Poetic Justice, a Traditional Regency Romance (Regency Escapades)

by Alicia Rasley

  For a dangerous moment Jessica wondered if her best friend was right. Then she shook her head. Her first concern was ensuring that Alfred Wiley didn't succeed at whatever he might be planning to prove his outrageous claim. And Sir John was the only man who could help her with that.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Assist me some extemporal god of rime;

  for I am sure I shall turn sonneteer.

  Devise, wit; write, pen;

  for I am whole volumes in folio.

  Love's Labor Lost, I, ii

  Monday morning, John presented himself at Parham House and was shown into the drawing room where the ladies of the house were seated in silence. Lady Parham was sitting rigid on the couch, working away at an embroidery hoop, shaking her head at a missed stitch. Miss Seton was more casual, with her sandaled feet drawn up beside her and her light gold hair tied into a long braid down her back. A book lay open on her lap, but her abstracted expression indicated she wasn't reading a word.

  Instead, she must have been waiting for him, to judge by the way she put aside the book and jumped up to greet him. She was nervous, he could feel it. As she introduced him to her aunt, her slender body was tense, her gestures quick and restless, her smile a shade too bright. Even after she took her seat, she kept getting up, rising to take the tea tray from the maid, crossing to the window to open the drapes, going to the sideboard for a spoon.

  He knew better than to imagine that the mere presence of a morning caller could discompose her. She was no green girl, but a woman of some sophistication, at ease in the Devlyn ballroom and even outside in the dark with a man she hardly knew. No, it was fear of what this particular visitor signified, he thought, that made her so restless—that and some innate intensity, which her slight form seemed hardly able to confine.

  His gaze was drawn back to her, no matter how often he turned courteously to her aunt. Miss Seton was pretty, but more than that she was bright, in all the ways of the word. Her dark blue eyes sparkled whenever she was curious, and she was always that. And her face, so smooth and fair, was slightly flushed now. He imagined that if he touched her cheek, his fingers would gather a bit of that excited glow.

  This young lady affected no fashionable nonchalance. She found life an adventure, and didn't care who knew it.

  He had long since learned that enthusiasm was dangerous. But deep inside, he supposed, he still thought life was an adventure. Or he wouldn't be so quick to join hers.

  He watched her as she poured the tea, her slender capable hands never still as they moved from pot to cup to sugarbowl. She made plausible small talk, but he had enough secrets of his own to know when one was being concealed. And he knew she was concealing something now, had in fact been holding it back that evening on the terrace, however candid that expressive face made her appear.

  But was the play part of her secret?

  That the play Alavieri had lost was in the St. Germaine trunk, John had come to believe with the force of divine revelation. He realized that such a belief took him a long way from his accustomed position as a skeptic, and dangerously close to Alfred Wiley's brand of idolatry. But John, at least, had some basis for his supposition. The young émigrée Annette St. Germaine must have risked death to save this trunk from the fires of revolution. If it had merely contained her favorite gowns, she would never have bothered, and never have made a special bequest of it in her will.

  Alavieri had said proudly that only he recognized the hand of Shakespeare on the manuscript, that its purchaser was oblivious to its real value. That made some sense; most collectors, had they known of such a prize, would have announced it with great ballyhoo. But the Parhams, well, they weren't like most collectors. For near three generations now, this library had been closed to the public, withdrawn into obscurity by its reclusive owners and curators. For all anyone on the outside knew, the original scrolls of the Socratic Dialogues were stashed away in some flimsy wooden box, the victim of the Parham privacy.

  Of course, he remembered something else that Alavieri said, that he should never let his hope overrule his sense. But John didn't think he was doing that. He wanted the play to exist, of course, but more than that, his certainty was the logical response to a chain of events started two centuries earlier.

  But how much did this young heiress know? More than she revealed to John. She had not told him, for example, what he had just learned from a colleague at the Royal Society: that her inheritance was contingent upon her marriage. There was just one condition on the bequest, she had said airily, of little moment. But she had to have been dissembling. If marriage was of little moment to her, she would have married long since.

  She must have felt his scrutiny, for she faltered in explaining to her aunt his role as the Regent's art consultant. She glanced over to him, guilt lurking in those dark blue eyes, and hastily rose and went to the desk to get her aunt's spectacles, should Lady Parham want to inspect his card more closely.

  But the aunt waved the spectacles away, remarking crossly, "Do sit down, Jessica. You know your dashing about gives me palpitations. The Regent's art consultant, are you? Such a kind man. He sent the most affecting note of condolence when our sainted Trevor was taken at Waterloo."

  That explained Lady Parham's mourning dress, which posed a contrast to her niece's bright peach and cream gown. John wondered how the girl managed to stay so lively in such company, for Lady Parham's mood rather matched her lugubrious costume. Maybe that accounted for the restlessness. Miss Seton wanted to escape from all the reminders of death. So did John, after five more references to "our sainted Trevor" in the next quarter hour.

  The sainted Trevor must be the soldier with the sensitive mouth whose black-ribboned portrait hung above the mantel. John finished his tea and went over to give the painting a cursory glance. It wasn't painted from life, he surmised, but copied from a smaller portrait, for the minor details on the uniform were lacking, and the soulful expression was too obviously a post-sainthood embellishment.

  "From Sir Thomas Lawrence's studio?" he asked, earning, as he knew he would, the approval of Lady Parham.

  "Yes, it is, how clever of you to recognize his supervising hand. It was done from a miniature in my husband's study—that was all we had of Trevor. We had three of these done—one for Jessica, one for here, and one for our bedroom."

  That would make for cheerful bedtime viewing. As a work of art, John vastly preferred the mantel itself. He ran his hand along the sleek curve of an oak-carved scroll, and Jessica, coming up beside him, said, "There's another Adam mantel in the library reading room. Perhaps Uncle Emory will give me permission to show it to you."

  She said this loudly enough for her aunt to hear, and Lady Parham waved them distractedly away. "You go ask him, dear. He's in his study. I'll stay here with my sewing."

  Uncle Emory turned out to be a wiry man with sidewhiskers and not the slightest suggestion of the Seton intellect. He showed no particular knowledge about the library in his home, nodding his head when Jessica explained their request. "My father and brother—that was their passion. I'm a hunting man myself. You say there's an Adam mantel in the lobby there? Fancy that."

  An acquaintance with royalty was of more interest to him, and only after John promised several times to pass on his regards to the Regent, did Parham lead them downstairs and into the wing that held the collection.

  He opened the heavy oak door but paused there, calling out, "Mr. Wiley! Mr. Wiley!" adding in aside to John, "Alfred Wiley is the librarian here. Fine scholar. Expert on Bacon, he tells me. Sir Francis Bacon, that is. Oh, here he is."

  John noticed that Miss Seton edged back a bit, as if to make herself unobtrusive as Mr. Wiley emerged into the reading room. They were natural enemies, the librarian and his prospective employer, and she, at least, recognized it. Mr. Wiley, however, greeted them all with a slightly dotty geniality, as if he were a rustic king welcoming visitors to his domain.

  The Regent's name worked its magic here too. While Parham fled back to
his study (claiming that bookdust made him sneeze), and Jessica hung back polishing the display cases with her handkerchief, Mr. Wiley peppered him with questions about the prince's own library. "Has he any works of Bacon?"

  "A few letters, and the usual volumes. He might be looking to acquire more, as a matter of fact. I understand the Parham has quite a handsome selection of his personal papers. Would any be available for him to survey?"

  Mr. Wiley shot a glance at Jessica, who was standing straightbacked in front of the mantel, dusting it with the lace scrap of handkerchief, ostentatiously paying no mind to their conversation. Still, he lowered his voice. "The library is closed for now, in accordance with the late baron's will. In four weeks, however, I might be able to invite the Regent here to see what I have. In fact, perhaps we could arrange a bit of an opening celebration. Not, you understand, that I expect to sell my Bacon items."

  My Bacon items. Mr. Wiley seemed less than certain that young Jessica Seton would be inheriting the library come July 23. Arrogant shag, this Wiley was anyway, expecting the nation's monarch to come to him, trailing a royal celebration behind. But John played along. "I must warn you that the prince is unlikely to come here at all, without some indication that it will be worth his while. If all you can have is a couple official letters signed by Bacon's secretary, I don't think I should be able to persuade him to make a visit."

  The challenge worked. John had a glimpse of Miss Seton's startled face as Mr. Wiley, rigid with offense, led him back into the library's main room. "Just a couple official letters! Signed by a secretary!" Wiley muttered. "You'll see!"

  John saw at a glance that the library was designed in a U with the reading room surrounded on three sides by the functional areas. This main room had an open area near the door, and an upper level, a narrow mezzanine lined with bookcases and accessible by some hidden staircase. The lower level was scored with rows of shelves perpendicular to the back wall.

  And the shelves, he was glad to see, were filled with books. John set to calculating how many volumes there were: fourteen rows, say twenty feet long, three shelves along each row, subtract perhaps thirty percent for many of the volumes were, scandalously, tipped over to warp slowly into odd shapes: eight thousand volumes though, easily. And more were stacked on the floor between the rows, waiting to be re-shelved-—waiting patiently, to judge by the depth of dust on the covers.

  The only light came from six tall windows, distributed symmetrically along the back wall. It was so dim that John could not make out the titles on the back of even the closest books. But he saw several he thought might be incunabula, books from the earliest days of printing, in the last half of the fifteenth century. He wished he hadn't left his spyglass on the Coronale, for he was hopeful that gold-tooled volume in the corner had been bound by Samuel Mearne, Charles II's bookbinder, and the Regent had a standing order for any Mearne books that turned up.

  So much treasure in such disarray—it might have made John dizzy earlier in his career. But he'd seen monastic libraries in worse condition, including the Greek convent that hid the Jerusalem among piles of burlap sacks. Most of those libraries, however, were owned by impoverished and ignorant nuns and monks, who didn't realize what is was they possessed. This library was being neglected by a man who ought very well to know better.

  John let his anger flare up and go out. He needed no further motivation, and so it would prove only distracting to curse Mr. Wiley's slovenliness and Parham's criminal laxity. But he felt a resolve build in the back of his mind: Now he intended to do what before he had only pretended to consider. He would help Miss Seton get control of this library. Young and inexperienced and feminine as she was, she could not help but do a better job than the men who had it now.

  Besides, an inner voice said, she will have me as an advisor.

  He looked back to see Jessica slipping away into the stacks of shelves. Clever girl, to take advantage of the diversion this way. He was tempted to follow her, for she was probably off to check on the St. Germaine trunk. But he had to play through his role of the Regent's consultant, erudite and enterprising, and always on the lookout for books. He even managed to keep from flinching at the state of the adjacent restoration room—the basin full of rags soaked in old mineral oil and paint, the broken books stacked haphazardly on the floor, a cup of tea abandoned on a shelf of vellum scrolls, a window open to London's sooty air. But he couldn't resist closing the Caxton edition of Canterbury Tales on the windowsill and spiriting it away to a shelf while Wiley's back was turned.

  But the librarian showed no shame at the disorder around him, instead pointing to the set of cabinets that held his favorite pieces. Even hermits, John supposed, liked to show off their caves, and Wiley chattered like a debutante as he cleared a work table by pushing aside a dissembled copy of John Milton's pamphlet Areopagita. Then, reverently, he opened a cupboard, pulled out a page with a pair of tongs, and laid it on the table. His hands were unexpectedly graceful, delicate and quick as he blocked the sheet with a leather-covered steel frame. "Forgers have magician hands," Monsignor Alavieri once instructed John. "It's all sleight of hand."

  Finally, his elaborate preparations concluded, Mr. Wiley stepped back to let John examine the braced page. It was a ledger sheet, lined and cross-lined—Bacon's annual household accounts for 1612.

  Wiley's voice was hushed. "You can see that he was not a profligate man. Expenditure for candles, only £2 for an entire year. Yet that same year, he records spending £50 on books."

  This seemed little enough to marvel over, but at least it provided John with an opening. "He had quite a library, I expect. It is evident from the breadth of his writing that he was a well-read man."

  "Well-read?" Wiley's eyes were hazy behind his spectacles, but this brought out the fire in them. "Well-read? The man was the greatest thinker of his time! The soul of the age!"

  That ringing phrase rippled across John's nerves, and with its echo faded any lingering notion that Jessica had imagined Wiley's hypothesis. Soul of the age! John didn't react immediately, first taking a cotton glove from his pocket and pulling it over his right hand. "May I?"

  When Wiley nodded, John picked up the accounts page and tested the texture. It was the cheapest of paper, another example of Baconian thrift. Shakespeare, John thought with some defiance, would be as profligate with paper as he was with poetry. "Soul of the age, was he? No, no, I can't agree with that. That is how Ben Jonson eulogized Shakespeare."

  Wiley chuckled. It was an unnerving sound, like the squeak of an old metal gate in the wind. "Precisely so. Precisely so. That man Shakespeare—have you ever come across a volume from his library?"

  John shrugged and replaced the page on the table. "Books he owned? No. I've always been more interested in finding his manuscripts. I never have. Perhaps none exist."

  Wiley showed no reaction to this last leading comment. Probably he didn't know about the lost play; then again, perhaps he knew enough to hide such knowledge. "You haven't found any of his library, because he had no library!"

  "How do you know that?" So that he wouldn't appear more interested than he ought, John started to assemble the abused Milton pamphlet. He noticed the anomalous type on the third page, and with a bit of his mind realized that such an egregious mistake must indicate a pirated version—perhaps one using some stolen plates from the official printing in 1644. He made a mental note to check this sometime, and brought his awareness full back to Wiley's response.

  "I went through Warwickshire years ago, looking for books with his name on it. It's scarce two centuries since his death, but there wasn't any trace, not in any library in the county!" As if he had just proved the world flat after all, Mr. Wiley slapped his hand on the table, making the Bacon list jump in alarm.

  Carefully, John matched up the edges of the Milton pages, and resisted groaning at the inadequacy of Wiley's evidence. Instead, in a temperate tone, he said, "Well, perhaps he left his books to his daughter and son-in-law. It stands to reason. His son-i
n-law was an educated man, and they inherited most of the personal items, as I recall."

  "But there are no books! Even had he given them away, we would find them still, volumes with his name on it."

  John was so taken aback by the meagerness of this that he could hardly frame the obvious response. "Perhaps he didn't write his name in his books. I don't, when I buy a book. I just put my card in it, in case it might be mislaid."

  "It was the custom of the day to sign the frontispiece of a book," Wiley replied austerely. He stooped and opened a cupboard, pulling out a red-bound volume. Carefully he laid it on the table. "Go ahead. Open it."

  John set the Milton pamphlet down and with his gloved hand opened the cover of the book. It was an obscure scientific text, written in Latin.

  "See?" Wiley pointed at the flowing signature on the frontispiece. "Francis Bacon. A fine hand, he had. And—" He closed the book and replaced it in the cupboard. "A large library. Books were possessions of considerable value, and when one lent them out, one wanted to ensure they were returned."

  John focused his attention on the Milton pamphlet and reserved his comment that perhaps Shakespeare valued his books so highly that he didn't lend them out. And he balled up all the rest of his objections and hid them away in the back of his mind. He would get nowhere arguing with a man with an idée fixe. "That is true," he remarked when he'd gotten control of his voice. "So you found no volumes owned by the Bard? I suppose it made you wonder whether he kept a library at all."

  "It did. It did make me question just how well-read this man from Stratford really was." Wiley lovingly replaced the household accounts list in its oilcloth cover and replaced it in the cupboard. "As I said," he added, "Bacon had one of the great libraries of the day. I wrote a monograph on it for the Royal Society's journal. Perhaps you read it?"

  "I did indeed." John closed his eyes for a second and mentally sifted through several years' worth of tedious Society monographs. "You mentioned that he had a copy of Copernicus's De revolutionibus."