. You’ll never get through the first course without an explosion of some kind, and the only question is whether they’ll stop talking long enough to notice it.”

“How fortunate you are, to have grown up in that environment.”

“More fortunate than you can possibly imagine,” he agreed, smoothly guiding her across the street. “And still more so to be able to work with them now.”

“It must be fascinating.” They stopped in front of her house. “It was nice to run into you, Mr. Van de Berg.”

“And you, Mrs. Webster.” Henry tipped his hat. “I’ll send you the book, as promised.”

As he bowed and walked away, Alva wished that the words he’d said earlier weren’t running through her mind. She wasn’t some gawky girl, ready to swoon when someone told her a boy liked her. Still, it would take a harder woman than her not to experience a little flutter at the words “and the keys to his entire kingdom.”