“Are you interested?” he said with a wicked smile.
She laughed, and he kissed her shoulder again. His mouth was warm, one hand tight around her waist and holding her close, the other sliding along her collarbone.
Daunt put his mouth by her ear and whispered in tones that melted her resistance, “My love, are you interested?”
“You cannot possibly expect me to answer that question when I am nothing but a mass of desire.”
Abruptly, he stood and hauled her to her feet. She stood, dazed, thoroughly kissed, thoroughly aroused. He swept her into his arms and carried her to a sofa near the fireplace and the harp. He laid her down, braced a knee on the sofa, and stripped off his coat. He stretched over her and kissed her again, hard and fast.
Yes, she thought. This. She wanted him to keep her from thinking. She knew she made everything more complicated than necessary, even this, when passion ought to be the least complicated thing in the world.
He drew back and stared down at her. She did nothing when he took a handful of her skirts and pulled up. “I wish you were naked, but this will do.” He put his hand on her knee, and she relaxed to give him the view he wanted. “Lovely,” he said. His attention moved to between her legs, hungry, she thought. He looked at her as if he meant to devour her. Another shiver of arousal slid through her. This would happen. He would. And she would allow him.
“You’ll have to withdraw,” she said.
He nodded once and put his hands on his trousers’ fastenings. He pushed her knee to one side, and she committed every moment to memory, the intense awareness of her body, the longing, the uneasiness of the unfamiliar. As he slid his hand upward, she closed her eyes—as if that would change anything. His movement was gentle and confident, but when he reached the apex of her thighs, a moan escaped her lips.
The intensity of her reactions increased, most especially between her legs. The tips of his fingers slid over her, then pressed in. She was wonderfully wet and aroused. He stroked once, then again, and then he lowered himself and pressed his mouth to the inside of her thigh.
She tried to say something, but she could not recall her own name, let alone his.
In a low voice, he said, “Do you want me to stop?”
She shook her head.
“Not enough,” he said in that same low voice. “I need an answer from you.”
“Do not stop.”
He pressed his mouth to her thigh again. “I want to make you shiver with delight. Shall I?”
“Please, yes.”
He kissed her between her legs. There. Right there, and she surrendered to the sensations of her body. She opened herself to him and the pleasure of his mouth on her, and then her body peaked, and she was lost to physical sensations she hadn’t felt in far too long.
She lay back, racked, out of her mind with pleasure and lust, and she rested a hand on his shoulder. “More,” she said. “More.”
He settled himself over her, adjusted her skirts again, and slid inside her, and the sensation of his cock inside her, stretching her, inside her, Daunt was inside her, and he felt so bloody wonderful—she felt wonderful. Her breath hitched, and she lifted her hips toward his, and my God, my God. To be physically close to someone again brought tears to her eyes. She was beside herself with lust, out of her mind with pleasure. Tears welled up, stopping her breath.
“Hold me,” she said when she had the words. “Don’t let me go.”
“Never,” he said. He’d only just made her come, and she was about to again. His hips moved against hers, and he propped his hands on the sofa on either side of her head while he moved inside her. A hard thrust that she answered. He slowed, locking gazes with her.
“Magdalene. God, Magdalene, this is paradise.” He drew a trembling breath. “I… I adore you. I adore you.”
Chapter Ten
‡
She was nowhere in the house. He’d confirmed that by his own observation from the windows of his room. He’d happened to be staring at the approaching dawn, berating himself for the way things had got out of hand in the music room.
It was happenstance that he’d been at the window when she walked out of the house. No servant walked with her, and if these were usual times, it would not matter. Plumwood was close. But there was a housebreaker lurking about.
He donned coat and hat, snatched an umbrella against the uncertain weather, and headed out. Plumwood wasn’t far, a walk straight north. Twenty minutes away at the least.
Except she did not continue to Plumwood. She turned east to the cemetery. He followed.
A thousand years ago, a church had flourished here, but it was long since fallen to ruin and scavenged for rock down to the foundations. The locals continued to bury their dead here, and that included Angus Carter.
In his head, he rehearsed the words he would say to her and the way he would say them. Gentle, reproving for coming out here alone and unaccompanied, kind because, after all, no one, not even Angus, had been able to make of her anything but a version of what she was.
The sky was now distinctly gray at the edges. Morning birds had begun to stir, and farther away, livestock commented on the coming dawn. There was dampness in the air, but he enjoyed the cold; he always had. From his window, he had formed the impression that she had a sturdy coat, and he’d seen the trailing end of a scarf, caught by a breeze before she captured and wrapped it more firmly around her neck.
He knew her location, but he would have found her in any event. He came over the slight rise at the northeast corner and saw her with her back to him, facing Angus’s grave. Daunt stayed where he was. Across the field, a man drove his sheep, while the sky turned pink, pale orange, and wisps of palest blue threaded through the gray.
How was it that this awkward, bloody genius of a woman, of no particular beauty, could seize his soul in her hands and bring him to tears? He loved her. Last night—this morning—he’d made love to her, and now he was terrified she would not want that again. How could he live if she did not want him the way he did her?
She faced him, and he did not say any of the words he’d rehearsed. She’d stripped away all the polish and boredom of his existence. He walked to Angus’s grave and stood there, head bowed.
A breeze fluttered her hair. He took off his hat. When he was capable, he said, “Angus wrote to me before he died.”
“I posted the letter.”
“Did you read it?”
She shook her head.
“He asked me to look after you.”
She smiled. “I know. He told me.” She drew her coat close.
“He said you would grieve too much.”
“There are not enough years in eternity for my grief.”
“I should have come to you sooner.”
She gave one last look at the headstone and said, “I’m glad you did not. You would have found me quite tiresome.”
“No.”
“Are we all right, Daunt? After what happened?”
“Of course.” He gave her his arm as they headed toward the cemetery gate. They weren’t, though. He did not see how they could possibly be all right.
Chapter Eleven
‡
The pit of Magdalene’s stomach hollowed out at the sight of empty library shelves and the mass of books that had been summarily tossed on the floor. Daunt stood beside her, silent while she took in the scene. Whoever had done this had stood on the second level and let books fall where they might, including all the way to the bottom floor.
She took several steps forward and bent over one of the piles. The damage was appalling. The spines of some of the books were broken, and books that had landed open and facedown on the pile had pages that were bent or torn.
She looked at Daunt, quite sure that she wore the same grim, ashen expression as he. “What sort of hell spawn treats books like this?”
“If I were to answer you, my language would be unfit for your ears and unworthy of a gentleman.”
“Do you know how this happened? Were t
here not servants on guard?”
“Gomes and another servant arrived to relieve the men stationed here. Both the servants outside the library were on the floor and insensate. They appear to have been drugged. When Gomes opened the door—it had been barricaded from the inside, but he is nothing if not resourceful—he interrupted our thief in the process of wreaking the destruction you see before us.”
She put a hand over her heart. “He captured the culprit?”
“Alas, no. He escaped that way.” He pointed to one of the windows. “But not before bashing Gomes on the head.”
She gaped at Daunt, but he was not as shocked as she that anyone would resort to violence because of a book. “Is Gomes all right? What about the other men on guard? What happened to them?”
“Gomes has a black eye and sore ribs. One of the men who was drugged has awakened and says he remembers nothing from the time he left the servants’ common room until the moment he awoke in bed. The other did not get off as easily. He received a brutal blow to the head. The surgeon says he’ll likely survive, but one never knows.”
“This is horrible, Daunt. Just horrible.”
“It is.” He gripped her shoulder, and she put her hand over his. “I’ve told Gomes to take the day off, but he has refused thus far. Since I know you will ask, the room was dark, and Gomes did not get a good look at our intruder. He did insist that he got in several blows of his own, and I can assure you that if Gomes landed a blow, the recipient feels it as we speak. Badly. Whether he took anything when he fled, we cannot know, but Gomes is certain he did not have a satchel or bag.”
Magdalene felt more than a little ill. She went closer to the decimated shelves. “It’s mostly the ones we haven’t done yet, isn’t it?” she said.
From behind her, Daunt said, “Yes.”
She kept her back to the damaged books, but it wasn’t any better not seeing. She knew they were there, broken and abused. Daunt rubbed his face several times, and she wondered how long he’d been up. She knew for certain he hadn’t slept any more than she. “One of the Dukes would fit in a coat pocket,” he said.
“If he found it, there’s naught we can do.”
“I ought to have posted more guards. We ought to have gone through the books like this.”
“What? Throw them around like this, do you mean?”
“We’d have been finished in half a day.”
She took his hand in hers and ignored the shiver of electricity between them. “It would have killed us both to do something like that, and well you know it. We are up against a true villain, a man who does not scruple to break the law or risk another man’s life, or”—she gestured—“this.”
“He is after the Dukes, after all.” His fingers tightened around hers, and he drew her closer, then pressed a finger of his other hand to the center of her forehead. “I recognize that look. What thoughts are whirling about in that brain of yours?”
“Our intruder must have seen the book he is after.”
“How so?”
Painful as it was to look, she gestured at the jumble of books covering the floor. “One man could not have examined every one of these books, not with the necessary care. He must know the condition of the book he is seeking, the size, the color, and the binding. We may therefore assume, my lord, that any Dukes that were once or still are in this library”—she held up a hand to stop him interrupting—“are not in their original condition. They have been re-bound, and he knows what they look like.”
“The question is, did he find them?”
“Gomes interrupted him. Therefore, he fled before his full task was complete.”
“Or he was interrupted just when he found it.”
“That is a possibility,” she said. “I presume you have someone on the trail of our housebreaker.”
“Of course,” he said.
“No true bibliophile would do this.”
He picked up a book that had been damaged by a much heavier one falling on it. Half of one page was missing. “A philistine. A barbarian.”
“One wonders whether we should continue to consider Mrs. Taylor a suspect,” Magdalene said. “She may well have come here because of a false conviction that De Terris Fabulosis is at Plumwood, but is she so devoid of humanity that she would do something like this? That was not my impression of her.”
“I do not know. No one but you has seen this Mrs. Taylor. We know nothing about her. We do not know if she has accomplices who did this, or if this is the work of someone else entirely.”
She brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. He went still, and she let go and stepped back, horrified that she’d taken such a liberty. She stared at the pile of books, at anything but him. When she had herself under control, she said, “I do not see that we have any choice but to proceed on the theory that he, or she, was not successful.”
Chapter Twelve
‡
They worked the rest of the day and all the following day with scarcely a break for meals. Both of them worked faster, going through book after book after book with relentless urgency. Ironically, their criminal intruder may have done them a favor. In the jumble of books, it was plain that some of them, being open, were not one of the fabled Dukes.
Daunt had never in his life been so on edge about any woman. He’d held her in his arms and brought her to completion, and he still had no idea if he had any chance with her at all. Today, after all that had happened between them, she was behaving exactly as she had the day before. Now was not the time for an interrogatory on the subject of the events in the music room. After all, she had not told him that night meant nothing to her. He’d waited all this time, he could wait a little longer.
At ten o’clock, well before Gomes was scheduled to bring their coffee, Daunt closed the last book. He turned to Magdalene.
She stood nearby, hands clasped under her chin, eyes wide. “This,” she said softly, “this is most disappointing.”
Quiet fell again, but he broke it. “Perhaps they were stolen before the wagons even arrived.”
“Always a possibility. If that’s so, there is naught we can do.” Magdalene turned in a slow circle, scanning the shelves and the stacks of books that had been tossed onto the floor.
“Magdalene?”
A deep crease appeared between her eyebrows. “You are certain one or more of the Dukes were in that shipment?”
“Not absolutely, no. But Verney once boasted he had one of the Dukes.”
“Did anyone believe him?”
“He was a madman by the end. No. But when the club members engaged to locate the Dukes… I should have known better than to pay attention to the drunken ravings of a man more unpleasant than my father.” After days and days of work, they had nothing. Worse than nothing. “I’ve failed him. Angus. Peebles, and everyone else too.”
“You haven’t, Daunt.”
“I could have helped one of the others, but no, I had to go haring off after Verney’s collection when I knew it was possible he never in his life saw one of the Dukes, let alone possessed one.”
Magdalene chewed on her bottom lip the way she always did when she was thinking. He doubted she was aware of the habit. He loved her earnestness and her utter dedication. He always had and always would, no matter what happened between them.
“What?” he asked.
She stared at the ceiling for a time, then, slowly, returned her attention to him. “When they brought out the books after they were delivered here, did they empty all the crates?”
“Yes. Of course they did.” His belief in her intellect was all that kept him from despair. “That was the whole bl—dashed problem.”
“You’re certain?” She held his gaze, and for that space of time, it was like old times, when he’d known his feelings would never be returned. Theirs was a friendship based on respect, admiration, and their connection with Angus, and he could never, never tell her the state of his heart. “You purchased these books in a single lot, correct?”
“S
everal combined as one.”
“We have been through all these books, and there is not even one Duke. Not re-bound. Not disguised as another book. Not hidden inside a larger one.” She held up a hand. “Bear with me. We cannot stop looking simply because it’s possible one or more of the Dukes were stolen from this room. Not when there is still time and not when we do not know it for a fact.”
“Agreed.” He sighed deeply. “I tell you, the thought of going through all those books to confirm we did not miss anything fills me with dread.”
“You are not alone in that reaction. Before we recommence that search, let us consider other possibilities.”
“What possibilities are those? That there are no Dukes and never were, that’s one. Verney never had any of them, that’s another. He did, and they have been stolen. Yet another.”
“Possibilities, yes. But let us consider the ones that make our continued search worthwhile.” His response to that was a nod. “Suppose,” she said, “the workmen who shelved the books were sloppy in following their unexpected instructions?”
“What is your point?”
“Suppose the Dukes remain in their original binding. Red velvet, not morocco leather.” She gestured at the shelves and the floor. “Not like these.”
“Are you suggesting the Dukes were removed from the shipment?”
“Another possibility, yes, but an unprofitable inquiry given our situation, as in that case there would be no point searching. I feel certain that the employees of W. Stanley & Co. would know better than to remove anything from a lot duly purchased.” She plucked a book from the shelf in front of her. “Morocco leather. A spine with gold lettering.” She took out another and held up both. “Aside from size, they are similar. They are instantly identifiable as books.”
“I cannot fathom where you are headed with this. Yes. They are books. I bought an entire shipment of them.”
“Think, Daunt! Apply your intellect to the problem at hand.”
“I’d rather we applied yours.”
How to Find a Duke in Ten Days Page 29