Behind the Veil

by Kathryn Nolan

“Impulsively romantic, right?”

  “Um…yeah,” I said, distracted. The air outside had a charged feeling I recognized—quiet before a storm. There was a volley of sharp cracks: car doors slamming, the pop of male voices. With a racing pulse, I picked my head up inch by agonizing inch—until I could just make out Victoria’s mansion. The black sedan had become five black sedans, and a group of giant men with pistols were stepping out and standing in Victoria’s driveway with deadly-looking posture.

  “What the fuck,” I breathed.

  “What is it?”

  “The evil henchmen have arrived.”

  One by one, they made their way inside her house—although a handful went toward the perimeter. I understood heightened security for a stolen book but this seemed excessive.

  My fingers twitched on the door.

  “Delilah,” Henry started.

  “How fast are you?” I asked, already cracking the door open.

  “Pretty fast,” he admitted. “I run five miles a day.”

  I grinned at him—ready for the chase.

  “Then you should be able to keep up.”

  And I bolted toward the henchmen.

  11

  Henry

  If this was another lesson, I didn’t want to fail. So even though I had no idea what Delilah was doing, I sprinted from the car, keeping my head low like she did. She’d show me what to do as long as I watched carefully.

  Victoria’s few neighbors all had houses hidden behind gigantic trees and pruned bushes. It meant no one was watching us as we ran—except for maybe the armed security guards that had spilled out of those sedans like they were clown cars. Delilah ran for the edge of those trees and I followed. When she crouched behind a large tree trunk, I almost slammed right into her, grasping the sides and digging my heels into the soft earth.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, not looking at me.

  “Yes but…” I caught my breath. “What are we doing?”

  “Reconnaissance.” She turned her head—her profile breathtaking in the moonlight that slipped between the branches: full lips, high cheekbones. I wanted to kick myself for saying what I did back in the car, but she’d pushed me to speak on the fly. As I’d stared into her wide blue eyes, the only word that had reverberated through my brain was beautiful.

  “I just want to get a closer look at who these guys are. They don’t look like typical security guards,” she said.

  I peeked around the edge of the tree. Two large men stood a hundred feet away—their hands were resting securely on the guns holstered at their waists. The sight of their weapons kicked my pulse up faster than when I’d been sprinting. Delilah’s arms came carefully to the small of her back. With practiced ease, she unsnapped a handgun from the waistband of her pants. It glinted in the moonlight as she lowered it to her side.

  I swallowed hard, attempting to ignore my body’s immediate response to her holding a gun. The women I’d dated in the past were all academics—bookworms like me, smart and analytical. Delilah Barrett could force me to my knees in an instant—quite literally. In the lingering moonlight, she looked gorgeous but fatal, like a Bond girl with a weapon.

  She leaned out farther, beckoning me to do the same. I placed a hand on the tree trunk, next to her head. My chest brushed lightly against her shoulder blades.

  “Maybe Victoria’s afraid,” I whispered. “Worried having the book makes her a target.”

  The guards’ radios crackled in the silence, and we both startled. One turned and I had a fleeting impression of big and scary before we slid fully behind the tree. Delilah spun around to face me. Both of my hands bracketed her head as we panted in unison.

  Delilah held one finger to her mouth: quiet.

  I shifted my feet and a twig snapped—the sound like a fucking firework in the hushed forest. Her eyes widened with annoyance.

  “Sorry,” I mouthed.

  She didn’t reply, but she flicked the safety off on her gun. I felt suspended in time, wished I knew what she was thinking. A strand of her hair brushed the back of my hand.

  A minute crawled by. Two. Then three. Hidden behind the tree, we could only stare at each other, forcing me to notice the spray of freckles across her nose, barely visible in the dark. The indentation in her full, lower lip. The proud arch of her eyebrows. I steeled my expression, aiming to keep it neutral.

  Her expression was entirely unreadable.

  One more minute of utter stillness. She tilted her head to the right.

  “Let’s go,” she whispered.

  We crept softly, carefully, beneath the trees, aware of the guards and any sudden movements. The car felt miles away. I watched our feet for twigs and piles of leaves, squinting in the darkness. Every step ached with heavy danger and the threat of being spotted. My muscles shook and sweat had my shirt sticking to my back.

  And if I hadn’t been staring that intently at the ground, I never would have noticed Delilah’s foot about to touch the wire.

  12

  Henry

  I caught Delilah around the waist and I pulled her hard into my chest one millisecond before her foot touched the wire. She let out a yelp in surprise before I covered her mouth with my palm.

  A shout came from the guards to our left. But we were surrounded by enormous, leafy trees on all sides. I prayed we weren’t visible.

  “I think that’s a tripwire,” I whispered, lips against her ear.

  I held her body steady as she peered down—felt her shock when she recognized it for what it was. We were balanced together, tilting back on the balls of our feet. Were there wires behind us? In front? I took rapid, shallow breaths, and beneath my arm, her body rippled with coiled strength.

  A series of branches crashed to our left. Flashlight beams crisscrossed like spider webs nearby.

  Delilah lowered her raised foot to the ground—gently. No sound. I let my palm drop from her mouth, but she was still pinned to me.

  “Gun,” she hissed, wiggling her elbows against my ribs. “Henry, I need my gun.”

  “Sorry,” I hissed back, for what felt like the hundredth time that night. I let her arms go, watched her grip the weapon with both hands—lowered at her side but ready.

  The beams of light were definitely getting closer.

  I yearned for the ability to read her mind, shoot a gun, do something other than continue to put us at risk. Every element of Delilah’s still, focused posture screamed hunter while I was bumbling around like prey.

  With incredible balance, she pivoted toward me, avoiding the wire.

  “On the count of three,” she whispered, “we run.”

  She held up one finger, and an explosion of sound came from Victoria’s house. Sound and a blinding light.

  Two. Her second finger went up.

  The guards were perilously close.

  She didn’t even get to three. We took off toward the car in a dead sprint, racing with arms pumping and legs flying over logs and leaves—and then jarring back onto the asphalt.

  I tasted fear in my mouth, like old copper pennies.

  But there was no denying the feeling concealed beneath the fear: exhilaration.

  I didn’t dare look behind me as we reached the car at the same time, throwing open the doors and jumping inside. Delilah started the car and peeled away, tires squealing, and it wasn’t until we were back on the main road before either one of us truly exhaled.

  “Please don’t ask me a Victoria question right now,” I managed.

  Her knuckles were white against the steering wheel, but the rest of her was oddly composed, as if already anticipating the next step of the investigation.

  “Who were those guys?” she muttered, dialing Freya. As the dial tone rang out, she chanced a whip-fast look at me before putting her eyes back on the road. “Henry, are you okay?”

  “I’m absolutely fine,” I said, somewhat amazed. “A little confused. Slightly shaken up. But I’m not hurt. Are you okay?”

  But before she could answer Freya cl
icked on. “What happened?” she asked.

  As Delilah relayed the details of the guards, I fixated on her check-in with Freya—the easy way they communicated. There was a comfort there I admired—they were friends, partners, coworkers—all of it blended together in a way I knew Delilah and I would never get to. At least not for this case.

  “Armed guards and trip wires,” Freya mused over the phone. “What is going on with our kooky heiress?”

  “It could be the Copernicus. It could be something else entirely. We could have stumbled into a hotbed of perfectly legal activity.” Delilah bit her lip—looking nervous for all of a second before she stopped herself.

  “Maybe the Thornhills could get her talking about it on Saturday,” I suggested.

  Delilah drummed her fingers on the wheel. “I like that idea.”

  I hid a smile behind my hand.

  “I’ll talk to Abe and we’ll debrief tomorrow,” Freya said. “Get home safe, okay?”

  “I’ll bring you more donuts tomorrow,” Delilah said.

  “And that is why I’ll love you forever.” Freya clicked off and I saw the happiness in Delilah’s face recede—only to be replaced with a stilted silence.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “Giving us away back there. Exposing us. I should have been more careful.” I had a feeling the sound of that breaking twig was going to haunt my dreams.

  Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t respond. Finally, I said in my best Victoria voice, “Where did you and Henry go on your first date, my darling?”

  She glared at me in disbelief and huffed out a frustrated breath. “Okay, fuck, you got me.”

  “I’m giving you a hard time,” I said. Outside the window, the city’s skyscrapers narrowed down to brick rowhomes on cobblestone streets. “Do you want to try again?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Hit me.”

  “Where did you go on your first date?”

  “The art museum. Then out for drinks. I knew right away he was my…” She stopped.

  “Your what?” I asked.

  “Never mind,” she stumbled. “Concise. No details. We went to the art museum and out for drinks.” She parallel parked in front of my brick rowhome with the dexterity of a native Philadelphian. “You’re sure you’re okay?” Her voice was soft.

  “Better than okay,” I promised. “I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.”

  I was halfway to my door when she rolled down her window. “Henry?”

  I turned back, crouched down at the car door so I could see her. “Did you forget something?”

  “Yes, I mean, kind of,” she said. “It’s just…thank you. For grabbing me before I stepped on the trip wire. You were paying attention and I wasn’t. You had good instincts tonight. And uh…” She glanced down at the steering wheel. “You know everyone does things like that in the field. We can’t control what happens to us out there. Twigs snap.”

  The surprise compliment dragged a smile across my face. “You were right, by the way.”

  “About what?”

  “You are a tough fucking teacher.”

  That comment earned me a real smile from Delilah—full lips and a dimple in one cheek. “And you’re a quick fucking study.”

  13

  Delilah

  It was late when I found Henry in his darkened office, surrounded by piles of open books and handwritten notes. I stood in the doorway for a long time before he realized I was there, so intently was he studying the words.

  It’d been three days since we’d staked out Victoria’s house. Our debut as a married couple was the next day.

  And in those three days, I’d almost managed to forget what it had felt like to be pinned against Henry’s hard body as my foot balanced over that tripwire. His hand over my mouth, his mouth at my ear, the threat, the adrenaline—it was a memory as erotic as it was romantic. Because Henry had protected me from danger, and I hadn’t experienced that in a long time. Watching him now—deep in thought, immersed in language—sent a spark of awareness glowing between my legs.

  “You should go home soon. Get some rest,” I said—quietly, so as not to startle him. The lamp on his desk cast the only light.

  “Delilah,” he said, turning to look at me. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

  “Following up on a couple leads Freya found.” I shrugged. “None of them panned out. For better or worse, Victoria is still our main target.”

  He leaned all the way back in his chair, rolling his neck. He’d shed his suit jacket and slipped off his tie, leaving his white shirt unbuttoned at the neck. “Come sit,” he said. “I’ll show you what I’m working on.”

  I did, keeping our chairs far apart. “What is that?” It looked like a series of faded mathematical equations and circular drawings.

  “This,” he said, “is Copernicus’s understanding of our solar system. This illustration is seminal in the scientific community because it was the first to posit the theory of a heliocentric universe. The sun in the middle, all the planets orbiting.”

  I watched his finger trace the orbiting circles—Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune.

  “The first edition of this book was printed using a handpress in 1543 in Nuremberg. It was extremely controversial. Ptolemy’s theory was the prevailing one, that the earth was the center. The Copernicus was so controversial it was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books and pulled from circulation.”

  “I usually know more about the person who stole the book than the book itself,” I confessed. “But I can see why this book would be desired by a private collector.”

  “And only twenty copies are in private hands, according to the last census. Victoria would be one of a very chosen few.”

  Henry’s fingers continued to trace the planetary orbits with precise accuracy; I was entranced by the circular motion. In the darkened office, there was a surreal intimacy, like we were the ones floating, not the planets.

  “This is what you did before you came to Codex? When you worked with Bernard?” I asked.

  The look on his face made me immediately regret mentioning that name. But he shook it off. “My job was to understand a rare manuscript at the deepest level—the texture of the pages, the smell, the way the spine curved or broke or fell apart. I’d catalog its owners, its journey from wherever it was discovered, buried in some attic somewhere. I mean…” He sat back, locked his eyes on mine. “This book that we’re chasing is 476 years old. It was individually handpressed by a printer in Nuremberg whose name we’ll never know. Touched, caressed, disdained, discarded—then cherished and applauded. All of that emotion exists within its pages, like a vibration.”

  I’d never thought of the book we recovered like that—they were objects to me, meant to be returned to their rightful home. The stolen books were items that balanced the scales of justice, but there was no emotion to them.

  “It’s good that Abe hired you,” I admitted. “Codex needed someone like you. You’re the right fit.”

  “I’m really happy to be here,” he replied.

  I rapped my knuckles against the tabletop.

  “We should practice again. For tomorrow,” I said.

  “Ah, yes. Our debut as the Thornhills. Holy matrimony.” He scooped up stray pages and paper and stacked them neatly, leaving the table clean. I admired his mouth—the full, smooth shape of it. Remembered it at my ear and the sensations it had evoked, low in my belly. Even with guards coming. Even with my own gun, cocked and ready—in so many ways, Henry could have had me.

  “I’ll be Victoria, okay?” I said.

  He leaned back in the chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him. The tip of his shoe brushed against mine. “Hit me,” he said.

  “How long did the two of you even date? I’m sure your families weren’t happy about the elopement.”

  “They weren’t,” he said. “Which is why we’re having a reception in a few months.”

  “How lovely,” I crooned.
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  “And Delilah and I have been together for five years. To be honest, I think we waited too long.”

  “What did she wear on your wedding day? She couldn’t possibly have found something respectable that quickly.”

  Henry peered down at our feet, a centimeter apart. I nudged him.

  “White dress from a thrift store. Red shoes.”

  “Nice detail,” I said, surprised. “Colorful but doesn’t sound too much like a lie.”

  “Plus, you like the color red. The real you,” he clarified. He tapped our shoes together again—my heels were scarlet.

  “You noticed that?” I asked.

  “Details are my job.”

  I crossed my legs, separating our feet.

  “Did she have a veil? Flowers?” I arranged my face in mock horror at the travesty of a wedding with no flowers.

  Henry’s eyes crinkled at the sides. “Yes,” he said. I could see him thinking. “She, uh…” He cleared his throat. “I found a small bouquet at a farmer’s market next to the library, and two of the librarians made a veil for her on the spot. I can still remember lifting the gauzy fabric and seeing her face. How gorgeous my almost-wife looked.”

  “Nice save,” I said. “You two live in Society Hill?”

  “Luxury rowhome. Working elevator. Three-car garage.”

  My brow lifted. “Fancy.”

  “My wife is very rich.” He smirked. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “And the cross streets?”

  Henry blanked. “Um…Spruce and…12th.”

  “You don’t know where your own home is, Mr. Thornhill?” I placed my chin in my hand.

  “Spruce and 12th,” he committed.

  “What’s the street address? I’ll send a driver.”

  “1234 Spruce Street.”

  I narrowed my eyes—but hid my smile behind my hand. “1234 Spruce Street?”

  “I don’t make the rules, Victoria. That’s my address.” His mouth curved up.

  “Don’t get cocky.”