Chapter Ten
“I love you, Biddy Bowen.” Griffin had waited years to say that phrase in English, and had repeated it the whole way to the oak so he wouldn’t forget how. Then he’d sat high, high up in the oak practicing silently, until Julian and Miss Elizabeth had come along.
Biddy went on taking the laundry down from the clothesline. “Sir, you mustn’t tease me like that.”
She was smiling, though. Biddy had the prettiest smile.
“I love you, Biddy Bowen.” Clearly, he’d got it right, so he tried a bit of decoration on what Miss Elizabeth had taught him. “I very, very love you.”
Her smile was beautiful, like the oak leafing out in spring. All soft edges and full of light. “You’re practicing English again, are you?”
She’d answered in Welsh.
“Yes,” Griffin said, wishing he knew more English. “I want Julian and Charity to be proud of me. I can learn. I’m not smart, but I can learn.”
Biddy’s smile dimmed and she snatched the next pillowcase from the clothesline. “Stop saying you aren’t smart. You’re very good with the animals, you know all the bird songs, you get around in the kitchen better than any man I know.”
I very, very love you, Biddy. “I’m not smart like Julian. He goes to London, and he can say anything he wants to in English and French and Latin.” Griffin had tried Latin, but it was unkind to the ear. Welsh was very kind to the ear, and English was somewhere in the middle.
“What matters smart,” Biddy snapped, jerking another pillowcase from the line, “when a titled man can barely pay his debts? What matters smart, when a lady shut up in a castle grows so lonely her brother must lure bachelors to her side with parties he can’t afford? You’re smart, Griffin St. David, too smart to think that only Latin and London make a man worth loving. There’s not a yeoman for thirty miles who’d have a wife and family if that were the case.”
Biddy sometimes got cross, like when Abner had too many pints in the village and Griffin had to fetch him home in the rain, but she was seldom angry.
“I’m not a yeoman. My brother is a duke. I’m not smart.”
Biddy flung the last of the pillowcases into the basket. “I must not speak ill of my betters, but your brother is no smarter than you are, he’s only smart in a different way. You visit with the tenants more than he does. You notice when Mrs. Cransberry’s limp is worse and bring her a tisane from Mrs. Hanscomb. You carry acorns in your pockets so every child you meet can plant a tree for themselves. You sing in church like all the joy in heaven fills you, you don’t just move your lips.”
Griffin picked up the laundry basket. “I love to sing.” And he loved Biddy in both Welsh and English.
She regarded Griffin for a moment, her expression complicated. She looked angry, but not with him. He and Julian were smart in different ways, she’d said, and that was worth thinking about in the oak tree, where Griffin had peace and privacy—usually.
Biddy took one handle of the laundry basket, Griffin kept the other, and they walked into the house together.
“I learned something today,” Griffin said.
“You learned some English,” Biddy said. “Very clever of you, but please don’t be telling all the women at the pub that you love them, Griffin.” She took the laundry basket from him and set it on the kitchen table with a thump.
“I don’t love them. They just make my tallywags ache. I love you.”
The smile came again, along with a blush. “You awful man, the things you say.”
Whatever he’d said, she wasn’t angry anymore. “I learned something from Julian and Miss Elizabeth. She’s a guest at the house party, and very nice. She’s Julian’s friend. He should have more friends.”
Biddy shook out the last pillowcase to come down from the line. A whiff of sunshine and lavender filled the kitchen, happy scents.
“Were you eavesdropping again, Griffin? You know you’re not supposed to do that.”
“I was not eavesdropping. I was overhearing, because nobody looked up. Why doesn’t anybody ever look up, unless a bird flies by?”
“You look up, you look everywhere, and you see what you behold.”
Griffin took the next pillowcase. Biddy had shown him exactly how to fold a pillowcase. He liked folding sheets better, because it took two people to do it right.
“Julian and Miss Elizabeth did not look up, but they are friends. They decided that. You’re my friend, Biddy.”
Saying those words felt good, because it was true. A gentleman was always honest.
“I am that,” she said, taking up another pillowcase. “I will always be your friend. So what did you learn, Griffin?”
Not sir, not Mr. St. David.
“I learned that friends sometimes kiss each other, and I would dearly like to kiss you, Biddy Bowen.”
* * *
“Miss Windham, good morning.”
Julian must restore her to the status of Miss Windham, not his companion of the towering oak and summer sunshine, not the charming phantasm of his dreams.
Though of course he wanted to kiss her again. She wore a simple green frock that hinted at the curves beneath, especially as she strode across the library and began wrestling with a window.
“Good morning, Your Grace. Lady Glenys should instruct the footmen to open these windows each evening after the card parties break up. The cigar smoke isn’t good for the books or the portraiture.”
Neither of which mattered to Julian the way they should.
“The footmen also need to oil the window latches,” Julian replied, reaching past her to shove the sash up. Cool air bearing a hint of the sea wafted into the room and blended with the scent of lily of the valley on Miss Windham’s person.
Julian moved away, lest he stand about like a fool, his nose pressed to the lady’s neck—and his tallywags aching.
“I’ve come to find a book to take with me across the lake,” she said, surveying the rows and rows of literature arrayed around them. “I finished the three you lent me.”
“You’d rather spend this afternoon here with the books than socializing on the lakeshore. You love books.”
Once upon a time, as a small boy, Julian had been enthralled with books too. In the general case, he still respected literature, but the collection for which too much coin had been paid by too many former dukes of Haverford merited only his disgust.
“I love what books can do,” Miss Windham replied, moving to another window. “Milton said, ‘Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image, but thee who destroys a good book destroys reason itself.’ Books can preserve wisdom.”
Julian let Elizabeth struggle with the window, because he liked the lines of the dress from the back almost as much as he did from the front.
Almost. The window gave and she moved to the next.
In defense of his dignity, he opened the two windows on the far side of the fireplace rather than again assist the lady.
“Books,” she went on, dusting her hands, “can reach from beyond the grave and provide comfort and knowledge from somebody long dead. Books can instruct and entertain, they can—well, you must value them as I do, for you’ve amassed a treasury of books.”
Julian had no treasure whatsoever, unless acres of Welsh countryside counted. “The first marquess of Haverford was a bibliophile, and his descendants have maintained and added to his collection as a family tradition, whether we could afford the expense or not. Books, in addition to the many fine qualities you name, can beggar an entire dukedom.”
And drive a young man to Bedlam. How Julian had worried, every time Papa had brought home some precious new tome, delighted with his acquisition, oblivious to its cost. Julian had come to dread Papa’s sojourns to London, for they always meant new books and more unpaid bills.
Elizabeth would read these books, though. If she were Julian’s duchess, winter by winter, shelf by shelf, she’d learn the depth and breadth of all three of the collections. Julian would learn too, for she’d read to him, and he to her.
By the time he was reading to his children, he might possibly have begun to forgive his father.
“You do not behold your library with any joy,” Elizabeth said, when all the windows were open. “Or perhaps the prospect of the afternoon’s activities dims your pleasure in the day.”
She had a vocabulary of walks. Outdoors she moved quite freely, and inside the house, she could set a good pace too. She also had a ladylike saunter suitable for strolling the gardens or accompanying another guest into the breakfast parlor.
“I’d rather be lounging about on the lakeshore than shut up in this library,” Julian said. He’d rather be almost anywhere other than the library.
Elizabeth studied him from beneath the previous duke’s portrait. “Truly? You don’t like this room?”
Julian pointed to the northwest corner of the second tier. “Up there…that whole area. Papa risked traveling to France in wartime to bid on those blasted books at an exclusive auction, and he sold off one of our best tenant farms to pay for them. Fortunately, he sold the land to Radnor’s father.”
“He bought an entire farm’s worth of French novels?”
That Elizabeth was dismayed by Papa’s folly was reassuring—and maddening all over again.
“A small farm,” Julian said, “but a beautiful property. The Haverford dower house was also a very attractive domicile. My great-grandfather sold it to a Sherbourne ancestor to finance an interest in illuminated manuscripts, many of which turned out to be forgeries.”
This was not the tour of the library Julian so often gave, not one he was proud of, but half the public collection was associated with liquidation of some asset that could never be regained.
Elizabeth glanced around, her expression suggesting Julian had dimmed her delight in the books. “So you truly hate this library?”
Julian should dissemble, put a polite face on the truth, and pretend these damned books hadn’t caused him to wonder if the St. Davids suffered from a peculiar strain of lunacy.
“I resent the library bitterly.”
She stepped closer, as if she didn’t want her next words to be overheard. “You could sell the books. They have value in the eyes of many, Your Grace.”
The specious claim of every bookseller was that books had tangible value. Julian’s solicitors had been at pains to advise him otherwise.
“If the collection has monetary value at all, that’s in the eyes of only a select few, Miss Windham. To me, the whole collection is one, enormous cautionary tale. When I consider buying a new horse or purchasing a pretty bracelet for Lady Glenys, I have thirty thousand reasons to keep my coin in my pocket.”
The books gave Julian the discipline to adhere to his budgets, plans, and schedules. Thirty thousand times, generation after generation, a St. David had yielded to impulse; thirty thousand times, they’d put more faith in providence than prudence.
Which was thirty thousand times too many.
“Sometimes, I want to burn the lot,” Julian went on, taking Elizabeth’s hand and kissing her fingers. “But that would be as irresponsible as buying them in the first place. When the solicitors explained to me the extent of my inherited debts, I dreamed of setting fire to these books, and that fantasy wasn’t a nightmare.”
Though the first few years after Papa’s death had been nightmarish. Grief and betrayal had been subsumed into a determination that Julian carried with him still, determination to protect the honor of the family name, and to leave future generations of St. Davids more to be proud of than a pile of bloody books.
Elizabeth covered his hand with her own. “I am sorry, Julian. When family serves us a bad turn, it’s doubly painful.”
He let go of her hand, because the door was open, and the pleasure of touching her too tempting.
“You speak from experience.”
“Nothing so dramatic as the debts you’ve been saddled with, but yes. I’ve mentioned my cousins.” She began tidying the nearest shelf of books—plays, which the house party guests had already cast into disorder.
“The eight obnoxiously blissful cousins?”
“There were ten when I was growing up, four boys, all in a row, and I was the only girl. Charlotte was a mere babe, and so I was special without even realizing it. Then His Grace took an illegitimate daughter into his home and an illegitimate son. I love them both dearly, but they were novel, and I was…”
The shelf was quite in order.
“You were jealous.”
“Oh, very, and my tribulation was only beginning. Her Grace had the audacity to start producing daughters, and somewhere between daughter number two and daughter number four, I just…gave up. I was very much an older sister by then, and required to set an example. Telling you this now, I must seem petty and self-centered, but to a small girl…”
Julian drew her between the botany texts and German medical treatises and took her in his arms.
“You were lonely, as Glenys must have been lonely while Radnor and I conquered the Andean jungle and sailed to the Orient without her.”
Elizabeth rested her forehead against his chest. “I was lonely, but I also became invisible. I do not care for the status of non-entity, Julian. I’m not good at it. Then one Christmas before I’d even put up my hair, the whole family was assembled for a meal, and at some point in the conversation—one of those unpredictable lulls—I replied to my uncle with a quote from Shakespeare. ‘Our doubts are traitors…’”
“‘And make us lose the good we might oft win by fearing the attempt,’” Julian said. “Hamlet?”
She gave him a smile such as pirates turned upon undefended treasure. “Measure for Measure. The duke laughed and said that was the perfect quotation for a speech he was to deliver in Parliament. My cousins looked at me as if a tiara had appeared on my head, and in a sense, it had.”
“They saw you.”
She stepped back, and again, Julian let her go. “They saw me, they heard me, they respected who and what they beheld. In my books, I’d found something better than being invisible.”
But had she found herself, or merely a means of garnering notice in a large, busy family with a surfeit of self-important lordlings?
Elizabeth started on another set of shelves, opera libretti in various languages.
“Do they see you now?”
“I’m one of only two unmarried cousins remaining. Now I feel as if my family sees me rather too well. Tell me about Mr. Sherbourne. He was intent on making an entrance in the breakfast parlor this morning, and your sister says he might not even have been invited.”
In a sense, Elizabeth’s query was not a change of subject—Sherbourne was part and parcel of the challenges Julian faced—though her question certainly changed the mood.
“I can guarantee you Sherbourne wasn’t invited, for no acceptance of an invitation has shown up in my correspondence, and he’d best not be directing mail to my unmarried sister. If she invited him personally, he still has no excuse for showing up a day late.”
Elizabeth took a window seat, sunshine slanting over her shoulder and making the simple green gown shimmer like spring grass in a morning breeze.
“I broached the topic of his presumption with Lady Glenys,” she said, “but I gather she’s been too overwhelmed with planning this event to keep track of every detail. How old was she when your mother died?”
“Five.” Julian’s niece, Charity, was five, and all over again, he was struck with how tender and vulnerable that age was. He would ask Elizabeth to choose some children’s books for her, and send them…
No, he would not.
“Five is far too young for a child to lose her mama,” Elizabeth said. “No wonder her ladyship is struggling so with this undertaking. You must be sure to commend her on every detail, Haverford. Praise her for what goes smoothly, and for managing all the little moments she handles that refuse to go smoothly.”
When was the last time Julian had praised his sister for anything? “Who praises you, Elizabeth?” Who sees that you are more than a walking collection of learned quotes?
She scooted about on her pillow and smoothed her skirts. “You said you like my kisses.”
Didn’t see that coming. “I adore your kisses. Let’s find you another a book, shall we?”
The library door stood wide open, and from down the corridor, Julian heard the last of his guests finishing their breakfasts. He held out a hand to Elizabeth and she rejoined him between the bookshelves.
Twice he’d let her slip away. This time, he kissed her, or she kissed him. The undertaking was gratifyingly mutual.
Julian’s dreams and recollections had not matched the reality of Elizabeth Windham stealing kisses. She was both sweet and fierce, attractive in her soft curves and tender overtures, and compelling in the sheer determination of her grip on his arse.
She hauled him closer and her tongue danced across Julian’s mouth. He reciprocated, and a stolen kiss became an utter rout of his self-restraint. He backed Elizabeth up against the shelves—biographies, the last rational corner of his mind noted—and drew her as close as a man could hold a woman.
She held him even closer and wrapped her leg around his thigh. Elizabeth would delight in pleasures taken amid the scent of books, and forever after, Julian would look less bitterly on his collection of biographies.
The lady eased her mouth away and rested against him.
“The door is open,” she whispered.
He and Elizabeth were not visible from the door, of course, but one of them really ought to move. Julian was a duke, the host of the gathering, and responsible for protecting her reputation. All of that was very true, though what inspired him to prudence was a nascent erection that needed only a hint of inspiration to become obvious arousal.
Julian stepped back, even as he stole a parting kiss. Elizabeth looked as tidy as a dowager’s sewing box, while Julian felt as if he had fallen headfirst from the mighty oak. Rather than stare into her eyes—or at her mouth—his gaze landed on the books behind her.
“We’ve upset the biographies,” he said, taking another step back. “Some of those volumes recount the illustrious doings of my ancestors.”
She turned, presenting the elegant line of her shoulders and back, and began setting the books to rights.
Saved by the books, Julian thought, forcing himself to put more distance between himself and the nape of Elizabeth Windham’s neck.
* * *
Elizabeth let Haverford wander away to the windows, while she pretended to fuss with the biographies. In truth, she struggled not to tackle him where he stood, hands behind his back, breathing deeply.
He’d breathe like that in bed. So would she, with him. She’d not gaze over her lover’s shoulder, noting the cobwebs in the molding, or wondering what was wrong with her, that lovemaking—the great, illicit, necessary, central activity of the human species—should strike her as tedious and undignified.
Elizabeth focused on the books, which were shelved in no discernible order. She let His Grace have a moment of fresh air by the windows, while she regained her composure amid old friends.
An enormous volume, titled Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, had strayed among the biographies. Elizabeth opened the book, and was greeted by the lovely scent of old paper, along with a familiar portrait of the Bard.
He’d known a thing or two about passion. The date beneath the portrait was 1622, and yet, people still quoted Shakespeare when their own gift for expression failed. Elizabeth was just starting on the elaborate letter from the publishers “to the Great Variety of readers,” when footsteps sounded on the library carpets.
“Sherbourne, good day.” Haverford’s tone was polite.
Oh, dear. Oh, drat.
“Your Grace. Enjoying the family book treasury?”
“Some do treasure books, Sherbourne, and learning. I treasure civility, among other attributes. If you wanted to attend this house party, you had only to ask and I’d have sent you an invitation.”
Why would Haverford have been so accommodating with a man he disapproved of?
“That’s the very point, Haverford. I don’t like asking. I prefer being asked.” Sherbourne’s voice sounded closer. “Some of these dusty old relics might have a bit of value. Shouldn’t you keep the air from them?”
Dusty old relics? Elizabeth hugged the Shakespeare as if to cover the Bard’s ears.
“Actually you’re wrong.” Haverford moved away from the window, not so much as glancing in Elizabeth’s direction. “Smoke is bad for the books and for the portraiture. Coal smoke, peat smoke, cigar smoke…they all take a toll. Damp doesn’t do the books any favors either, but on fine days, the room should be aired.”
“You really are impressive,” Sherbourne said, taking up a position at the window Haverford had vacated. “You have the knack of shaming others with your graciousness, making them feel they ought to be grateful for your pontifications. Is the object of this gathering to fire off Lady Glenys?”
Haverford took a seat in the reading chair before the hearth. The stacks of books obscured most of him from view, so Elizabeth could see only a lacy cuff, one unadorned hand, one thigh, a knee, and a field boot. Even that visual excerpt suggested the man occupying the chair was an aristocrat at his leisure.
“The object of this gathering,” Haverford said, “is to enjoy congenial company during Wales’s loveliest weather. Any hostess knows the numbers ought to at least match, and better if the eligible men outnumber the single ladies.”
“Oh, right. And what’s old Benedict Andover doing among the pigeons?”
“I like him,” Haverford said. “I respect him, and he’s widowed. He and my father used to talk about books by the hour. He’s been a friend to the St. Davids since before I was born, and he has other friends among the older guests.”
Did that mean Sherbourne was disliked, disrespected, and had not a single friend at the gathering?
“As long as you’re not considering the old boy for Lady Glenys,” Sherbourne said. “In your determination to keep her from my foul clutches, you might be tempted to desperate measures. I have no wish to see your sister consigned to such a fate when better options are right at hand.”
Haverford rose. “At the risk of inflicting more of my graciousness on you, Sherbourne, allow me to point out that if you seek to court my sister, protocols apply. Those protocols do not start with you threatening to call in my notes. If Glenys is amenable to receiving your addresses, and if she looks on your suit with favor, I would not gainsay her choice, providing the settlements could be worked out.”
Sherbourne abandoned his post by the window. “You’d approve a match between Glenys and me?”
He sounded honestly curious. Did he harbor a tendresse for his hostess? Was that what his uninvited presence was about?
“I would hate to see my sister shackled to any man she could not esteem,” Haverford said. “Let’s leave it at that, shall we? And you will address her as Lady Glenys or risk embarrassing yourself before the other guests.”
“Of course. Lady Glenys,” Sherbourne said, “because her papa happened to be a duke rather than a brewer or a banker. My mistake. Enjoy your petty displays, Haverford. Unless you want your guests and half of London learning exactly where the metes and bounds lie between us, you’ll comport yourself as mine most gracious host.”
“Exactly what I am, a most gracious host,” Haverford said. “I’d best see if my sister has any orders for me.”
“Host” had social meaning, of course, but Elizabeth wanted to remind Sherbourne that a host could be a mighty army too.
Another set of footsteps thumped into the library at a brisk pace. “Ah, Haverford, there you are,” Lord Radnor said. “Sherbourne, good day. The ladies have decided we’ll process to the tents in another half hour, and all good gentlemen are to present themselves below for escort assignments. Come along, both of you.”
“After you, Sherbourne,” Haverford said with grave politesse.
The duke was taunting his guest, for that’s how men were. Three sets of bootsteps moved toward the door, and Elizabeth gently reshelved the Bard among the biographies. She gave him a final pat—what a contribution he’d made to literature and language—and took the chair by the hearth, where she’d be in full view of the door.
The seat was well padded, the dimensions commodious, the whole sturdy and comfortable. A couple could cuddle in this chair, amid all these books.
Or a lady could take a moment to reflect on what had transpired in the past quarter hour.
What on earth was afoot between Haverford and Sherbourne? Lady Glenys had to marry somebody, and many a titled family sent their daughters into the arms of wealthy commoners.
Very wealthy commoners, with impeccable pedigrees, excellent manners, and spotless reputations.
Elizabeth resolved to further acquaint herself with Mr. Sherbourne, should the opportunity arise. Lady Glenys had awarded her the status of a friend, and friends didn’t let friends contract a mésalliance.
Of more significant interest was Elizabeth’s next question: Which of these many, many books should she take along to help her endure an afternoon of flies and flirtation?
And when might she and Haverford find another moment to trade confidences and stolen kisses?