Chapter Nine
The countess was waiting in her rooms when Daisy returned to Holloway House. She looked Daisy over, took a sniff, and wrinkled her nose.
“You smell like horse. I feared as much, so I took the liberty of having Collette draw you a bath.” She nodded to the little maid, who hurried into the tiled bathing chamber to add more hot water to the porcelain tub. “But before you bathe, I must have a word with you.”
Daisy unbuttoned her jacket, wondering what she’d done now.
“You do know that Lord Ashton is no friend of your efforts to find documentation of your lineage?”
“Of course, I know that,” Daisy answered crossly, though she couldn’t say who annoyed her more at the moment, the countess or herself. She tossed her jacket aside and started on her blouse buttons.
“He’s a wastrel, a womanizer, and a high-liver,” the countess continued, “whatever his academic credentials.”
“I know tha—What ‘credentials’?” She paused in the middle of disrobing, frowned, and fixed her gaze on her long-suffering mentor, who seemed pleased to have her undivided attention.
“I did some checking while you were dillydallying with that beast of yours. Apparently he has been awarded degrees by the university; they’ve actually made him a doctor of philosophy. He studied further at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Heidelberg University. Each place, he cut a wide swath through the local society. I fear he may try to use his glib tongue and fancy education to worm his way into your confidence. Or worse.” She wrung her hands, looking quite unsettled. “There are those who say he is utterly without morals or conscience.”
Daisy stood stock still, staring at the countess but seeing Ashton Graham’s slow smile and I-know-what-you-want look. She scowled.
“You needn’t worry about me, Countess. Once bitten, twice shy.” She stalked into the bathing chamber and closed the door forcefully, but not before she heard the countess’s anxious voice.
“You’ve been bitten? Where?”
The bathtub was steaming nicely by the time Collette left her to soak in deliciously rose-scented water.
“Idiot,” she muttered. She’d come within a hair’s breadth of scandal earlier. What if his old school friend had walked in on them kissing? Her eyes widened. Or was that the plan? Let someone catch them kissing, and ruin her reputation. In the eyes of upper crust society, a girl who would kiss a man she wasn’t engaged to would do any number of immoral things. How could she have forgotten? How could she have been so . . . so . . . susceptible?
She looked down at her bare body and answered that one.
She just was. It was the way she was made, whether her mama and fancy-pants society liked it or not. It was her burden to bear, the flaw in her body and soul: vulnerable to temptations of the flesh. Was it marked on her somehow? She often wondered that. She ran hands over her face, shoulders, and arms. How did he know? And he knew. She was certain of it.
The last thing she needed was that velvet-tongued devil hanging around, occupying her thoughts and haunting her senses. And he was—after that kiss—haunting the edges of her thoughts and expectations. And desires.
Continuing her self-examination, she admitted that her moment of decision in the barn had been a fraud. Down deep, she had known it wouldn’t settle anything between them, that it would only tempt her and encourage him to more of the same. She had enjoyed it, damn it, just like she knew she would. She had reveled in it, right down to the way her toes curled in her boots.
And it danged-well couldn’t happen again. Ever.
* * *
The Bodleian Library was a warren of stone-clad buildings that nestled near the Radcliffe Camera, an ornate circular building that had come to represent the collections that made the library one of the scholarly prizes of the Western world . . . so they were informed by the countess on the ride over. They led a reluctant Uncle Red into the arch and column-lined reading room that now occupied the main floor of the Radcliffe. Professor Huxley was waiting and led them out and down the street to the main entrance of the venerable Bodleian.
“More walkin’,” Red grumbled, trudging along the ankle-turning cobblestones. “All just to sit in a room with a bunch o’ books.”
“This is necessary, Uncle Red,” Daisy said, slipping her arm through his. “We have to prove whose blood runs in my veins.”
“It’s yer blood, girl.” Red glowered. “How could it be anybody else’s?”
The Radcliffe they had just left, the professor explained, had become little more than a reading room. The major collections were now housed in the halls and storerooms of the buildings Bodley himself had endowed . . . which turned out to be a fancy way of saying he’d paid for them.
It was something wealthy people did on both sides of the Atlantic: pay to put their names on buildings.
They rambled through hall after ornate hall while the professor narrated the history of each. Even the countess’s hat feathers were drooping when they finally came to a plain rectangular hall crammed with ranks of bookshelves jutting from the walls. Oak reading tables and glass cases holding open books and documents were clustered in the center of the hall. Shaded windows and the few overhead lamps provided inadequate light. It was a dim, quiet place with a musty, old-book taint to the air.
“These are the historical collections,” Huxley said quietly, requiring them to lean in to hear him as he beckoned them along toward one of the glass cases. “Where my source material resides.”
He peered into the case, squinted, and craned his neck to scan the documents under glass. Then he snapped upright, looking distressed.
“Where is it? The charter? The king’s restoration document—it was right here. The roster of nobles signing to pledge allegiance to the crown—” He bustled off in search of “that cursed librarian,” leaving them to cool their heels.
The countess sat down primly at one of the tables, and Red groaned and sprawled beside her in a chair, propping his feet on the table. The countess narrowed her eyes and nudged his shoe to insist he remove his feet from the table. It took a second, more forceful push to make him comply.
Minutes passed before the professor reappeared with a nervous-looking minion of the library who kept trying to explain that the Huxley Collection had been removed to secure storage. The professor was having none of it.
“I gifted this institution with the work of a lifetime,” Huxley said, drawing himself up in outrage. “The crème de la crème of British historical scholarship. The empire’s intellectual lifeblood. You cannot simply lock such documents away in a vault!”
“A vault?” Red sat up with a jerk. “Fer what?”
“Papers dealing with the monarchy and empire,” the countess informed him in clipped tones. “Apparently some documents are considered too precious or too delicate to be stored on mere shelves.” She gave a dismissive wave at the overburdened bookcases around them.
“Papers. Humph.” Red slouched back into his chair in disappointment.
“Surely, Professor, you could ask that some of your papers be brought out for us to have a look?” Daisy entered the fray, turning her best smile on the library assistant, who was wringing his hands. “If the professor asked for certain documents, you could get them for him, right?”
The little assistant swallowed hard and glanced over his shoulder, caught between the professor and another dire but unnamed force.
“Of course he could,” came a deep voice from the entrance.
Daisy’s heart sank toward her stomach. Him again. Ashton strode straight into the middle of the threesome and turned the assistant by the elbow. “I’ll be pleased to help.” He propelled the little fellow quickly down the aisle between the ranks of bookcases. “I know my way around the historical collections. I can pick out exactly the things the professor will need.”
“Really, Mister Graham—” Daisy snapped, taking several steps toward them before he and the librarian disappeared around a corner. The sound of a substantial door slamming stopped her from following.
Professor Huxley seemed relieved to have his former student pursuing a solution to the problem, muttered, and seated himself to wait. Daisy paced between the bookshelves, glancing at the leather-bound books, ribbon-wrapped folios, and collections of journals all around her. Somebody had put numbers and letters on everything, and out of sheer boredom she pulled a book from the shelf to inspect.
The typeface was ornate and difficult to read. She was still trying to make sense of it when the sound of a door opening and heavy footsteps drew her back to the center of the hall.
“This is a disgrace.” Ashton strode down the aisle carrying armfuls of leather folios tied with ribbon. Behind him came the gray-faced assistant laden with books and more folios. When he reached the table where the countess, Red, and the professor sat, Ashton laid the documents out carefully, then turned to Huxley. “You won’t believe where they’ve put your collection. A charwoman’s closet. In with the mops, buckets, and brooms.”
“Shelf space is at a premium—” The assistant was overwhelmed.
“A charwoman’s closet? Priceless documents—the writings of kings and details of the monarchy itself are treated like discarded penny papers?” Huxley bounded to his feet and glared at the trembling assistant, who hastily emptied his arms of items and wisely gave no excuse. “I must see the head librarian,” he roared at the assistant. “Now!”
As the professor stormed out with the assistant in tow, Ashton turned his attention to the folios he’d rescued and ran a hand over the heavy covers. He stared in horror at the residue left on his fingertips. “Mildew. Dear God.” He opened one packet and gingerly slid the documents out onto the table. His eyes widened. “Look at this. There should be cotton weave between each page, and you can smell the must. Damn fortunate we came today—another two months and the damage would have been irreversible.”
Daisy leaned in to pick up one of the documents and he quickly blocked her hand with his. “Not without proper gloves.”
“I’m wearing gloves,” she said, glaring at him, recalling their first, shocking encounter. “I always wear proper gloves.”
“They’re kidskin,” he said, meeting her glare with one of his own.
“The best danged kidskin money can buy.” She raised her chin.
“Leather contains oils. You need plain cotton to protect the documents.” He produced two pairs from his inner breast pocket and thrust one at her.
“Gloves for reading?” Horrified, she looked to the countess, who merely blinked what was probably Morse code for “shoot me now.”
“These documents are rare and must be handled carefully,” he said, donning his own gloves. “Some are hundreds of years old. The pigments in the inks are susceptible to light and moisture and are already in a perilous state. Much more of this neglect and the work would be lost forever.”
Daisy grudgingly removed her leather gloves and donned the ones he provided, staring between him and the pile of books and documents that might hold the key to her family’s past and her future.
“How do you know about ink and documents?” she asked.
“I studied under Huxley at Queens. When researching history, you have to learn about handling old sources of information, old documents.”
Daisy watched him lay out the pages, inspecting each for what he hoped not to find. He seemed truly worried about the papers . . . not the kind of thing she imagined would bother a high-living rake like him. He seemed perfectly at ease checking the documents for damage and checking curled edges for pliability. And those supple, long-fingered hands . . . she could almost imagine them curling and uncurling around . . .
She crossed her arms and took a step back from the table.
The books had fared better than the loose documents. One hefty volume on the offspring of Charles II bore the name of Broadman Huxley on the spine. As Ashton selected it and leafed through the thick pages, Daisy couldn’t help edging close to peer over his arm. Remembering the feel of it tight around her, she barely managed to keep her hands tucked firmly beneath her arms.
“Does it say anything about Charlotte Fitzroy?” she asked, her voice higher than usual. She swallowed hard and edged back several inches.
“I believe there may be some mention of—” He paged through the front, paused, and then flipped quickly to the middle of the book. “Ah. Lady Charlotte Fitzroy Lee, Countess of Lichfield.”
“What does it say about her?” Daisy was suddenly consumed with curiosity and forgot the need for distance. “When was she born? Where did she live? Did she have children?”
“According to Huxley she was contracted in marriage in the year 1644, at the age of nine years,” he read aloud.
“What?” Daisy grabbed his arm to pull the book closer and see for herself. Her eyes widened on the line he indicated. “That’s—disgusting. Marrying off a child? Who would do such a thing?”
“Her parents or guardians, one must assume,” he said dryly. “However, she wasn’t actually wed until two years later.”
“Two? But that would make her . . . eleven, at most twelve years old.” Daisy frowned. “But surely they didn’t—they wouldn’t have made her—”
“Presumably they did.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Because she gave birth to her first child at thirteen.”
The countess’s gasp echoed in the hall. “That poor, poor child.”
“How old was the beast they married her to—thirty-five?” Daisy grabbed the book from Ashton, scanned it, and looked up in disbelief.
Lord Ashton-with-the-smoldering-eyes gave a slow smile. “Her beast of a husband was all of thirteen years old when they were married. He fathered a child on her when he was not yet fourteen. It seems both the men and women of your lineage start young.”
“Assuming she is an ancestor of mine. There was a second Charlotte Fitzroy, after all. What does the book say about her?”
He took the book back, went to the front, then turned to a page near the one they had been reading.
“‘Lady Charlotte, Countess of Yarmouth,’” he read. “‘Born to Elizabeth Killigrew Boyle in 1650 and acknowledged by HRH Charles the Second. She married the Honorable James Howard, by whom she had one daughter. In 1672 she married William Paston, who inherited his father’s title and became the Second Earl of Yarmouth. By him she had four more children.’”
“She sounds respectable.” Daisy bit her lip, appalled by her thinking.
“Really? Yarmouth fought two duels over her ‘virtue.’”
She winced. “Well, at least she had her children within a marriage.”
“Not exactly a high standard.” He flipped back a few pages. “Charlotte, the Countess Lichfield, and her first and only husband, Edward Lee, Earl of Lichfield, lived together for forty-two years. Together they had eighteen children. As opposed to the Countess of Yarmouth’s paltry five.” He gave her a taunting smile. “Your odds of finding an ancestor probably lie with the more fertile Charlotte.”
Daisy took a step back, her jaw drooping. “Eighteen children? The woman was brought to childbed eighteen times?”