Chapter Two
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From Plumwood, Vaincourt was a twenty-minute walk along a tree-lined road. They detoured to the cemetery where Angus was buried to pay their respects, so their journey took closer to an hour. On the way, she and Daunt chatted about books and their chances of finding even one the Dukes, let alone all four. She hardly thought at all about having to deal with strangers. With luck and some effort, she could avoid everyone but Daunt.
In what seemed no time at all, they arrived at the two stone pillars that marked the entrance to the estate, one topped by a stone falcon, the other by a bear. The doors of Vaincourt were another five-minute walk past groomed lawns and gardens, many, many times larger than Plumwood. The Accession Day crowds had already begun; people from the nearby villages strolled the grounds in every direction.
The house itself, which never failed to impress when she saw it, was a sprawling edifice of three stories with wings projecting north and south from the original building. They entered via a side door for which Daunt produced a key, and proceeded straight to the library.
The Vaincourt library was lozenge-shaped with two stories of shelves built into the walls and carved woodwork around and between. The geometrically spaced areas of wall were hung with paintings or smaller, daintier shelves of curious items. Three chandeliers provided sufficient light for those reading or perusing the contents. Desks, chairs, and sofas were arranged around the fireplaces at either end, and scattered in between were more places to sit and read.
She came to a stop about halfway in. “May I ask what in the great mysteries of the world you are doing?”
For some reason, he’d cleared out the entire bottom of one of the shelves and left the contents stacked precariously high on the floor. Magdalene reached the first stack of books on the floor and took a slow turn, soaking in the surroundings. Shelves and shelves of books. It was glorious. When she was done, she eyed the stacks of books on the floor. Daunt was no fool. If he was searching the shelves, it was because he had reason to, and that meant only one thing. “Oh. Oh dear.”
“Yes,” he said. “Exactly.”
Once again, she scanned the shelves.
“You begin to see the scale of the problem.” He let out an aggrieved sigh. “The books were to be left in the crates and were not.”
Indeed, she did see the problem. “They were shelved.”
“Randomly, from what I have been able to ascertain. I have located a few from the shipment. Thus far I see no pattern to how they were put away.” He gestured at the floor. “The head footman says he thought the man who gave the instructions traveled here with the wagons, but it could just as easily have been anyone. Someone else said it was a woman who countermanded me. Whatever the case, the workers were told to shelve the books, and they did so. If Gomes hadn’t been busy with Accession Day, this would never have happened.” Gomes was his butler, a former soldier whose bad humor and general unpleasantness had become stuff of legend.
“I presume you gave no such instructions.”
“I did not.”
“I don’t suppose the library catalogue was updated?”
“Of course not.”
Magdalene shook her head. There was no need to tell Daunt what he already knew; those instructions had been deliberate sabotage.
“Other than outright theft, one could not find a better way to delay my finding the Dukes than this.” He faced her, disconsolate. “The Dukes, if any were in that shipment, may already be gone. I am broken by the possibility, Magdalene. Broken.”
A horrible thought occurred to her. “Did this interloper gain access to the crates long enough to examine the contents?”
“If he came with the wagons, yes. If he arrived here under some pretense, perhaps not.”
“From whom did you obtain the books?”
“W. Stanley & Co.” W. Stanley & Co. was a leading purveyor and auctioneer of antiquities, including books. It was highly reputable. It was impossible that the company had been involved in such a scheme.
Like Daunt, she scanned the shelves once again. Their path was clear. “We have no choice but to proceed as if the Dukes are here.”
“Agreed.”
“We can but hope.” She dusted off her hands. “In the meantime, to work.”
Daunt brought over a chair and placed it by the desk. “I’ll bring you a stack.”
Magdalene cleared her throat. He had brought her here because she was known for her levelheadedness and meticulous planning. “A suggestion?”
“Please.” He sat, slumped, on another chair. His hair was mussed, and there was a lock of walnut hair curling over his forehead. “Apply every atom of brilliance you possess to my situation.”
She lifted a hand to prevent interruption. The library was huge, but their surroundings seemed intimate just now, with the farther reaches of the space in shadows. She felt a girl, again, finding herself close to a man she admired and who was far too attractive for mortal man. Delightful, delicious frissons of girlish hope and despair swirled through her. This would pass. It must. She shook off the sensation and applied herself to the task at hand.
“We divide the shelves between us. Complete that one, since you have begun there.” She gestured to include the panel of shelves he’d been working at. “I’ll begin with the adjoining one.” She pointed. “You that one. Etcetera.”
He nodded.
“Counting the shelves, thus.” She turned toward the door and pointed to the rightmost shelves. “Level one, section one, two, three, and so on. Level two, section one, etcetera, etcetera.”
“I have the evens, you the odds.”
“Agreed. We must also log our progress.” She stared at the shelves and then at the books Daunt had taken out.
“I recognize that look,” he said. “What is it?”
“From what Angus said, the Dukes are not terribly large. Ten by seven, roughly.” She indicated the size with her hands. “Angus told me about a rare manuscript he found hidden inside a butter churn. Another time, he found a quite valuable manuscript affixed to the back of a painting.”
“The MacAllan Register.”
“As you have realized already, we can presume nothing about the condition of any of the Dukes. They may be in their original glorious condition, or they may have been unbound and left that way, or bound as if it were some other book entirely.”
“Anything is possible. Anything.”
“The only assumption we can safely make is that it’s unlikely the Dukes are smaller.” She held up a finger, arrested by a truly horrifying thought. “Unless the pages have been cut.”
Daunt blanched. “There are collectors who are scoundrels, as you well know. They think nothing of lying or cheating to get what they want. Then there are those who do not know a rare book from their right foot.” He leaned against his chair. “The thought of someone coming here and stealing a book, any book, sickens me.”
“I too.”
“The thought of someone cutting down—mutilating!—a work of art such as Liber Ducis de Scientia, it’s beyond understanding.”
Magdalene leaned over and squeezed his arm. “If the Dukes are here, we shall find them.”
“I do appreciate your enthusiasm.”
“I have one last suggestion.”
He rested a hand over his heart. “You’ve done your worst, suggesting the Dukes may have been damaged beyond repair. And for reasons that beggar understanding.”
“Every book within our prescribed parameters must be examined, but with luck, the signs of a recently handled book yet remain. Observe the dust, or whether it appears any volume has not been disturbed since it was placed there.”
“Yes, yes.”
She reached into the pocket of her frock and withdrew the memorandum and pencil she kept on hand at all times. “This, my lord, is why Angus insisted one must never be without a pocket memorandum and a pencil. Allow me.”
She sat at the nearest desk, far too aware of Daunt but in control of herself. She numbered the lines. “One through twenty-seven. Bottom floor. Twenty-eight through fifty, top floor, it being smaller.” Daunt braced one hand on the desktop to her right and leaned over. She ignored the fluttery sensation in her stomach and drew a narrow column to the right of the numbers. “Mark each row as we complete it. D for Daunt, C for Carter. Here we leave space for notes.”
“Why?”
“One never knows.” She wrote D/C over the narrow column and notes/remarks over the other column. “It is wise to document anomalies, anything peculiar, or simply a reminder of a task to be completed at another time.”
“I foresee only one problem,” he said.
“That is?”
“There is only one pocket memorandum between us.”
“I have additional memoranda. I shall make you one modeled after this pattern. This one shall be designated the master.” She walked to the nearest desk and rattled one of the drawers. “We require a suitable location in which to keep it. A drawer that securely locks would be ideal. Is there a key?”
He gave her an odd look, then joined her and extracted a tasseled key from the drawer she had rattled. “Behold.”
She placed the pencil and the notebook inside and closed the panel. He reached over and locked the drawer. “You’d best keep the key, my lord.”
“Very well.” He unfastened the tassel and affixed the key to his watch chain.
She tilted her chin to look at him, and she felt another of those peculiar tugs in the center of her chest. “If the Dukes are indeed in this library, they have been bound with some quotidian title that hides the true contents.”
He braced a hand on the mantel. “A History of the Dormouse in Southwest Dorchester Parish.”
“Parliamentary Debates 1778 to 1779.”
He laughed, and when he smiled like that, women must surely fall in love by the dozens. Angus had once remarked Daunt was a favorite of the ladies. She’d just nodded and not given it another thought.
“Dr. Maxwell’s Treatise on the Most Efficacious Methods of Sheep Shearing,” he added.
“All I know of that subject is a collie dog is required.” She was momentarily diverted by the possibilities. “I now have the most ridiculous image of a sheared collie.”
“Poor little dog.” Daunt straightened his coat and then his neckcloth. “Is it straight?”
“It’s only me here, Daunt. I don’t care if your neckcloth is crooked.”
“I do. Saints in the Time of Edward II.”
“It’s straight. I promise you.” Magdalene propped her chin on her palm. “If you come across that, be sure to set it aside for me.”
Daunt shook his head in mock dismay.
“Come now,” she said. “You’d do the same.”
“I would.” Daunt glanced at the pile of books he’d left on the floor. “We shall have to look at every blessed one.”
“To work, then,” she said.