by Nerys Leigh
“He said very,” he said, still staring at the telegram. “He said they’d be ‘very pleased’ to see me.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, it’s… good. I think. My father would never normally spend the extra six cents to send an unnecessary word.”
“There you go then. That proves they’re eager to see you.”
He frowned at the telegram. “You truly think so?”
She fixed him with a look. “Which of us is the better at reading people?”
Tiny wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes, the ones that, even though he wasn’t quite smiling, betrayed his amusement. She loved those wrinkles.
“You are.”
“And which of us should know better than to question his wife in matters of emotion?”
The wrinkles became a smile. “I’m guessing that would be me.”
“Correct. I knew you were a smart man, from the moment I met you.”
“You mean when I dropped a maggot into your hair?”
She wrinkled her nose. “All right, maybe not the exact moment I met you.”
A whistle drowned out his laughter as the train pulled into the station.
“I’m glad it isn’t too far to Boston,” she said as they fell into line with the others waiting to board the train. “I’m not looking forward to the long journey back. Especially those tiny bunks.”
“When we get home, I’ll see about renting a house in Denver,” he said. “I don’t think you’d want to live in the house with all the other agents. It can get a bit rowdy. Besides, my room is so tiny we’d never fit a double bed into it.”
She schooled her features into seriousness. “We most definitely need a bed both of us can fit into.”
He smiled. “Most definitely. I’m done fighting you for the settee. You’re too sneaky.”
“No maggots in the bedroom, though.”
His smile faded. “But they need feeding and checking on regularly. It’s much easier if they’re…”
“No maggots in the bedroom,” she repeated, more firmly this time.
He pursed his lips. “I suppose I could set up my equipment in the living room.”
She sighed. “Just… make it somewhere I don’t have to look at them all the time.”
“But they’re incredibly useful. Do you know they can detect a dead body long before it even begins to smell? And they’re…”
Clara smiled as she boarded the train to the sound of his animated exposition on blowflies. She’d probably have to learn to like maggots, but she didn’t mind. Toby was worth enduring all the maggots in the world.
They found a seat and she took his hand. “I love you, Tobias Campbell.”
“I love you too, Clara Campbell.” He smiled. “And it’s Toby.”
Dear Reader
Thank you for reading An Agent for Clara and I hope you’ve enjoyed Toby and Clara’s story! If you’re wondering what really did happen to Josephine Carter, and whether or not the baby was Aaron Wetherington’s, you can read her story in The Truth About Love, the fifth book in my Escape to the West series. And if you’d like to know how Aaron’s journey to California to find Jo turns out, his story will be book nine in the series. All the Escape to the West books are standalone stories, but if you’d like to start at the very beginning, you can buy No One’s Bride HERE.
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I would love to hear what you thought of An Agent for Clara in a review on AMAZON. It will also help others to find my books. Even just a line or two will make me inordinately grateful!
Nineteenth century New York City could be a dangerous place, as I found in my research for this book. The Hatmakers are fictional, but there were many gangs around, including the two mentioned – the Whyos and the Dead Rabbits (and Clara truly didn’t want to know why they were called that). What with them and the Draft Riots and the maggots, I had an interesting, if not exactly fun, time researching!
Next up in the Pinkerton Matchmaker series is An Agent for Laurel by Lynn Donovan, and I will be back with book eight of my Escape to the West series, Courting Will, and my next Pinkerton Matchmaker book, An Agent for Kitty.
If you’d like to get in touch, you can contact me via my FACEBOOK page or WEBSITE or at [email protected]. I love to hear from readers!
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BOOKS BY NERYS LEIGH
The Escape to the West series
No One’s Bride
A Hope Unseen
The Wayward Heart
An Unexpected Groom
The Truth About Love
More Than Gold
The Judge’s Daughter
Courting Will (coming summer 2019)
The Pinkerton Matchmaker series
An Agent for Belle
An Agent for Clara
An Agent for Kitty (coming July 2019)