The foyer of St. Bartholomew’s Teaching Hospital smelled faintly of chloroform and carbolic acid, no doubt from the countless medical students such scents usually clung to.

But tonight it also smelled of perspiration and perfume, and the odd combination of scents made Mary wish for the comforting smell of a library instead, with its books and leather covers and aging paper. Good heavens, even a flower garden and the scent of peed-upon roses would be better than this. Her feet hesitated. Twitched to turn around.

But she couldn’t embarrass herself or Mrs. Merial by bolting for the carriage so soon, not when they’d scarcely gone ten steps inside the hospital.

“Are you excited about this evening, Miss Channing?” her chaperone asked over one shoulder. Mrs. Merial began to thread her way through the crowd, beckoning for Mary to follow. “It seems to be quite a crush. It is quite exciting to see so many people turn out for a benefit for St. Bartholomew’s.”

“Er . . . yes.” Mary swallowed. “Quite exciting.” At least, she hoped the skittering of her stomach was excitement over the thought of hearing her favorite authors speak.

It could also be dyspepsia. Or the fact that Eleanor’s blue gown and tightly laced corset made her feel dreadfully exposed.

She glanced down at the swell of her breasts, pushing rudely up above the neckline of Eleanor’s gown. Her mind promptly began to catalog all the ways she might embarrass herself tonight. She could trip and fall on her face. She could bend too far to the right and give someone a peek down this disastrously low-cut bodice. She could . . .

She could die.

All right, perhaps that was less her overactive imagination and more wishful thinking. But she could faint . . . and in a crowd such as this, that was very nearly the same thing as dying. In fact, the dreadful pinch of her sister’s whalebone corset made fainting seem like one of the more pleasurable prospects for the evening.

She wished for the tenth time since leaving Eleanor’s house to be wearing her own serge day dress and her ordinary, front-lacing stays. But there was no help for it now, so she drew as deep a breath as she could manage and forced her feet to follow Mrs. Merial down the teeming hallway. As they stepped into the lecture hall, she cringed to see the number of people already there. Still more poured in behind them, pushing them forward.

A crush, Mrs. Merial had called it. How appropriate. She’d never before seen anything grander than a Yorkshire house party, and the knowledge of just how many people surrounded her here tonight made something akin to panic bloom, bright red, in her chest. Smells pushed in, silks heated by warm bodies, a dozen different perfumes, applied by too-liberal hands.

She closed her eyes. She’d never faced such a mob before.

Couldn’t imagine surviving it. And yet, she must. Eleanor and Julianne and Patrick pitied her. Worse, she was beginning to think she ought to pity herself. And that meant tonight, she needed to prove she was capable of a fun adventure or two.

Even if her dinner ended up splattered across her borrowed silk slippers.

“Miss Channing?”

Mary opened her eyes, startled, as Mrs. Merial placed a steadying hand on her arm.

“You look a bit pale.” The kindly woman cocked her head. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Mary tried to find a smile. “Just excited, as you said.”

And suffocating in this corset.

Mrs. Merial studied her, a concerned pinch to her brow. “Perhaps you should sit down now. Catch your breath.” She motioned to a nearby seat. “I’ll need to leave you here, I’m afraid. My duties as hostess require me to introduce the authors tonight, which means I must be down at the front, by the lectern.”

Mary swallowed. She was to be left . . . alone? A protest hovered on her lips. She wanted to follow Mrs. Merial down to the front, or else ask her to stay up here, where the crowd was thinner and the air was likely less toxic. But even as those thoughts swirled, she felt ashamed. For heaven’s sake, she was twenty-six years old, a grown woman. Mrs. Merial was the hostess of the event tonight, a role that came with a good deal of responsibility and she didn’t look the least bit nervous. The least Mary could do was muddle her way through without complaint, no matter how her palms were starting to perspire beneath her gloves.

“Yes, please go on,” she blurted out. “I will be fine.” She jumped as someone bumped into her from behind. “Crowds just make me a little nervous.”

Mrs. Merial’s eyes softened. “It should settle down in a moment, once the authors take the stage. But if you find you need a quiet moment, the hospital library is just down the hallway, to the left. It is one of my favorite spots at St. Bartholomew’s, full of the most amazing old books.” She hesitated. “And it should be safe enough for you to be there, as long as you keep the door open.”

Mary nodded. The knowledge that there was a book-filled room somewhere, to which she might retreat—or hide, if need be—made her feel a little better.

But as Mrs. Merial headed toward the front of the room, the skittering of her stomach intensified. Because, in the space of that brief conversation, the empty chair Mrs. Merial had pointed out was now taken. Mary turned in a circle, looking for a seat that wasn’t already occupied, seeing none nearby.

And then it was too late. Mrs. Merial was addressing the crowd, offering a warm welcome. A gentleman who could only be Mr. Dickens stood just behind her, his beard full and bushy, his curly hair in wild disarray. People who had yet to find a seat began to fight their way down to the front.

Mary felt an elbow in her back, vicious and sharp. A stranger’s hand flailed too close, ripping a patch of lace off the sleeve of her borrowed dress. Suddenly, it was all too much. She may have come here tonight to see her favorite authors and to prove to Eleanor that some spark still flickered inside her, but the thought of what she must endure first was overwhelming.

She needed to breathe.

She needed to leave.

And as it had nearly her entire life, the library posed her only chance for sanity.

West arrived late—not an unusual feat, given his propensity to sleep the day away, but a fact for which his sister, Clare, would likely have his hide.

But instead of taking his seat, which would seal his fate, he stood morosely at the edge of the crowd, wishing for something more interesting in his immediate future than the gaggle of authors down front and the misguided fools who had come to adore them. God’s teeth, but it was crowded here tonight. The room was packed elbow-to-elbow, giving him no hope of recognizing anyone, even should he know them intimately.

If Grant were here, he was sure his friend would have ideas for how to liven the place up. Pass about a flask. Flirt with an aging dowager and tweak her on the bum. Catcall a pompous author or two. But West wasn’t going to embarrass his sister like that.

Not in public, at any rate.

Grinning to himself, he scanned the swollen crowd. Tripped over an isolated whisper of rich blue silk. Swung back for a second look.

Well now, this was more interesting. One woman stood apart from it all. He had no idea who she was, but he hoped to remedy that in due course. She was standing about thirty feet away, too far to make out her features, but he could see shining brown hair and a gentle curve of hip flaring out from a slim waist, all things that quite begged for a man’s undivided attention. There was no gentleman on her arm, no scowling chaperone hovering close by.

Which meant she was a widow, perhaps. Safe for proper pursuit.

Grant would have already been heading toward the woman in blue, sniffing out her availability, turning on the rakish charm. But in spite of his own marked interest in furthering an acquaintance, West hesitated. He had come here tonight because his sister had asked this favor of him. There was also the small matter of guilt. A good many former sailors and soldiers sought much-needed care at St. Bartholomew’s charity wards. By being here tonight, by purchasing his ticket and showing his support, he was doing what he could to ease his conscience. He certainly hadn’t come to indulge some nonexistent appreciation for the fine arts, or to chase a pretty set of skirts. Bolstering the coffers of the hospital was the real point in his participation tonight, not actually listening to the authors.

But now that he’d seen the woman in blue, he was torn between very different loyalties.

Like a moth drawn to a gaslight, he moved toward her, even as the author readings began in earnest down at the front of the room. He might go to hell for this singular distraction, and would likely earn his sister’s ire and a cuff on the ear.

But he was willing to risk it if it eventually earned him a spot in the mysterious woman’s bed.

Although . . . if the woman was here, it stood to reason she liked books as much as his sister did. Well, he’d pretend to have read some of Mr. Dickens’s blathering books, if he needed to. Recite a line of terrible poetry or two, and pretend they weren’t actually drinking songs he’d learned from Grant.

As he drew closer, however, the woman turned and hurried out of the lecture hall. Perplexed, West followed, his top hat tucked beneath one arm. A sense of unease settled over him as he stepped out of the doorway. The hall was devoid of a single other soul, save the woman in blue, and she was drifting away from him, deeper into the bowels of the dark building.

West frowned. A woman alone could not be too careful. Someone who understood the ways of the world would not drift toward the hall’s shadowed edges, oblivious to her surroundings. And now that he was closer, her shape looked . . . familiar.

Odd, that.

She turned into an open doorway, just to her left. West was confused—and intrigued—enough to follow. As he stepped through the door, his nose caught the distinctive smell of aging paper and leather bindings. The open curtains of the room draped the space in late evening shadows, and illuminated shelf after shelf of books, but he scarcely needed more light to realize their location. They were in the medical library.

A sense of anticipation returned. Perhaps she knew what she was about.

He did love a tryst in a library.

And it could fit, he supposed, with the theme of the evening. If this was a woman whose romantic yearnings were stirred by Charles Dickens, perhaps she might wish to be pleasured against a shelf of books?

She was facing away from him, staring up at one of the thick shelves of books, running a finger across their bindings. He moved closer, until he could see the long curve of her neck, the delicate knob of each small bone marching down to disappear into that temptation of a dress.

He cleared his throat.

She whirled around, a book clutched in her hands. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of him, and she jerked backward. Bumped into the bookshelf.

Jumped forward two feet and dropped the book in her haste.

West fought back a sympathetic chuckle as she scrambled to find both her balance and a proper distance from him. But he felt no guilt in the matter. Her surprise could be laid at her own feet. She really ought to pay more attention to her surroundings. He hadn’t exactly been silent as he’d followed her down the hallway.

The sense that he knew her sunk its claws in more deeply. He let his eyes trail across her curves, probing the delicate swell of her décolletage. Grant might catalog memories of women’s feet, but West nearly always remembered a woman’s breasts. All signs pointed to this one’s bosom being of the ordinary variety, and the gentle rise of flesh sparked little by way of memory. Yet, the sense that he knew her had hold of him now.

Had he already had her, on another night? In another life?

It pained him that he couldn’t remember.

Perhaps he and Grant had been on a few too many binges of late. What good was drunken revelry if one didn’t remember the good parts?

“Do . . . I know you?” he asked, genuinely curious. He took a step toward her, and then another, and then followed her as she edged away from him toward the window. It was getting dark enough he’d have liked to light one of the lamps on the reading tables, but then, the evening shadows seemed to suit her.

“No,” she choked out.

“Would you like to know me?” he teased.

That seemed to pluck a string inside her. “That is quite close enough, sir,” she said, her voice terse and angry. “Have you come to urinate on the books, too?”

Awareness flared. God’s teeth. He remembered now. How the white linen of her nightclothes had draped against her body. How he had teased her, and how she had squeaked in protest. It was the woman from Ashington’s garden. And whoever she was, she was no one’s maid. A servant would have said “piss” or “piddle”, not “urinate”. This one’s words were too polished to belong to a servant.

And her tongue seemed intent on lashing him with insults instead of kisses.

“You are the girl,” he said stupidly. “From the garden.”

“Scarcely a girl. Older than you, I’d wager.”

West took a step away from her, intending to give her space. Even angry, her voice was close to trembling—it was obvious he made her uncomfortable. He probably ought to leave her alone. Only, some devil made him stop short of actually leaving. His hand reached for the library door. He glanced back at her speculatively. Something about the set of her lips made him want to soften them. To do that properly, he needed a bit of privacy.

The door swung shut with a flick of his wrist.

Her gasp echoed in his ears. The color had fled her cheeks, but her eyes . . . ah, those were a reckoning, narrowed in his direction and spitting fire. “You, sir,” she said, her voice gaining in strength and confidence, “are no gentleman.”

“Strong words, coming from the lady who just led me on a merry chase down a deserted hallway.” He waited a beat, then let his smile spread across his face. “And who even now waits for me behind a closed door.”

“I did not—” She stopped abruptly, clenching her fists. “I am not—” She drew a breath, and then lifted her sharp chin. “I did not lead you anywhere, and you well know it. And do not suggest that you are doing this to teach me a lesson, as you did yesterday morning in the garden. I did not ask you to close the door. Open it, please.” Her chin poked higher. “Or someone might form a misimpression of our association.”

The understanding that she didn’t want him did little to assuage the fact that West wanted her. Worse, it was hard to countenance the impulse. Up close, she was hardly a great beauty. Pretty enough, in a plain sort of way, but then, London was full of plainly pretty girls who hardly turned his head. He usually preferred women who were a bit more generous in their curves and less pointed with their barbs. But she was interesting, he’d give her that.

More interesting than Dickens, certainly.

Bugger it all, what was he doing? He had followed a plain and innocent mouse into the library, and then shut the door on the world outside.

And in spite of the idiocy of such an action, he wasn’t quite ready to open it yet.