“Thank goodness Ned is not at home.”
“Did you apprehend the fellow?” Daunt asked.
“No, milord. He went out the window right quick once he realized he was discovered, I’m sorry to say. He was gone before the rest of us arrived.”
“What matters,” Magdalene said, “is that no one was hurt.”
“Oh, but the intruder was,” the manservant replied. “Near as we can tell, that is. There was blood on the sill outside.”
Under his fingers, her shoulder radiated tension. “I’ll send an extra man or two to assist in guarding Plumwood until this is over.”
“Thank you, my lord. That is most welcome.” She clasped her hands before her. “Tell everyone at the house to be especially careful. No one’s life or safety is to be put at risk. I fear,” she said, “that we must expect other attempts.”
“Ma’am.”
“Beginning now, Gomes,” Daunt said, “everyone here is to be on alert for burglars or thieves. Believe nothing you are told except by myself or Mrs. Carter.”
Gomes’s lip curled. “I trust no one, milord.”
“Good man.”
When the servants departed, Magdalene returned to the shelves and took down a book. She stood without looking at the volume she held. “I should have anticipated this. I was too focused on Vaincourt.” She gestured in a motion meant to encompass the entire library. “I assumed, wrongly, that if indeed Mrs. Taylor is after the Dukes, she would concentrate her efforts here when, in fact, she made it perfectly clear she was interested in De Terris Fabulosis and that she wrongly believes Angus had it.”
“Why only the one volume?”
She scowled at the book in her hands. She opened it and fanned the pages. “Nothing.” With a deep sigh, she returned the book to the shelf and took out another. “I also wrongly assumed she knows the Bibliomania Club is searching for the Dukes, but I now believe she hoped I would tell her why the members scattered to the winds after your most recent meeting.”
“I’ll have the servants on the lookout for her. Tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll have them scour the guests for injured women.”
“Do you really think she attempted the break in herself? She might have hired someone.”
“Anything is possible.” Daunt smiled. “Half the women here shall be limping tomorrow.”
“They did not have the most graceful Lord Daunt as their partner.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was meant as one.” Her cheeks turned pink. She made a face at the book. “People ought to be honest and forthright. They should not tell lies. They should not pretend to befriend someone or imply they are in love when they are not.”
“You expect too much of our fellow men. And women.”
“She must think me a fool to believe even half of what she told me. The only reason I listened to her at all was my concern for you.”
“My supposed melancholy, you mean.”
“I suspect she was lying about everything except her interest in De Terris Fabulosis.”
“Likely.”
“I am obliged to consider that possibility.” She looked at him, eyes snapping with anger. Her fingers around the book turned white. Daunt took it from her. “If I didn’t believe she’d steal something else while she was there, I’d let her search Plumwood as much as she likes. Angus does not have De Terris Fabulosis or any other Duke.”
He curled a palm over the nape of her neck and pulled her close. “My dear. Whoever she is, whatever she intends, know this: Foolish people believe foolish things.”
“You only say that to make me feel better.”
“Yes, but it happens to be true.” Daunt did not move when she took a step closer and laid her forehead against his shoulder. More than anything, he wanted this to mean more than her need for comfort, but he did not entirely trust his ability to assess the wisdom of doing anything but holding her close.
After a few moments, she looked up with that fierce expression he knew so well. “There is only one way to end this, Daunt, and that is to find the Dukes.”
“Indeed.” He released her, and for a moment, she stayed where she was. Too near for him not to be perilously close to losing his head. He would not act rashly.
“Thank you for being kind to me, Daunt.”
“You deserve nothing else.”
“You as well.” She gazed at him, and had she been any other woman, he would have kissed her.
He set her back, and they returned to searching for the Dukes. An hour passed with no luck. From time to time, they exchanged idle conversation, but it was distracting for them both. In the main, they worked in silence.
Magdalene was now nearly three-quarters of a shelf ahead of him. She finished her fifth shelf and took out her pocket memorandum and made notes. “I have finished level one, shelves one, three, five, seven and nine. Nothing. You?”
“Level one, the evens through six, with eight partially done.” They weren’t making enough progress. Hands on his hips, he calculated the hours that going through the rest might take. It might as well have been a hundred years.
They worked in silence another hour, with neither of them saying a word. They logged their progress and examined books; turning pages was becoming a numbing experience.
Not long after the clock struck one, she stepped back from the shelves she was inspecting, stretched, and yawned. “Would it be too much trouble to ask for coffee? I brought a supply, if you haven’t any on hand. Tea will do, otherwise, but you’ll find me fast asleep on the floor without refreshment of some kind.”
He returned the book he’d just checked to the shelf and yawned too. “I sent Gomes to Badding to be sure we had coffee on hand for you.”
“Did you really?”
“I knew you would be here and that you prefer coffee. Having some to hand was the least I could do.” From the angle between them, he had a view of her sharp cheeks and her nose. She was not, by any measure, an attractive woman, and yet, there was such determination in her, such ferocity that he could only imagine what it would be like to kiss her, to take her to bed. “You shall be pleased to know I have everything on hand to make your coffee à la Turque. Exactly as you like it.”
“What a brilliant, brilliant man you are.”
“Make a note of that in your pocket memorandum.”
She took out her pencil and opened her memorandum. “Lord Daunt,” she said as she wrote, “is brilliant.”
“Twice over.”
“Twice over.”
He rang for a servant, and when he’d made the request, he said, “I’ll have Gomes make coffee a standing order until we’ve found the Dukes or run out of time.”
“Excellent idea.”
They went back to work, this time chatting about the books they’d found or discussing a title that deserved a closer look when there was time for such a digression. The coffee soon came with a tray of food both savory and sweet. They sat, and she rested her head on her folded arms. “You do the honors,” she said. “I’m too tired.”
He served them both, and after some coffee and a few bites of food, she returned to her more usual state of alertness. “Do you want the last bit of ham?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
“What about the cheddar?” He ate the ham.
“That was a good cheddar,” she said.
He walked to her side of the table with a portion of the cheese. He held it up to her mouth. “Here.”
She leaned over and ate it. He held her gaze longer than was absolutely necessary. Too quickly, she flipped a page or two before closing the book she held. She returned it to the shelf and selected another. Her fingers were long and slender. She still wore her wedding ring. “I owe you an apology,” she said.
“For what, pray tell?”
“For believing for even a moment that you and Mrs. Taylor were lovers. It was wrong of me.” She spoke quickly and to the books before her. “It’s just that she’s quite beautiful. I don
’t mean to pry. Forgive me, Daunt.”
“There is nothing to forgive. I have had lovers in the past, though not half as many as you are imagining right now.”
“Only a hundred, then?”
“There might have been a hundred and fifty.” He took a breath. “Magdalene. My dear. Allow me to answer the other question you are not asking me.” She lifted her eyes to him. “I am careful, always careful.”
“Angus said women adore you and that you adore them.”
“I do.” Magdalene always approached a subject head on. The tendency led to blunt conversations he so enjoyed having with her. Now, though, the subject was personal, and there was a good deal of risk in proceeding. But perhaps the bigger risk lay in taking no chance at all. “None of that means I am profligate or indiscreet or intemperate. I am none of those things.”
She opened a book so the pages would fan out. She had more to say, he could feel it. Softly, she said, “Do you have any children?”
Her question was a door left ajar that had been tightly closed until now. If he went through that opening, the personal intimacy he’d always wanted was within reach. His truthful answer might destroy all his hopes. He could lie. A lie would be easy. A lie would protect them both.
“I have a son,” he said. “He’s a year younger than Ned. He lives in Sussex with his mother. I acknowledged him from the start. There was no question of that. He’ll start public school soon.”
“Do you see him very often?”
“Several times a year.”
Her eyes stayed wide. “Do you love his mother?”
“I’ve never loved any of them,” he said. This was not the time, most assuredly not the time, to tell her he’d only ever been in love with her.
She replaced another book on the shelf, but left her hand on the spine. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Yes.”
A smile curved her mouth. “I’m glad to hear that. I should hate to think you’d never been in love. Tell me about her. What’s she like? Is she beautiful? The woman you love, I mean. Why haven’t you married her?”
“Where to start with all that?” He did not bother to check more books. “She is amusing and accomplished. Her intellectual gifts astound. She follows her own path through life. Her character is unassailable, but she does not care what anyone thinks about her varied interests. There’s no subject she is not interested to learn about and capable of mastering should she put her mind to it.”
“I think I would like her a great deal.”
“I’ve never met a more fascinating woman in all my life.”
“Have you known her long?”
“For many years.” He held her gaze. “Is she beautiful? I suspect I know what others would say, but I say she is.”
“Does she collect books?”
“She does. Our interests there intersect quite neatly.”
“I do not understand, Daunt.” She drew her eyebrows together. “You adore her, that’s plain. You are handsome, and generous, and amusing. I cannot imagine any woman not falling to your considerable charm. Why aren’t you married?”
He shrugged. “She loves someone else.”
“Oh.” She let out a soft breath. “I am sorry. What a foolish woman she must be.”
Chapter Seven
‡
It was just past eleven at night, though Daunt was rapidly losing track of night and day; they’d slept no more than five or six hours in the last twenty-four At present, he and Magdalene were seated at one of the library tables, finishing off the meal Gomes had brought. He breathed in the aroma of Magdalene’s Turkish coffee. They had found many of the books maliciously shelved, but none had been one of the fabled Dukes.
There had been no further attempted break-ins at Plumwood. Whether that was due to the potential injuries of the perpetrator or to the additional guards he’d sent was not entirely clear. There had been attempts detected at Vaincourt. Privately, he worried that this Mrs. Taylor—or someone else—may have located one or more of the Dukes before the books arrived at Vaincourt.
Magdalene, relentlessly cheerful and optimistic about their situation, took another sip of her coffee. “Which do you think we’ll find first?”
“Which do you most hope to find?”
She pursed her lips. “To find any of them would be thrilling, but to answer the question posed, De Scientia Naturae Rerum. What might we learn from past observers of the world? You?”
“All of them,” he replied. “However, I should like very much to read about the past understanding of how and why we feel as we do. Why did de’ Medici’s scholars believe we feel as we do? Why do we fall in love with one person and not another?”
“Ah. De Motibus Humanis, then. I agree, the subject is a fascinating one. Would you make one of the potions, and if you did, would you drink it yourself or give it to another?”
De Motibus Humanis reputedly contained recipes for the purpose of altering or affecting emotion. He did not believe for a moment that such a thing was possible, but it was amusing to speculate, particularly with Magdalene. “If we agree the recipes are efficacious, the moral answer is clear. One may not alter another’s emotions without the subject’s consent.”
She nodded slowly. “One must ask if there is a difference between administering a potion and flirtation or seduction.”
“The difference seems plain to me. Were I to flirt with you or attempt a seduction, you would be aware of that fact. Your ability to resist, or your desire to succumb, are not negated by my actions.”
“Would you not agree that some persons are expert in persuasion, while others are susceptible?”
“I would. A potion administered without consent leaves the recipient powerless, and therefore, that action is morally repugnant.” Daunt finished off his pudding. “What would you do? Assuming consent, potion or no potion?”
“If I were in a situation in which the emotions between myself and another were unequal when in the normal course they ought not be, such as with people bound by matrimony, I would seek to change my own feelings. Therefore, I would consume the potion.”
“In this scenario, are you the party more in love than the other? Or are you suggesting you would seek to move from love to hatred?”
“Marriage is a partnership.”
“Even in hatred?” Debate with Magdalene was always intellectually stimulating, and that had got wrapped up in the state of his heart where she was concerned.
She laughed. “No, but if I hated my husband, hypothetically speaking, I believe I would take the potion myself and transform my hatred to love.”
He shuddered. “To live a life of delusion? No, thank you.”
“Would it be delusion?” She tapped her fingers on the tabletop, one after the other. “After all, if the recipes found in De Motibus Humanis indeed effect a change in the consumer’s emotions, then it seems to me there is no delusion.”
“But why do you hate this husband of yours? Is he cruel or intemperate? Does he neglect you?”
“I do not know!” She threw up her hands. “He’s not a bibliophile.”
“Horrors,” he said with a smile. She returned the smile, and there were parts north very much affected.
“Indeed. The only thing worse than a husband who is not a bibliophile would be his infidelity.”
He let that sit between them a breath too long. “In such a case, you would agree to having love imposed upon you by artificial means?”
“The hypothetical before us is a marriage in which I actively hate my husband. What recourse would I, as his wife, have in such a situation? I would be almost entirely subject to his whims. Where I live, what funds are available to me, whether there is to be intimacy between us. I should think it would be a good deal simpler to be in love with one’s husband rather than all but powerless to escape him. Therefore, I might well prefer a potion that transforms my hate to love.” She put down her cup. “A horrible predicament, to be sure. For a woman, such an unequal situation is fun
damentally different than it is for a man. Women have few, if any, remedies.”
“I withdraw the hypothetical.”
“Too late. The point was to create a set of conditions with but two options—for me to live with a man whom I hate, or to have the opportunity to drink a potion that transforms hate to love. I submit to you that in such a case, I would consider drinking the potion. I had rather be in love than not.”
“Do you want to be in love again?” He held his breath while she considered her answer, for his future now hung in the balance. Better to know and find a way to move on if there was no hope for him.
“Well.” She clasped her hands before her. “I confess I am at a loss as to a proper answer. Hypothetically, yes.” Hypothetically. The weight of that response pressed on his heart. But what of you?” she asked. “You say you are in love with a woman who does not return the sentiment. Would you take a potion to cure your hopeless love?”
“No. I would not.”
“Why not?” She looked genuinely puzzled.
“Suppose,” he said slowly, “suppose I am in love with you.”
She met his gaze head on without the slightest indication that she realized she was the woman in question. “Very well. Suppose you are.”
“In the situation I have described, I cannot make you fall in love with me simply because I wish it.”
“True.”
“But from that it does not follow that I wish not to be in love. My love for you is justified. A potion that takes that from me must necessarily take away my ability to perceive all the aspects of you that are worthy of my love and regard. I submit to you that such a result would be a tragedy.”
Her smile faltered. “My greatest wish is that you find the love you deserve, for there cannot be a more gallant, steadfast man than you.”
“Thank you.”
“Nevertheless, I maintain that a potion would be a far simpler to the problem of unrequited love.” She picked up her coffee again. “Think of it. Rather than flatter and send flowers and rack our brains with ways to hint at our affections, we simply say, ‘I should like for us to be in love. If you agree, please drink this.’” She offered him her coffee. “Simple and straightforward.”
How to Find a Duke in Ten Days Page 27
