The cooler air of the corridor granted Freddie clarity. Without Tristan nearby to muddle her senses, she was able to focus on his real aim in lavishing attention upon her. To distract her from her mission, to thwart her from finding the code book.

She clenched her hands. “Not today.”

Instead of making her way toward the wide marble steps leading to the guest wing, she turned toward the library. With Tristan occupied, this might be the only chance she would find to search it without being subjected to his scrutiny.

By now, the path was imprinted on her mind like rote. She kept to the center of the runner, her footsteps muffled as she avoided the fragile items on pedestals along the hall. She held her breath, for fear of drawing someone’s attention if she exhaled too hard. Although she passed several servants as she walked, they each stepped to the side to let her pass without comment.

At last, she reached the library door. She ran her fingers over the wood for a moment before grasping the handle. If this journey had been different, she might have been able to lose herself in one of the many magnificent books beyond this door.

She gritted her teeth and chided herself. Stop it. You can’t afford to be fanciful. If she was wishing her life to be different, she might as well wish Harker out of it. And she knew exactly how to do that.

Inside the library, a fire burned in the wide hearth. The air was stale with cheroot smoke, a bit bitter of a smell. The armchairs, facing the fire, were vacant. All around the room, shelf after shelf of books soared as far as her eye could see.

“How am I supposed to find the book in here?”

That would be the point, a clever way of concealing the sensitive code book in plain sight. She squared her shoulders and decided to start to the left of the door. The two stories of wall-to-wall bookcases taunted her, but she refused to shy away from a bit of hard work.

Harker had told her that the book she sought was encased in red-dyed leather, the size of a pocket book with a gold seal on the front. She hadn’t thought to ask what the seal would depict. Hopefully, she didn’t find two books that met that description.

Looking around the room, filled with books primarily brown, she laughed. It was a low, bitter sound. She would be lucky if she found one book meeting that description, let alone two.

You’ll never find it if you don’t search. She crouched to start on the lowest shelf, running her fingers over the spines as she searched for a slim red volume. As she found no such volume, she moved her way up the shelves to the top, beneath the shadow of the balcony ringing the room. Although she was tall, the topmost books eluded her. She needed the ladder. She dropped the ladder on her foot and nearly toppled one of the shelves, but eventually wrestled it into place beside the door. Her stomach dropping somewhere in the vicinity of her shoes, she climbed.

When she stepped high enough to read the glimmering gold lettering on the spines of the books, reflecting the cozy light of the fire, she ran her hand along the shelf as far as she could reach, searching for the book. Not there. She hurried to the ground, all the while afraid that she would trip. Her luck held.

So she continued around the room. She wasn’t always as lucky coming down off the ladder. In fact, she managed to rip the lovely lace of her hem and nearly land on her face at one point. She pulled out books and slid them back into place, but found no red book with a gold seal. By the time she searched the bottom story and mounted the steep, narrow steps to the balcony, the late hour caught up to her. Her jaw cracked with the force of her yawns, coming thicker and thicker. Stubbornly, she continued in her task, even though it meant looking at books two or three times to make sure she hadn’t missed the one she sought.

She didn’t find the book. Dejected, she sat on the top step of the spiral staircase leading down from the balcony. If it wasn’t in the library and Tristan didn’t keep it in his rooms, where had he put it? Her head swam as she contemplated the dilemma. She was too tired to piece together another likely hiding place. She would have to think harder.

Tomorrow. Tonight, all she wanted was to take one of these lovely books into her room and lose herself in its pages. She’d even set aside her choice, a tale by Mrs. Radcliffe that she hadn’t read yet. Clasping the book in her hand, she rose and gathered her hem over one arm to keep from tripping over it. She descended the stairs carefully. When she reached the bottom, she sighed.

She turned toward the door, and for a moment, her heart skipped a beat as she saw Tristan standing there.

No, not Tristan. Lord Gideon. Her eyes were deceiving her. In the firelight, his short, disarrayed hairstyle and the regal cut of his features made them nearly interchangeable. But Lord Gideon was nearly a head taller, without shoulders nearly so wide in proportion to his frame. She clutched her book to her chest, but didn’t relax knowing that it wasn’t one of the traitorous brothers who had happened upon her.

Was Lord Gideon a French spy, as well? She hated suspecting every member of Lucy’s family, but her interactions with Tristan made her wary. She didn’t expect a traitor to be devoted to his family. Was it possible that a recluse who spent more time with plants than with people had also defected to France?

Unlikely. Harker had only mentioned the eldest brothers.

Even so, she couldn’t rid herself of the strange notion that she’d been found out. Lord Gideon’s gaze was piercing. As he beheld her, his expression turned impassive. He stepped into the room and shut the door.

Belatedly, she recalled his status of a lord due to his parentage. She dipped in a shallow curtsey, still clutching the book. “My lord.”

“I didn’t expect to find you here.” His voice was soft, but sharp at the same time.

She gulped. “I came for a book.” A beat later, she hefted her prize, proof.

Lord Gideon narrowed his eyes. For a man with so absent an air on the other occasions she’d encountered him, he now seemed alarmingly present. Not to mention astute. Did he know, could he know the extent to which she and his brother were at odds?

For a long, drawn-out moment, he said nothing at all. Then, in that same stiff, quiet tone of voice, he warned, “Don’t play with my brother’s heart. He’s fragile.”

Tristan, fragile? The corners of Freddie’s lips twitched. Her mirth died a quick death at the forbidding expression on Lord Gideon’s face. He meant his words.

If so, he obviously didn’t know his brother very well. A strong, rakish man like Tristan couldn’t possibly be fragile. If there had been a crack in his armor, Freddie would have found it by now.

She straightened her spine. “I assure you, I have no intention of doing anything at all with your brother, least of all with his heart.” His black heart. “Good night.”

Her pulse galloping, she brushed past him into the hall. He made no move to stop her, but long after she’d passed out of sight, the hairs on her neck stood at attention, as if she was being watched.

This house party might be the most lauded one of the Season, but Freddie, for one, couldn’t wait for it to be over.