“That isn’t the way we do it here!” Polly snapped.
Olivia bit her tongue lest she retort in kind. Her day had begun in exhaustion, which was nothing new: for the past two weeks, she’d spent half of every night reading documents she daily secreted into her rooms. None of them, so far, had proved relevant to her cause. But she was becoming peculiarly, uneasily fascinated with Marwick’s personal records.
Marwick wrote—or had written—prodigiously. He kept notes on every book he read, and chronicled his thoughts on all manner of subjects: diplomatic crises, agrarian issues, the nature of good and evil, the qualities of great men. He wrote like an angel, with an erudition that stirred her envy. She had studied Latin only for a year, and ancient Greek, never; she ended up in the library some nights, struggling to decipher his quotes with the aid of dictionaries, simply to prove to herself that she could.
What she would not have given for a chance to study at Oxbridge! But she knew that even those institutions could not guarantee such insight as his writing suggested. How to square such elegant, astonishing work with the monster upstairs? She felt as though she were reading the memoirs of a ghost, someone whom she would have very much liked to meet while he still lived.
This growing fascination was perverse and unseemly. But she had to search his study, didn’t she? She had to look at every document, lest she miss the single one she needed. And so, every night, she stayed up until half past two, at which point she forced herself to bed; and every morning, before dawn, she crept up to the study to purloin new material.
Only two folders remained to be read. Cook, this morning, had very nearly caught her in the act of shoving them under her mattress. She had delivered to Olivia a list of mysteries from the kitchen: five pounds of truffles had gone missing. Where had they gone? And why was the crockery in need of repair? It had just been mended last month.
Jones, whom Olivia consulted over breakfast, could not explain any of it. The truffles had particularly concerned him; he’d set about interviewing the kitchen staff. In the meantime, Olivia went to check on the maids and discovered this scene of butchery in the morning room: Polly, brushing a rose-and-cream carpet with tea leaves. The carpet already bore several telltale streaks. “Henceforth,” Olivia told her, “you will use salt.”
“Salt!”
Olivia was no domestic, and even she knew this. “For pale carpets, one uses salt.”
With a sullen shrug, Polly retrieved her brush and started to sweep again.
“Stop! You mustn’t brush the leaves in. Don’t you see? They’re leaving stains.”
Polly hurled down the broom. “Then may I go?”
With leaves strewn everywhere? “Certainly not. You will pick up the leaves, then apply the salt and finish brushing the carpet.”
“Pick them up by hand?”
“Yes, by hand. Otherwise the stain will spread.”
Polly folded her arms and glared. Too late, Olivia realized she had done the same. They locked eyes, Olivia battling a creeping awareness of how absurd this scene would look to any passerby: a maid and housekeeper so close in age that the only way they might be told apart was by the key ring at Olivia’s waist.
Polly’s fine upper lip twitched into a sneer. She was a pretty girl, with large brown eyes and burnished hair—and why was she not wearing her cap properly? Those curls should have been covered.
“Are you Irish?” Polly asked.
That was meant to be an insult, of course. It never failed to amaze Olivia how narrowly the world was designed: if you had no legitimate origins, you were scorned. If you had legitimate origins in the wrong place, you were scorned as well.
Luckily for her, she put no stock in conventional virtues; their main supporters, in her experience, were hypocrites. She lifted her chin, knowing if she gave so much as inch, she would never regain it. “Salt,” she said tersely, “catches the dust just as well. And it does not stain the carpet.”
Polly rolled her eyes.
I am going to have to sack her. The knowledge formed like a ball of ice in Olivia’s gut. It seemed very wrong to destroy the livelihood of somebody—no matter how mean their behavior—to safeguard a position Olivia did not mean to keep.
A thud came from above. Polly looked up, and Olivia sent a prayer of thanks for this timely interruption.
The thud sounded again—and intensified. The crystal beading on a nearby lamp began to shiver.
Had a herd of elephants invaded the house?
Olivia turned on her heel and marched into the hallway, where she discovered the other maids, along with the valet and the cook’s assistant—what was she doing up here?—gaping at the ceiling. “What is that?” she asked.
A strangled laugh came from behind her. Polly had followed. “It’s His Grace!”
A fine joke. Olivia’s remonstrance was cut off by one of the other maids. “That’s his rooms right above,” said Doris. She was a lanky, rabbit-faced girl who had endeared herself to Olivia by inclining more to daydreaming than to mutiny.
Muriel crossed herself. “Perhaps it’s the final stages.”
“Final stages of what?” Olivia asked.
“Muriel’s convinced he has the pox,” Polly said.
“Polly!”
“Well, ’tisn’t me who said it!” Polly put her hands on her hips. “Though if there’s a more likely explanation for such behavior, I’d like to hear it. First he was grievin’ his heart out, and goin’ up and down the town to make arrangements for the grandest funeral you seen since the pope. Next you know, he breaks all the mirrors, rips down the crepe, and refuses t’set foot outside. Goes the summer, and now he won’t stir from his rooms—not even should the house catch fire, I expect. And if that’s not the pox-brain, you tell me what is!”
Olivia took a long breath. It now sounded as if Marwick was banging things against the walls. Not his head, she hoped? Or perhaps she did. No, she couldn’t wish harm to his brain. It might yet heal, and it had once been very fine.
More of his servants, another footman and the porter, drifted into the corridor to gawp. What a fine fix this was. Nobody was going to brave the stairs to check on him—not even his valet, who was canoodling with the cook’s assistant in the corner.
Olivia squinted up the staircase. None of the papers in the study had touched on confidential dealings. What chance was there that the last two folders would prove different? Unless he’d stashed his most private documents under a cushion somewhere, his apartment was the only place remaining to look.
God help her. She was going to have to pry the madman from his rooms.
On a deep breath, she gathered her skirts in her fists and started for the stairs.
“Oh, don’t go!” Muriel spoke in a high, panicked voice. “Last time a bottle, this time a blade, ma’am!”
How did Muriel know about that? Olivia wheeled back. “Vickers, you are a terrible gossip.”
Vickers gave a sheepish shrug.
“Be a man,” Polly snapped at him. “Go up there with her!”
This unexpected support quite gratified Olivia. But it only led Vickers to duck behind the cook’s assistant. “I am—otherwise occupied,” he said.
“Coward,” Olivia hissed at him. The other servants’ answering snickers, she did not welcome. She directed a scowl down over the gathering.
The resulting silence was most satisfying.
Nevertheless, as she squared her shoulders, she felt compelled to add: “If I have not returned in a quarter hour . . .”
Summon the police, another woman might have said. But not she. The police would not suit her in the least.
As Olivia opened the door to the duke’s sitting room, the noise stopped. She hovered on the threshold, debating with herself. With the hubbub over, was there really any call to check on him?
But what if he was lying injured?
Even if he was, was that really her responsibility to determine?
Perhaps not. But if she meant to dislodge him from his quarters long enough to search them, she would have to begin the campaign sometime—the sooner, the wiser. Right-o. She marched up to the inner door.
Her knock sounded rather timid for her liking. Timidity is fatal to leadership. Men desire an excuse to believe in something greater than themselves; an incompetent braggart will win them far faster than a great man who does not advertise. Marwick had written that in his meditations on Wellington.
She bit her lip and rapped more firmly. After a long pause, Marwick said, “Come.”
He’d answered! Stupefied, she hesitated. Then she smoothed down her skirts and entered, ready to duck.
The room lay in its usual gloomy darkness, the curtains shuttered. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. To her bafflement, everything looked in order: all the furniture intact, no shattered bottles lying about—save the remnants of the one he had thrown at her, which still glimmered in a nearby corner.
The stacks of paper had been gathered up and moved. One sat on the chest at the foot of the bed. Another lay on the writing desk by the window. Where were the rest? Pray God he hadn’t burned them.
Heart quickening, she turned her attention toward the duke. He reclined on his bed, lost amid the shadows cast by his canopy. Only his eyes glittered out from the murk. “Ah,” he drawled. “My newest housekeeper.”
How could a man who wrote so beautifully have gone so rotten? She could not think of him as the same person who had written those essays. And she had to get him out of this room. What on earth had he been doing in here? He was not slurring his words, and the air held no reek of alcohol—or smoke, either, thank goodness. All she smelled was . . . sweat. Not unpleasant. But sweat all the same.
“Your Grace,” she said, remembering to curtsy. “I heard a disturbance. I wished to make certain you were well.”
“I suppose that’s a matter for debate. Miss Johnson.”
She resented the heat that came to her face. Had he no shame? Why would he wish to remind her of his abominable behavior at their last meeting? She was tempted to quote him to himself: We too often mistake as a privilege of rank that breed of low behavior which, among the poor, we readily recognize as vice.
Instead, she said sharply, “Very true, Your Grace. Bedlam is quieter. I imagined you must be disassembling your furniture.”
He shifted a little, bringing his upper half into clarity. He was undressed from the waist up.
She startled back into the door frame. His leanness brought into prominence the sort of muscles generally stored beneath a healthy layer of fat—and clothing. “If I have interrupted—”
“What of it? It seems to be a habit of yours.” He reached for his shirt, drawing it on. His abdomen flexed with every movement. Rather a fascinating effect.
She yanked her attention back to her cause. He seemed more voluble today. That wasn’t saying much, but she would press the opportunity while she found it. “These rooms should be cleaned, Your Grace.”
“No.”
“I am informed that you’ve forbidden the maids entry for a month or more. And to be frank . . .” She made herself look directly at him, willing herself not to redden. “It smells in here.”
Momentarily he looked astonished. It was the most animated expression she had ever seen him wear, though it consisted merely of the widening of his eyes, and the briefest lift of his brows.
And then, miracle of miracles, he laughed. Not for long, not with much energy, but it was definitely, distinctly, a laugh. “And what do they smell like, ma’am? Pray tell me, how do I stink?”
“Like perspiration, I’m sorry to say.”
He gave her a mocking smile. “How shocking,” he said. “God alone knows what I’ve been doing up here.”
If she staged a fire, he’d flee this room quick enough. But how did one stage a fire without setting one? Arson was a step too far for her. “It would not take above an hour,” she said. “A very quick cleaning—”
“Must I sack you again?” He stood, emerging from the shadow of the canopy. His disordered, shaggy blond hair lent him a piratical quality, amplified by his wolfish smile. “The newspapers will enjoy that detail: being fired twice.”
She inched toward the door. She saw no bottles at hand, but for all she knew, he might throw a chair. “Indeed not. However, I think your mood would profit from cleaner surroundings. And perhaps you might open the curtains”—in for a penny, in for a pound—“for if one wallows in the dark, one cannot complain if one’s mood follows suit, you know.”
All expression slipped from his face as he regarded her. She had the uncanny sense that she was losing him; that although the curtains could not block out all the daylight, he was falling into darkness again, all the same.
“The room stinks,” she repeated, to goad him.
His face tightened again. “Are you aware,” he said, “that you are speaking to your master?”
“My employer. Yes, Your Grace.”
A line appeared between his brows. “Precisely what I said.”
If there was one thing she could not abide, it was the sloppy use of language. She would have expected better from him, but clearly he had lost his faculties. “Not so, Your Grace. You employ me, but you hardly master me.”
His brows rose. He looked her up and down. “Have you struck your head recently, Mrs. Johnson?”
She laughed.
His expression did not change. Apparently that had not been a joke. He’d lost his wit, too.
“No,” she said, “but I thank you for the concern.”
“It was not concern.” Now he spoke through his teeth. “It was simple logic, for I can think of no other reason for your bizarre and impertinent behavior. Again.”
No, of course he couldn’t. It would take a great leap for him to guess that she lay awake at night stricken by fear that Bertram’s man would somehow locate her here; that every hour that passed led him closer, while she squandered her chance to escape to safety, somewhere far from London, and all on a desperate gamble that among Marwick’s papers might lie the only chance at freedom she would ever receive—
“Forgive me,” she said. “But I think of your well-being.” And that was true. Her motive was not entirely selfish. It did . . . concern her . . . to see a man in his prime lounging about like an invalid. So his wife had betrayed him. So he had made himself into a strange, maniacal, bullying hermit. What of it? He had the freedom to make a new start. If he wished, he could redeem himself, patch up matters with his brother, acquire a new wife who would help him forget that sordid business with the last one. Recover the man he’d once been.
But all of this would be difficult to accomplish from his bedroom.
Why, she was irritated with him. If she could resist the impulse to pity herself, he certainly should be able to do the same.
She turned around and yanked open the curtains.
The sudden flood of light revealed an atrocious amount of dust. Dust danced crazily in the air; dust coated the writing table; dust lined the edge of the carpet. “Goodness,” she said. “It’s a wonder you can breathe at all.”
“Mrs. Johnson.” His voice was rife with disbelief. “Get the hell out.”
She turned, prepared to defend herself, and the words fell apart in her mouth.
To have seen him in the gloom was one thing. But in the light, his beauty was radiant. His hair blazed. His thickly lashed eyes looked as blue as jewels. His skin was tawny by design, fine-grained, and shadows girded the dramatic blades of his cheekbones. Her gaze dropped to discover that he had shoved up his sleeves, revealing blond hair that glimmered on his muscled forearms.
Light was his natural element. In it, he became blinding, a golden creature who might easily write sonnets to outdo Shakespeare’s—or inspire them . . .
She turned away, disconcerted, nervous in some strange new way. Her gaze fell on the hearth. She frowned at it, then stepped forward and ran a finger across the mantel. It came away a sooty gray.
Turning back, she held up this finger for his edification, and made a tsking noise. “No wonder you feel unwell.”
He was staring at her as though she were the lunatic. He looked as disconcerted as she felt. How . . . diverting. She was suddenly beginning to enjoy herself.
Oh, dear. No, no, no. This determination rising within her was unwise and unwanted. She had promised herself she would do only the bare minimum. Marwick and his disorderly house were not her problems to solve.
But the bully needed bullying. It was so obvious, suddenly. Whether or not he realized it, Marwick was badly in need of her direction. And she meant to direct him out of this room.
He bent down in one graceful move and retrieved something from beneath the bed. When he rose, he held a bottle. “This seems to be a language you understand.”
As their eyes locked, a sense of déjà vu overcame her. In the space of a heartbeat, she placed the feeling: this was not so different from the recent scene with Polly.
He was trying to intimidate her. But if he wanted to throw the bottle, surely he already would have.
And if she was wrong?
She squared her jaw. She could survive a blackened eye from a bottle—but Thomas Moore, she was not so hopeful of. “Do you want to live in squalor? And all these books”—she nudged a pile with her toe and sent it toppling—“would do better on a shelf. Why . . .” Her voice failed. The collapse of the pile had knocked open one of the volumes. Surely that painted illustration wasn’t . . .
She fell to her knees. “This is an illuminated manuscript!” She snatched it up, studying the gilded halo of Saint Bernard. “This Romanesque style—it dates from the thirteenth century at the latest!”
He said something she didn’t catch, for now her eyes were darting from pile to pile, the possibilities multiplying, wondrous and fearsome at once. “What else have you got lying about on the floor?” On the floor. “What are you doing to these books?”
A hand caught her arm. He was pulling her to her feet. Dragging her toward the door. But her eye had caught on something. Good heavens, it couldn’t be.
She ripped free and lunged across the room, lifting away a copy of Leviathan and Don Quixote in the Spanish, to uncover . . .
She held it up, balancing it on the flat of her palms, suspended between awe and rage. “This,” she whispered, unable to remove her eyes, “is Newton’s Principia. An original edition.”
Silence.
She looked up and her heart tripped. He was towering over her, his face thunderous. He had not finished buttoning his shirt. His collar sagged apart to expose a generous triangle of skin, and—heavens above, his left nipple lay exposed to her sight.
She clasped the book to her chest and goggled. She had seen a variety of male torsos in her life, most of them belonging to adolescent country boys who cast off decorum at the sight of a fishing pond. None of them had looked like this. He had hair on his chest. Who could have guessed it?
“Have you a death wish?” he snarled. “Or have you, perhaps, lost the ability to understand English?”
She backed away from him, angling toward the door. He matched her step for step, prowling like a lion on the scent of a lamb—not a comfortable analogy. But these innocent books. She was stumbling over them, gilt-edged, calfskin-bound, priceless. She must save them from him.
She had one foot out the door when she caught sight again of the illustrated manuscript. She could not abandon it here. The poor darling! She lunged forward and snatched it up.
“Put that down!” he roared.
“You may keep them all,” she cried. “Move the entire library up here, but you will not keep them on the floor!”
She hopped backward and pulled the door shut in his face.