Poetic Justice, a Traditional Regency Romance (Regency Escapades)

by Alicia Rasley

  "No, I couldn't find it. What a mess that office is! But I found this." She pulled out the page and opened it for him to see, but didn't let go when he reached out for it.

  He made a low, exasperated sound deep in his throat, something rather like a growl. "I shan't keep it, I promise."

  Reluctantly she released it, and he spread it out against the uncomplaining baroness's bosom. Framed by his square, hard hands, the signature looked spindly, like an elderly man bowed down by his sins. "By me, William Shakespeare": The "W" in William began with a long wavering diagonal stroke, and the last letters in Shakespeare trailed off into illegibility.

  "Not a bad forgery," Sir John pronounced at length. "He's got that bow on the 'h' dragging below the line, as Shakespeare always did, but the 'y' doesn't trail far enough. The ink and the paper are modern, of course, so there's no chance he'd be able to fool anyone. I don't think that's his aim, anyway. He's just rehearsing, I think. But he's got a good hand, does Wiley. Now," he concluded, folding the page back up and handing it back to her, "how do you intend to replace that in his office?"

  "I got it out of the rubbish, I'll have you know. He'll never miss it."

  He acknowledged her resourcefulness with a quick grin, and, encouraged, she added, "Perhaps I should go through all the rubbish thrown out from the library. If I can only get to it before it's merged with the rest of the house's trash, I can surely find an entire early draft of his monograph."

  "You must be joking. Going through the rubbish? No, no," he said, "we have more important things to do. We must search the library for that index of the—

  "Of the contents of the St. Germaine trunk. Yes, I heard you the first time you said that, Sir John. And it makes no better sense now. Even if there is an index, and I don't concede there is, what good will it do us? It won't prove Mr. Wiley a scoundrel or a lunatic, or turn my uncle's head, or win me back my collection. What good will finding it do?"

  "It might serve as protection. If we have the index, we know what the trunk contains."

  When he didn't continue, she exclaimed, "What? Do you think Wiley means to do some harm? Tell me!"

  "I don't know," he finally answered. "He told me that in a month or so he will have what he needs to prove his case. A month or so, what happens then?"

  He knew of course, but she sighed and repeated the schedule that felt emblazoned on her brain. "My birthday is in a month. The collection will be turned over to the legatee." She wished she could say "to me" with a real conviction, but she thought it might be tempting fate. "And the vault will be opened. And the trunk unsealed."

  "If the evidence he is anticipating were in the extant collection, he would have already claimed it. So he must know—or believe—that the evidence is still hidden away." He walked slowly to the next picture, a sweet-faced man in a gold-edged ruff and velvet doublet. "Perhaps, when he advised your father to seal the trunk for a mere quarter-century, he got some clue as to what might be in it."

  "But my father didn't know! Oh, he had his speculations, but he didn't know."

  "I suspect your father's speculations might be credible, based as they were on close evaluation of St. Germaine's collecting practices. And it could be, you know, that he took a look at that index, after your mother's death."

  His insistence on speaking of the index as if it were an established fact almost persuaded her. Her mother was a list-making sort; she used to keep track of books she read and plays she attended. It would have been in character to keep a list of the books she had smuggled out of France. "It will take us weeks to search the whole library. And we haven't got weeks, at least not weeks without Wiley. He's surely going to get suspicious about our coming in together every afternoon."

  "Oh, I think I scotched any suggestion that I appreciated your presence. I took advantage of your scarpering off that way to tell him we'd had an argument."

  She couldn't help but admire his resourcefulness in using whatever opportunity presented itself. "What did we argue about?"

  "That Milton pamphlet. I said you had insisted it was the official edition, and that I had shown you the anomalous type on one page and proved you wrong. You did not admit defeat—I take it you seldom do—but only flounced out in high dudgeon."

  "I never flounce, in high dudgeon or otherwise," she said witheringly, then added, "What did he say?"

  "Oh, he was torn between congratulations for putting you in your place and defense of the collection's inviolability to fraud. But he was clearly pleased to think that no accord exists between us."

  "So we'd best not re-engage his suspicions by returning to the library together?" Jessica knew a moment's disappointment at the prospect. Sir John gave her hope, that was what it was. She didn't want to risk despair without her constant exposure to his cool objective optimism.

  "Not during the day, certainly."

  Without explaining this cryptic remark, he crossed to another painting—a Hoppner portrait of her father. It didn't look very like him, Jessica thought, coming over to touch the little brass plate that identified the subject. Her father had always been shy around strangers, but during the portrait sittings he had covered that up with a righteous glower more appropriate to his brother Emory.

  "Is there a picture of your mother?"

  "No. She would never sit for one. She didn't care for representational art. No one in the family really did."

  "So I see," Sir John said ironically, and she laughed.

  "Oh, I know, it's a most indifferent collection of paintings, don't you think? It's because we care only about books." She glanced up at him, knowing that he collected art as well as books, and wondering if she could explain her family's bias. "Books are beautiful, but not consciously so. They are books, first of all, you know. Something useful. The beauty is extra, added by the artisans who were supposed to just be recording words on paper, and not making art. Somehow that makes it more precious than paintings which are deliberately, and only, art." She stole another glance at him, but only saw herself reflected in his silver eyes. "Do you understand what I mean? Don't you think that, withal, the book is the most lovely thing invented by man?"

  He smiled, and she saw the warmth even in those cool eyes. "Oh, you should see my sloop full-sail on a breezy afternoon. Then you will see the loveliest thing invented by man. But books—they come close. Their beauty is not a raison d'etre, but a result of our need for them."

  There was a moment of that perfect amity that Jessica, with a bit of her consciousness, knew Mr. Wiley should not witness. Instinctively she glanced up and down the gallery, to make sure all the doors were still closed.

  And John, too, must have thought it best to break the connection. "We will have to break into the library at night."

  This, at least, had the effect of diverting her from whatever connection had flickered between them. "Break in? You mean—" For a moment, she was too taken aback to speak. Finally she whispered, "You mean, fiddle the lock on the door."

  "I would prefer the window," he replied with commendable aplomb. "If we used the door, they would know it was an inside job. And I noticed a likely looking elm tree, just outside the window."

  She breathed, "How perfect! How exciting! Oh, let's do! Tonight!"

  When he grinned at her, she saw that the elegant art consultant had been replaced by that pirate Ada had dreamed up. Jessica felt her mouth curve in an answering smile, and wondered if the upperclass heiress had vanished into an—oh, an adventuress, something daring and wild and indiscreet.

  So it was somewhat deflating to hear his dismissal, though his excuse was impeccable. "Not tonight. The Regent has returned from Brighton for the weekend, and I'm to dine with him. Tomorrow night."

  Reluctantly she replied, "We're going to Surrey tomorrow."

  For a moment he looked dismayed, then, evenly, he asked, "Do you mean to spend the summer in the country then?"

  "The summer? Oh, heavens, no!" She saw the relief flash in his eyes, and wished she knew how to interpret it. He did
n't want to lose his accomplice, probably. "My aunt is probably the only person in the kingdom who finds London air salubrious in the summer. Hay gives her sneezing fits, you see. We're just going down for the Waterloo anniversary, and will be back Monday."

  "I suppose I shall have to do it myself then." Dismay spread through her, but he continued, "You can help me narrow down the search considerably though. Tell me, where might your mother have hidden the index? Had she any favorite authors, volumes?"

  Jessica brushed angrily at her skirt, having just noticed its deplorable dusty state, and recalled her resolve to keep this maverick in line. Craftily she said, "I suppose if I put my mind to it, I could remember something like that."

  He was annoyed, she could tell from the set of his jaw. But he said very politely, "Will you put your mind to it, then?"

  "I might...if you wait till I return to do the burglary."

  "It's not a burglary," he said crossly. "It's only an unauthorized visit."

  "You will wait for me, then?"

  "I will be wasting my time otherwise, I suppose. If I wait, then, you will tell me where your mother is likely to have secreted the index?"

  She didn't let her exultation show on her face. "Well, I do have another condition."

  He turned away from her, towards the door. But he didn't walk away. "What is this preoccupation you have with making conditions?"

  "I don't like anyone having the advantage of me. Especially," she added, "if he is hiding something of import to me."

  "What do you think I'm hiding?"

  She paused to put her thoughts into a coherent sentence. "You are hiding your interest in the St. Germaine trunk."

  "Not very well, apparently." Resignedly, he faced her. "What do you want to know?"

  "What you think is in there. Why you are afraid that Wiley will get it."

  He moved restlessly to the narrow window and looked out at Berkeley Square. Indecision played across that exotic face, replaced at last by resignation. He had, she thought with relief, decided to trust her. "I have a colleague, who many years ago, got his hands on a prize. Something we would all have searched for, were we ill-judged enough to believe in it. My colleague, once he saw it, believed. But he hadn't the funds to purchase it, and it went instead to a French collector. Recently, my colleague taunted me with a poor substitute for this prize, and told me the one he had held in his hands was destroyed in the French Revolution. That is what he presumed, anyway."

  "But you don't. You believe the French collector was my grandfather."

  "The collector of oddities."

  "How odd was this prize?"

  When he answered, his voice was hushed, almost a whisper, as if the words might echo off the high ceiling and alert the world to his suspicions. "It was an autograph copy. A handwritten playscript. Several actors would have been involved in its writing. The Lord Admiral's Men, I think."

  Lord Admiral? "Shakespeare was in that company, wasn't he? But surely you're not thinking that—"

  John said flatly, "I've never known this man to be wrong when he makes a judgment. And your grandfather must have seen it too."

  "That's why you were so interested in the signature." She couldn't take it all in just yet, that her mother might have hidden a script of Shakespeare from the world, from her husband, from her daughter. "But what is this play?"

  "I don't know. Not one of the ones we know. My colleague said only that it had something to do with a riot."

  "A lost play. My father must have suspected it. And yet—"

  "I know. It's astonishing that he didn't break open that trunk. I would have."

  She caught a glimpse of the hard light in his eyes and knew it was so. She also knew, if she weren't very careful, this man might break into the vault as casually as he suggested breaking into the library. Could he be as dangerous as he looked just that moment? Yes, she answered silently. But, for the moment, at least, his dangerousness was in her service. To remind him of that, she asked, "Do you think Mr. Wiley knows about it also?"

  "He must think something in that trunk will help his case."

  "But it won't!" Jessica shook her head in confusion. "If it's in Shakespeare's hand, it will prove him wrong!"

  "He must think it is in Bacon's hand."

  "And when he finds out it isn't—"

  Jessica couldn't go on, so John finished it for her. In a hard voice, he said, "He will very likely destroy it. The only literary work in Shakespeare's hand."

  Her head was too dizzy to ask the questions she had—how long he had known, how much of their acquaintance he had planned, whether he would have told her if she hadn't forced him. She could only lean back against the wall, her tumbled hair brushing her father's picture, and whisper, "Maman concealed a lost play."

  Sir John waited quietly, leaning against the window frame, the sunlight outlining his slim form. She stared down until his shadow crept across several planks of the bleached oak floor. Then she took a deep breath and gathered tattered reserves. "What do you think we should do?"

  He straightened and turned to study her. Quietly he said, "Tuesday night, we will do the job. You might make a list of possible hiding places. I will send you a note with the other details."

  She nodded and bent to pick up the reticule she had let drop to the floor. Then she started towards the door. John stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Will you be well enough alone?"

  His gentle tone almost undid her. Alone. She supposed that was true; she was more alone than she had realized. "I will be well enough. It's just-—oh, it's just too much to contemplate. My mother, my father—always keeping things from me. And now they might keep the collection from me, and he might get it, and ruin it."

  The steady pressure of his bare hand on her bare arm gave her the will to say what she had never let herself think. "It's all so unfair. Not just to me, to everyone who cares for books. And they were both so secretive, and my uncle—he could make it better, but instead he only makes it worse. Why didn't they just leave the collection to me, without all these complications?"

  "I don't know."

  Fiercely she said, "It's mine by right. It is. But I know everyone thinks that because I want the collection, I must be greedy and grasping."

  "I don't."

  "You don't?" She looked up at his face; the afternoon sunlight cast shadows across his eyes, but she saw kindness there.

  "I think you are the only Seton in several generations who really knows what the Parham Collection should be, and the only one capable of making it reach that standard. Your father should have known you better, and trusted you more."

  Then he released her hand and opened the door. "Tuesday night. We will make it come right again."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tell me where is fancy bred?

  Or in the heart or in the head?

  Merchant of Venice, III, ii

  With time at a premium, it couldn't be helped. But John wished he hadn't picked one of the longest days of the year to resume his criminal career. At the very least, he thought, England might have moved to a more southerly latitude for the occasion. It was near ten o'clock, and even back here in the mews, far from the streetlamps, he could still see the numbers on his watch.

  The stableyard was empty, and the lights in the carriage houses were winking off one by one as the stablemen went to bed. Still, John kept to the shadows as he approached the back wall of Parham House. He wore the loose black cotton trousers and black jersey of his free-trading days, when a moonless night and invisibility meant safe landings and high profits. The last time he had worn these had been another moonless night, in a fortress in Brittany, though his only profit had been the cautious joy of the Foreign Office agent when he realized he had been rescued.

  The gate was locked. John pushed up his sleeves and leapt for the top of the wall, hands open, as if into the shrouds of the rigging. He felt his fingers scrape the rough granite then catch, and thought, I am myself again. And at that thought, he knew a moment's despa
ir. A felon's heart, he had, and always would, no matter what clothes he wore.

  He pulled himself up and paused balanced on the wall. The darkness was deeper here in the shadows of the house, and he could not see the ground. But he launched himself into the twilight, landing lightly in a crouch. He stayed still, holding his breath, but there was no sound from the dark house.

  He crossed to the elm tree to wait for Jessica, who had been strictly directed to wait until full dark. He found himself wishing Devlyn would come to town and sit him down and talk him out of this. All their lives Devlyn had tried to dissuade John from one folly or another, succeeding so seldom that it was a credit to his hard head that he persevered. But this time, John thought, I might be more open to persuasion.

  It was folly indeed, this felonious search, this absolute certainty about the lost play, this alliance with an heiress. He knew Devlyn well enough to anticipate his arguments: the risk an arrest would pose to his career, the hazard of Wiley—or worse, Alavieri—learning of his aim, the impropriety of involving a young lady in a felony, the danger of letting her too close. Unfortunately, John's memory couldn't reproduce the combined effect of Devlyn's reasoned tone, his eminently sensible approach, his half-concealed caring. And so, though he recited the points by rote, John remained unpersuaded. The felon's heart always won out over the rationalist's head.

  And it always would after all, for now Jessica was stealing up to him, her bright hair stuffed into a cap, her eyes alight with laughter. They were allies, and he couldn't end that. If he did, she would be alone again, and that he couldn't allow.

  Poor little rich girl, he thought, holding out his hand to take the bag she'd looped around her shoulder. Bright and brave, just like Tatiana—

  It was an errant thought, but true enough. When he first met the princess, she had been alone in a world of privilege, her enemies wearing the masks of family and friends. Oh, hers was a more dangerous world, the Romanov court, where a small misstep could be punished by a quiet execution. Jessica had less at risk, not her life, only her life's work. That was enough, though, to win her an out-of-practice knight errant, one far more errant than Tatiana's own.