by Anne Mallory
Sometimes it seemed her lot in life to be left behind. She shook off the maudlin thought and squared her shoulders, grabbing the next stack of books.
She had worked up the gumption that morning to inquire about the viscount’s whereabouts and whether he remembered how to hold a pen, but after the butler’s stony reply, had determined to hold her tongue.
Besides, it wasn’t any of her business. Truly. She had been hired to catalog and sort his library, and that was what she was doing. She had had a lovely moment of pretending to be someone she was not. A singular memory, nothing more.
Hot hands and whispered words.
She chose to remember the fantasy and forget the awkwardness at the end and after. It served no good to spend time dwelling on the negative thoughts. Enjoy life now. She refused to part with the mantra that had seen her through the second year without her family. The first year had been horrific. For how did one enjoy anything when loved ones were forever lost?
She buried herself in her correspondence instead, and slowly but surely the notes from Eleutherios lengthened and started to come every day—one day even three appeared. Some hired courier was wearing down the soles of his boots running all about London.
Dear Mistress Chase,
I apologize for my lapse in responding to your delightful notes with naught but a few words.
Dear Mistress Chase,
I am working on a project where the fruit is just starting to bloom. Too tender yet to say when I will be able to have anything to show or in what manner it might be plucked. As to the type of project you reference, rumors often swirl in smoke.
Dear Mistress Chase,
It is with great reverence and respect that I received your latest correspondence.
Dear Mistress Chase,
Your notes make me feel alive.
That last missive had made her heart beat a little too quickly. Made her think of the viscount, the scent of jasmine and lilies drifting through her thoughts.
Interspersed were also notes from Mr. Pitts, finally, who had been oddly reticent in his responses at first, but had once more picked up steam, especially once she had begun to wax poetic about Eleutherios again.
But still the viscount didn’t return. The only evidence of his acknowledgment came in the unopened boxes she began to stack in the corner of the library. She had opened her box of secrets already. She’d decide whether to open another when next she saw him.
The following day she tried to gain entrance to the kitchens again and was turned away.
The next day she tried again.
On the third day, they grudgingly let her in.
She sat at the back table of the bookshop, fingering the cuff of an older calico. It had been a week. She was starting to feel more than a little odd about the whole matter. Had she done something so wrong? Or was this just the life of the Quality and their whims?
Georgette reached into her bag. “Come, I saved the paper. No stop at the teashop today.”
The daily scandal sheets had been full of speculation. It had been an odd week of gossip and news. A waiting period, some grand lull. The viscount’s family had been unusually silent and well behaved. The gossips were starting to show signs of clawed-finger starvation.
She kept her own itchy fingers still.
Georgette withdrew her hand and smoothed the paper upon the table. “Let’s see what the bard has for us today.” She skimmed the column. “Talk, talk, talk, of the Hannings’ masked ball tomorrow. Can you imagine?” Georgette gave a dreamy sigh. “You could show up as the princess. It would be grand.”
Miranda had to agree that the ball sounded magnificent, even apart from Georgette’s mad imaginings about her attendance. The Hannings held the best-reviewed masked ball each year. And each year it seemed to become slightly more salacious. But even the starchiest of matrons still attended because everyone who was anyone did. It was a night when odd things could sometimes happen—or at least that was what the gossip columns always claimed.
“And what is this? A shadowy agreement again took place with Lady W.’s suitors and both have mysteriously taken leave. Is there something new in the air? When will the marquess and marchioness return to our stage?” Georgette raised her brow. “Did you see or hear anything at Vauxhall? Other than your discovery of just how delicious the viscount is in truth?”
Miranda shook her head, a lingering loyalty toward the man staying her tongue with regard to what she had overheard—a kernel of something that would be gossip-worthy. “He would hardly confide in me,” she said with all honesty. He hadn’t confided in her, after all.
Georgette looked disappointed.
Miranda saw the line before her friend and tried to hide it. Georgette pushed her finger to the side.
“Oh!” She crowed. “The lovely princess hasn’t been seen since that moonlit night in the gardens. A figment in the minds of the attendees? One hopes she will return for all of us who lie in wait for a glimpse.”
Miranda’s face flamed.
Georgette looked satisfied. “And that expression right there, that heat, is exactly why you should come with me to the Mortons’ tomorrow. Goodness, it is why you should keep returning to the viscount’s dreary library, no matter how many times he doesn’t appear.”
Miranda snorted.
“You know, dear, one absent day—or five—does not make everything else in the past go up in smoke.” Georgette tapped a digit.
On any other topic, Miranda might agree. But when it came to the emotional weight of a viscount, especially of this man, she just couldn’t grasp it.
She was glad that she hadn’t told Georgette about the boxes. Georgette would have had them opened and the contents released into the world faster than she could have uttered the name “Pandora.”
Georgette shook her finger. “He’s gorgeous. And wealthy. And those eyes. Seek him out and capitalize. Go to his country estate, if you have to.”
“Are you listening to yourself? You want me to stalk a viscount? You will be bringing the paper to me in Newgate.”
“Not if you use whatever wiles on him you have been employing.” She waved her hands around in a blustery manner. “Mrs. Q., Miranda, Mrs. Q.”
But that was Georgette’s desire, not hers. And she wasn’t going to chase the man around England. She had had a lovely time at Vauxhall—at least right up there until the end—and that was that. She had a splendid memory and couldn’t really ask for more. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a part of her that didn’t wish to repeat the experience in the darkness of night.
She’d never felt so alive. How terrible was that?
Georgette frowned at her. “You are pining. I can’t believe it. Why you couldn’t have started with a smaller version of a rake—a Mr. Hanning or Thomas Briggs—and left the prime cut to me to carve is appalling; nevertheless, there it is, and now you are pining.”
“I’m not pining.”
“You are pining. It is quite sad.”
Miranda shook a finger at her. “I’m making a stalwart attempt at thinking positive thoughts, and you are ruining it.”
“I would take those thoughts and carve him into tea cakes.”
“Would you like me to introduce you fully should he ever return?” A violent itch made her scratch the underside of her arm at the thought.
“Kind of you. But for all my talk, your Lord Downing wouldn’t look twice at me even if I were lying naked across the works of Shakespeare, handwritten by the bard himself.”
“He has those,” Miranda muttered, rubbing her arm.
“What?”
“Nothing. Besides, I doubt that is true.” Men didn’t spare a second look at Miranda when Georgette was in a room.
“Like when he came into this shop expressly to see you and spared not a glance for me? Mmmhmm.”
“He was busy at the time. Getting his books.”
“No. Uninterested. Believe me, I know the difference.” Georgette looked down her nose.
“He wa
s simply a trifle bored, I think. And perhaps a bit mad.”
“And he’s a wretched rake, and you are far too good for the likes of him.” Georgette nodded decisively, her attitude switching as it did when someone she loved was threatened. “So forget him, grab your skirts, and use these fabulous new lusty thoughts I see brimming in your eyes and start attending functions with me. Dust off those flirtatious quips that I know you have roaming your dusty skull.”
Miranda didn’t immediately say no, which seemed to appease Georgette. “Good. We will go to the Mortons’ dinner party tomorrow and find some manly treats.”
Miranda picked up a copy of The Tempest from the floor of the library the next day. Adequate imagery for the mess around her, which seemed to grow each night after she left. The servants always brought in new crates that made her nearly have to start anew. If she still had thoughts that the viscount was trying to keep her there for some nefarious purpose, then she’d have mounting evidence.
But a nefarious purpose required his presence.
She tapped the book against her leg, then settled on starting a new section for Shakespeare. The viscount was obsessed with the bard. There were three and four versions for each title—some even had five with the translations or various printings—and she hadn’t made but a scratch in the surface of the library, so she could only assume she’d double or triple their number. He seemed to especially love the darkest tragedies and the lightest comedies—the ones where the hero went to ruin or everything revolved around farcical situations with ever-changing identities.
He would get along well with Mr. Pitts. The man seemed to find dark humor in most things. She imagined him as a crotchety older gentleman with little tolerance and a rapier wit. Much different from Eleutherios, who had an almost Byronic bent and whom she pictured with wavy brown hair and emotive eyes. They tested her differently in their correspondence. And though Mr. Pitts drove her to distraction, she was willing to admit that she enjoyed writing to him more than she’d enjoyed corresponding with any other.
She’d never be able to live with the man, however.
She had sent him a quick note the day before telling him of the most recent gift from Eleutherios—eternally trying to prove to the man that his enemy was not evil—and that she was planning to accompany Georgette to the Mortons’ for a dinner party and some lively company. Let him read into it as he would. She had never told him exactly whose library she was cataloging, but she had mentioned the owner a few too many times for it to have gone unnoticed that he had interested her. She was looking forward to whatever crusty piece of advice or warning she received.
He had been increasingly nasty about Eleutherios.
And Eleutherios…he was almost too good to be. Everything that she had hoped for and read in his writings. Words penned like those of the finest sonnets. He was frankly intimidating in a way that she hadn’t realized when she’d simply thought of him in the abstract.
She picked up the stack she had sorted earlier, a number of more licentious tomes ready for preliminary placement on the correct shelf. A brittle copy of an explicit, licentious manual sat on top. She sent a furtive glance around the blissfully empty room, relieved to be alone for once. The servants had been increasingly friendly. She’d even received an invitation to attend one of their social gatherings.
It spoke to the relationship—or lack thereof—with the viscount. The only remaining ties were the presents (sans notes—she had checked the tops of the first few, then realized she could simply shake the parcels to determine whether the contents contained an envelope) and the continuing use of his carriage for her ride home—something Jeffries said the viscount insisted upon.
The daily ride made her increasingly comfortable in a conveyance. The only barrier to leaving the country that would soon remain would be her own reluctance to grab what she wanted and not torment herself about the consequences.
She carefully opened the cover of the book, taking care not to damage the binding or pages in any way. She randomly turned a number of pages. An illustration of two figures joined in a logic-defying way cavorted on the page, indecipherable text beneath. There was a more descriptive edge to the pictures here versus in the medieval illumination buried in her unmentionables.
But the expression on the face of the woman was perfunctory. As if she were demonstrating the movement and not reveling in it. No feelings emanated from the page like the ones she had felt at Vauxhall. The pure, exhilarated fear of a carriage careening out of control. The beauty of a thousand lamps lit at the same time. The explosion of the fireworks echoing the trembling in her limbs.
Georgette was right. And even surly Mr. Pitts, who had been more vocal, if less kind, about it. She needed to experience more of the wilder side of life and not let it pass her by, secure in her carved-out corner of the world.
She nodded. She would go on more outings to the park and to more dinners with merchants’ sons. To the Mortons’. Use her fledgling ability to flirt. Harmless flirting—she wasn’t quite ready for anything more.
Unless it was with the man who had been missing for the past week…She shoved the thought from her head.
Light flirting. She nodded. A time-honored, precourtship tradition. She did have a reputation to maintain after all. Though she could hear Georgette’s voice in her head.
“Pish. Those starchy bourgeois women who think they run the middle class…Think of Mrs. Penny-weather. Once a mistress to three earls simultaneously and invited everywhere. And right now, the papers think you are a princess. If it comes out, you will be notorious, your name on everyone’s lips, the good and the bad, but on their lips all the same. You will be in demand, darling.”
She shook her head. That was Georgette’s dream, not hers. But she could put herself about a bit more. Feel that spark renewed.
It had been glorious.
It had also never occurred with anyone else. But maybe that was because she’d just needed the spark lit. She turned the page, another illustration illuminating the next side, the couple demonstrating yet another pose. The woman’s head was flung back, but fixed.
She wanted to experience it again. The wild cavorting that couldn’t be captured on paper. His breath shivering over her skin. His hands pulling the ice from her bones, filling her with fire instead. His eyes dark and shining in the moonlight, something written there that she couldn’t yet translate. The sound of her name falling huskily from perfect lips.
“I would dearly love to see which page has you so engrossed, Miranda.”
The warm, whispered words hit the back of her neck and she jolted. The book dropped from her fingers. She scrambled to catch it, dark hair and onyx eyes swimming in her vision as he reached around her and captured it. Her fingers hit a solid, warm hand—perfectly bare once again. She wrenched away, knocking the book from his hand, and lost her balance.
Solid, warm arms encircled her. The thrill ignited as if it had never dimmed.
Chapter 13
Dear Mr. Pitts,
It is difficult to choose between the thrill in one’s beating heart and the caution born of sound mind. How does one determine a path between?
From the pen of Miranda Chase
His hands clasped around her waist, feeling as if they belonged there the same way they had at Vauxhall.
The last week had been dreadful. Becoming involved in family drama long wished forgotten, pushing against Miranda’s pull, drowning in the madness of the entire scheme. Hating himself for what he had done. What he would do.
And then he’d been unable to ignore it any longer. The pull toward her.
He felt her slight shiver and smiled into her hair, the fresh vanilla scent washing over him. Real and solid. Someone he could return to at the end of a trying day. A trying week.
His hands clutched more fiercely against her waist, and then skimmed down. He toed the book, flipping it open in front of her on the floor, a rather detailed depiction of a man taking a woman from behind visible on the page. He co
uld feel the color rise to her cheeks.
“Interesting. Miss Chase, what have you been up to in my absence?”
“Nothing,” she squeaked.
“Nothing?”
“Just organizing,” she said quickly, trying to escape. But not forcefully enough for him to release her. He smiled against the soft strands at the top of her hair.
“I regret that I haven’t been around for your organizing sooner.” He toed the book again, putting it prominently in her view, and moved his hands to her hips in the exact position that the man on the page held.
“Your lordship,” she whispered on a breath. “What are you doing?”
“You have cleared quite a path through this room. If only to get to the tomes you are more interested in, hmmm?”
He’d argued with himself, hunched over his desk days after Vauxhall. Then he’d thrown in his cards and decided if he was going to do the thing, he might as well do it with all of his chips in the pot. It was all written there in front of him that as long as he continued his path, he would get what he desired.
And his desire was not going to change, no matter what the suppressed voice at the back of his mind whispered.
Of a much higher price he’d have to pay.
He let her wiggle free.
She smoothed her dress along her hips. “You have many interesting books.”
“Some more than others.” He smiled lazily and was pleased with the reaction on her face.
She bent and scooped the fallen book, cheeks rosy as she quickly closed the cover and set it upon the shelf nearest her. She paused a moment, then her chin came up, and her expression smoothed into pleasant lines, the heat hidden beneath a carefully constructed barrier. “I trust that you have had a pleasant week?”