The next day, seated in one of Lord Chilton’s Collection Rooms, Bridget hummed a discordant tune as she oversaw her new responsibilities. Charged by Vail’s man-of-affairs and brother with inventorying a complete set of Dante’s Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, she recorded the dates and cover condition of each volume.
Over the years, she’d found occasional work evaluating the authenticity and worth of certain documents for a book buyer in London. In a world where women were remarkably without options, she’d appreciated that small gift. Tucked away in the country, with Virgil and Nettie, that existence had been the best she could hope for—for all of them.
As a young woman, she’d never dared allow herself the dream of a husband or children. One of the only talks she recalled ever having with her mother had been a bored, quick explanation about the fate that awaited deaf women: husband-less, child-less, and purpose-less. That future, the late marchioness had insisted, was even more bleak for one with a crescent-sized, crimson birthmark marring one’s face. She’d been told so many times by her kin that no man would ever want her, that she’d simply believed it as fact.
Until Vail.
Bridget paused in her writings. Her lips burned still with the memory of his kiss. Dropping her pen, she raised trembling fingertips to her mouth. He’d kissed her. It had been the most erotic moment of her entire seven and twenty years. One she’d thought to never know. And as he’d kissed her, exploring the curve of her neck and the sensitive flesh of her earlobe, she’d understood, at last, why women tossed away their reputations and virtues. Vail’s embrace had been a potent spell that she’d gladly have traded a sliver of her soul to know more of. She briefly closed her eyes. Only, it hadn’t been solely his kiss that had this eddying effect on her senses. He’d implicitly trusted her judgment over his own. Why, even Mr. Lowell, whom she’d sought out all those years ago on the one trip she’d taken to London, had resisted hiring her for several days. She, with her brother’s strong-arming as a marquess, had ultimately earned the position, but she’d had to continually prove herself. How very different Vail was even of all others she’d ever known. He was the manner of man Virgil had deserved as a father…
Giving her head a little shake, she returned to the task at hand. A wistful smile played about her lips as she set aside one canto and, with her gloves donned, she reached for the next. She picked up the heavy leather copy of Inferno. With slow, meticulous movements, she laid the book on the velvet cloth before her and opened it, turning to the year of publication.
Comento di Christophoro Landino fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Dante Alighieri Venice Pietro di Piasi
Her fingers trembled at the significance of the date. It was the first fully illustrated print edition. A book older and more valuable than anything she had personally owned, and in Vail’s possession. It was just another mark of his wealth and influence…only—distractedly she turned another page—he was not one of the powerful lords who collected these treasured works.
“Impressive, is it not?” the loud question sounded from the doorway.
She turned to greet Mr. Winterly. He came forward, a smile on his face. However, she did not miss the intent way in which he studied her handling of Dante’s work. His jade-green eyes had the ability to pierce a person’s thoughts and rattle one’s nerves. “Forgive me,” she said quickly. “I did not believe we were scheduled to meet—”
He waved off her apology. “I was here for an appointment with His Lordship.” Vail. “I merely thought I’d pay a visit to see how you fare with your new responsibilities.” He worked his astute gaze over the columns she’d completed that morning.
In short—he was checking on her.
She could hardly fault him for the diligence with which he oversaw his brother’s collections. He and Vail were wary enough to not blindly trust a person who’d only just entered the baron’s household. It made her task in locating the Chaucer all the more difficult and lengthened the amount of time she’d be forced to remain.
“What do you think?”
She followed his nod to the heavy leather tomes. “The set is magnificent,” she said softly.
“It will fetch a heavy sum.”
Despite it being best that Vail remain a stranger to her, a need to know more about him won out. “His business is very important to him,” she observed.
“It is.” But for his height and jade-green eyes, the gentleman, with his wiry frame and halo of blond curls could not be more different than Vail. And yet, he lounged his hip against the table with the same casual elegance. “Far more important than the title he received.”
Their world driven by birthright and rank existed to keep out all those not born to that cold, cruel world…and yet he’d found himself titled. “How did he become a baron?” she asked, unable to keep the question back.
“His Lordship received the honor in recognition for his services at Waterloo. A score of French soldiers were riding at Wellington and Vail…His Lordship prevented that attack.”
Her fingers curled reflexively. “He is a war hero,” she said blankly.
“Yes.” Mr. Winterly grinned and dropped his voice to a whisper. “But never allow him to hear you say as much. Quite despises all the fanfare.”
She briefly closed her eyes. She’d been set to steal from a man who’d saved Wellington’s life, returned from war to establish his own business so he might care for twelve siblings, and he didn’t care to speak of his accomplishments? Her heart pounded hard. Vail was a bloody paragon; a man larger than proverbial life. His greatness when presented with her total inability to look after the two people in her care, only highlighted the weakness and ugliness of her own character.
Edward pulled out his timepiece. “If you’ll excuse me. I have a meeting with His Lordship.”
“Of course.”
As he tucked that gold chain back inside his jacket, something he’d said earlier registered. “You said would,” she blurted.
Having taken several steps, Vail’s brother again faced her, his brow creased.
She hurried to clarify. “It is just you’d said the collection would fetch a heavy sum: not, will. He does not intend to sell this one, then.”
Mr. Winterly offered a half-grin that was also very much Vail’s lazy smile. “My brother is known as a ruthless businessman who believes every book can be bought and sold.”
She worried the inside of her cheek with her teeth. What did it say that Edward would describe Vail as ruthless? After all, she’d observed her own brother and read Society’s writings of him in the gossip columns to know he was referred to in the same light. Aware of Mr. Winterly’s gaze on her, she met his stare. “How very unfortunate to go through life where everything only ever exists for a profit.” She’d but a ramshackle cottage and meager possessions to her name and, yet, she still appreciated the gifts in those books she was fortunate enough to touch.
Edward frowned. “Being a ruthless businessman does not mean my brother is without a heart. Most nobles would use their fortunes on frivolous pursuits and scandalous activities.” And yet that was not his brother. His statement hung there at the end of the sentence as clear as if he’d spoken it. “His Lordship cares for men, women, and children, who, until recently, were nothing more than mere strangers. Some who are still nearly complete strangers. So occasionally, from ruthlessness comes good. Vail is one of those circumstances.”
That impassioned defense spoke to the depths of Mr. Winterly’s regard for his brother…and his respect. If a pistol had been placed to Bridget’s temple with an order to name a single redeeming aspect of her own brother’s character, she’d have said a prayer and prepared to meet her maker.
With Mr. Winterly’s words ringing in the room still, she looked to Dante’s collection. “He’s kept this one, though,” she ventured, more than half-wanting Vail’s brother to explain the baron’s connection to this set.
Mr. Winterly nodded. “He indicated this was special and it was to remain out of the auction.”
Bridget curled her fingers into reflexive balls. It was as though the Devil himself took vicious glee in taunting her. Of course, of all the works Vail might keep, he should hold on to this allegory of human life that had long served as a warning for individuals to stay on a path of righteousness. She should let him go. Let this topic die. In the end, her need to know proved too great. “Do you know what made him keep this one?”
Mr. Winterly shrugged. “Who can ever say what he is thinking? That is a question best reserved for His Lordship. I’d come by to determine whether or not you require anything, Mrs. Hamlet?” he asked, his meaning clear: he’d not share any further details about Vail with her.
She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
He nodded and, with a short bow, left.
Bridget stared after him long after he’d gone, considering the significant pieces he’d revealed about Vail Basingstoke, Lord Chilton.
How different he was from every other peer.
Vail was a nobleman who’d established a lucrative and prosperous business. His very life was anathema to everything she’d believed about how gentlemen lived their lives. Her brother and late father had lived extravagantly, wagering away fortunes and frivolously spending coin where there was none. Even when their wastrel ways had strained the Hamilton’s coffers, placing them nearly in dun territory, they still had never sullied their hands with trade.
Vail, however, revealed no shame in the work he did. That depth of character set him apart from the reprobates she’d been—and still was—unfortunate enough to call family.
And he did it for his family. Absently, she flipped through Dante’s Inferno. That blasted, dangerous heat inside her heart flickered to life. Despite her greatest efforts for it to cease, it continued to expand and grow, leaving her warm from the inside out. For Vail was not solely a man driven by material gains. He was a man who’d, according to his brother, grown his fortunes so he might help his kin find stability in an uncertain world.
And I will betray him. She paused, mid-turn of a page.
Lucifer’s woodcut image stared mockingly back; that bearded, horned demon with all the sinners about him.
Working with treasured tomes and manuscripts had been all too easy to make believe that this was, in fact, real…that she was here to assist a bookseller with his collections. And after that nighttime exchange with Vail where, for one breathless moment, she’d known his kiss, she’d seen neither hint nor hair of him.
She’d simply slipped into the role of a worker in his employ, living in this fictional state. It was far safer that way. For the man he’d been in her short time here—the man who’d taken her in his arms, and shared parts and pieces of his family, who’d spoken of the brothers and a sister he cared for—made him dangerous. Just as Edward’s words from moments ago made it even more so.
It made Vail real and someone she respected and admired. Someone who deserved far more than a faithless housekeeper who’d come to betray him with an act of theft.
With wooden fingers, she collected the Inferno and turned page after page, and then stopped: on Canto XXIV.
Bolgia 7-Thieves
Remorse churning in her belly, she frantically scraped her gaze over the words written there of Dante and Virgil as they left the Bolgia of the Hypocrites.
Oh, God. Seeing her son’s name there, an ironic reminder no doubt from God Himself of her complicity in evil, intensified the shame and guilt cleaving at her. A chill iced the room, and she shivered, forcing herself to continue reading of those thieves being chased by monstrous serpents.
She froze on the story of the sinner, Vanni Fucci, bitten by a serpent at the jugular vein, to then burst into flames, and be re-formed in the ashes, only to face the same fate at the Devil’s hands.
Bridget pressed her eyes closed. Surely the ends justified the proverbial means? In committing this act of thievery, Archibald had demanded she sacrifice her honor, and she’d agreed. Yet, how great a crime was it truly to steal from a man richer than Croesus to save Virgil?
“I’m only attempting to make myself feel better,” she whispered, forcing her eyes open.
And failing miserably.