Chapter Three
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At half past six, they broke off their search, not having found anything the least Duke-ish in nature. Magdalene logged their progress with Daunt pacing behind her. “Level one, section two, shelf five has a copy of the Principia I suspect may be an early edition.”
“Really?” He headed for the shelf in question. She remained far too aware of him. It made her feel a girl again, full of impossible hopes and dreams. He returned with the Newton, turning pages. “Hmm.”
“Here.” She handed him the memorandum, and he used the key fastened to his watch chain to lock it in the drawer.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m famished,” he said.
The idea of dining with fifty or more strangers was too much to contemplate. “A quiet meal in my room and some minutes to enjoy peace and quiet before returning to the search seem ideal to me.”
“But of course.” Daunt relayed the necessary instructions to a servant before taking up a lamp to escort her to her room. She easily kept pace with his long-legged stride. It was one of the advantages of being a tall woman.
Accession Day at Vaincourt was worse than she’d imagined and everything she’d dreaded. On their way, they passed a dozen splendidly dressed ladies and gentlemen heading downstairs to the dining room. One of the women was extraordinarily beautiful, with hair the color of gold and a gown of pale pink and blue. As far as Magdalene could tell, Daunt took no notice of her. Soon after that, they were obliged to dodge a giggling woman who emerged from a room and raced down the corridor, an equally elevated gentleman in pursuit.
Daunt drew her closer. “I promise you, there is no one where you are. There’s a back way to the library. I’ll show you after I’ve done my duty downstairs.”
“Thank you.”
They walked several more minutes, took another staircase up, then turned down a narrower corridor than the others. The sounds of revelry and laughter lessened considerably. Left, then left again, and then they reached a corridor that terminated with three steps up to a door painted dead black.
“Here we are!” Daunt opened the door wide enough to admit her.
“Oh,” she said when she entered. “What a charming room.”
“I did hope you’d like it.”
“I do. Exceedingly.” The southern wing of the house was distinctly Tudor, and her room was a pristine example of the period. Carved wainscot matched the oak squares on the ceiling. Where the walls were not covered with gorgeously carved wood, they were white plaster with a hint of lavender. The three sets of high diamond-paned windows arched and met in points at the top.
There was only one other door, which she presumed must lead to the bedchamber. On a side table by the windows was an enormous arrangement of fragrant roses, carnations, and wisteria.
“Later in the night, you’ll likely hear the owls. They nest in the trees outside your windows.” He pointed, though he stayed near the door. His hair was adorably mussed, and a hint of beard darkened his jaw. He wasn’t the eighteen-year-old boy she’d met after moving to Plumwood as Angus’s bride. Harry Fordyce was a viscount now, a man fully grown, and so perfectly beautiful it seemed unfair. Despite his elevation in rank, he remained as kind and thoughtful as ever, nothing like his father.
“That sounds lovely.”
“You are welcome to dine here if you would prefer, of course,” he said, “but we could dine in the library. I’ve given orders that the library is off-limits, so we shall be private. No Accession Day visitors, I promise you.”
“Perhaps I shall.”
“If you do join me and don’t go back the way we came, take those first stairs down, three rights, a left, a right, a right, and you’ll come out near the library. It’s a longer walk, but a more private one.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll have Gomes bring dinner for two. If you come, I shall be glad of it. If not, we’ll eat your dinner later.”
“Oh, so you want my dinner as well. I understand now.” His prodigious appetite was always a subject of amusement between them. “Dining in the library does seem the most efficient choice.” That was true, positively and absolutely. “Less work for the staff as well. They must be overwhelmed with all these visitors.”
Daunt nodded. “I’m to give my toast to the health of the populace at seven. Come to the library at, say, half past seven, and the food will be hot. Does that give you sufficient time?”
“Thank you, I believe it shall.”
He bowed and showed himself out.
Now that Daunt wasn’t here with his size and beauty taking up her ability to think properly, the room was quiet and soothing. She went to the windows and gazed out at the section of a lake with trees all about, just glimpsed through the trees closer to the house where the light was just hinting at dusk.
She wanted to be at Plumwood where everything was familiar and nothing happened to shake her out of her routine. Here, who knew what would happen? Daunt’s good intentions notwithstanding, she might encounter any number of strangers. If she did, it was a virtual certainty that she would say or do the wrong thing at some point.
She rested her hands on the sill and breathed slowly. She was familiar with Daunt. Comfortable. At ease. With him, she could be herself without fear. As long as she kept her new awareness of him under control, all would be well.
Her maid, Tilly, came in from the bedroom. “Did you have a pleasant stroll from Plumwood, ma’am?”
“We stopped at St. John’s for a while.” She left the window to bend over the flowers and breathe in the scent. St. John’s was the cemetery where Angus was buried. “I’m to dine downstairs with Daunt. In the library.”
“I know just the gown.”
Magdalene knew better than to argue. Her present frock, donned this morning without any thought of calls from viscounts, was not grand enough for dinner at Vaincourt. Before long, Tilly had her dressed in gray silk with slippers dyed to match.
“Hold still,” Tilly said. “Let me do something with your hair.” She produced a comb and drew it through Magdalene’s short curls. With the best made of her fine hair, Tilly draped Magdalene’s best shawl over her shoulders. It had once been cream-colored wool but had been dyed black. Over time, the color had faded and was now light enough to pass as a deliberate match for her gray silk.
They both turned when someone tapped on the anteroom door. Tilly put away her comb and straightened Magdalene’s shawl.
“Lord Daunt, mostly likely,” Magdalene said. “He must have forgotten to tell me something.” A stir set up in the pit of her stomach at the prospect of seeing him again. This reaction must be dealt with and dealt with firmly.
Tilly, however, announced someone she did not know, a Mrs. Taylor, who proved to be the woman Magdalene had glimpsed earlier when she and Daunt were on their way here.
She curtseyed to this vision in pink and pale blue silk. With her golden hair and blue eyes, she was a veritable confection of English beauty. “Good day. Evening.” What did one say to such a woman? “I am Daunt’s neighbor.”
“Goodness, you’re tall. A giant among women.” Mrs. Taylor smoothed the bodice of her lovely gown. “I hope you do not mind I’ve come to introduce myself. I thought we might go down to dinner together.”
“No.” She did not know Mrs. Taylor, nor why she’d come here to find fault with her for being tall, or why she wanted to go down to dinner together.
The other woman swept in and kissed the air just above either of Magdalene’s cheeks. Her perfume smelled divine. “When I heard you were here, I came immediately. I am convinced we shall be the very best of friends.”
Magdalene managed a smile, and that seemed to satisfy the woman.
“Now, when you’ve changed to something more suitable, I should be happy to show you the house,” Mrs. Taylor said. “Shall I wait for you?”
There was a brief silence that threatened to be uncomfortable. She did not do well with strangers. Her pulse was racing, and she had to concentrate on breathing slowly. “I have been to Vaincourt many times.”
Mrs. Taylor’s perfect eyebrows rose. “Have you?”
“Yes.” She did not make friends easily, and on top of that general anxiety, she resented the woman for coming here without warning or introduction. She rarely went out, but even she knew the woman’s visit was presumptuous. “The previous Lord Daunt knew my husband. As did the current one.”
“Whatever the reason you are here, Mrs. Carter, I must warn you I am determined to shake Daunt out of his doldrums. He simply cannot be allowed to slip into a deeper melancholy.”
Magdalene let out a breath. She would get through this. “What melancholy?”
“I intend that Lord Daunt shall be sufficiently cheered and entertained and therefore kept from undue depression of his mood while he is here.” Her smile was blindingly lovely, but the thought flashed into Magdalene’s head that there was some degree of cunning there.
“Undue.”
“I have been considering the best methods of entertaining him.”
“There are festivities.”
“Yes. For the locals, who are so very charming. There is dancing tonight. That should be quite jolly.”
“The weather was fine today.”
“Yes, wasn’t it? The young ladies who have arrived so far are not, how shall I say this, first in fashion. But they are handsome, robust examples of the beauty to be found only in the English countryside.”
“There are festivities.”
“My dear Mrs. Carter.” She smiled kindly without actually looking kind, but that often happened to her in situations like this, when she was forced into conversation with strangers with no chance to prepare herself. “Gentlemen are always diverted by youthful beauties arrayed in their finest, Lord Daunt most of all, as I am sure you are aware.” She looked Magdalene up and down again. “Perhaps not. Daunt tells me he does not intend to attend the ball.”
She lifted her hands and then was not sure she had appropriately conveyed her confusion. Now what?
“You cannot know Daunt well.”
Magdalene blinked. “I suppose not.” The admission pained her, but one must face the truth with stoicism. “He did not seem sad this morning.”
“You saw him this morning? Where?”
“Home.”
“What an honor to have Lord Daunt condescend to call on you. And when he is host to so many people!”
“Yes.” She was more and more puzzled about the reason for the woman’s visit and increasingly anxious that the conversation was continuing in this pointless manner. “An honor.”
“He requires entertainment.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Taylor grew serious. “Dear Mrs. Carter, if you knew him as I do, you would know that since his father’s passing, he is dreadfully changed.”
“Changed.” She winced. Even to herself she sounded awkward. She never had any trouble conversing with Daunt. With strangers? Such encounters never went well.
“He has completely withdrawn from society.” Mrs. Taylor took a turn around the room, stopping every few steps to touch something, the table, a gilt-framed etching, which she set askew, a bird’s nest on the mantel.
Magdalene could not stop herself. She went to the etching and straightened it. She also returned the bird’s nest to a less precarious position.
“Now he’s come here, where there is no one who is a friend and confidante, and where, as charming as the country can be, there cannot possibly be sufficiently elevated entertainment.”
“It is Accession Day. There are festivities.”
“In London, Daunt entertains constantly. The most brilliant people. Artists and scholars, learned men, beautiful women. But here? There is nothing to keep him diverted. I am gravely concerned.”
“Gravely. Yes.”
Mrs. Taylor took both of Magdalene’s hands in hers and leaned back for another examination of her. A frown marred her perfect features, and while it lasted, Magdalene wondered whether Mr. Taylor remained among the living. Upon the heels of this followed an inappropriate curiosity about just how intimate was the relationship between Daunt and Mrs. Taylor. “Trust me in this matter. I know what’s best. Daunt and I have a great deal in common, as I am sure you have guessed.”
She seized on that as something to break her out of her conversational paralysis. “Are you a member of the Bibliomania Club?” Perhaps that was how she’d come to know Daunt so well. The club had at least one female member. Mrs. Taylor might be another female member.
The woman’s smile reappeared. “He left London directly after the last meeting of the club. Other members have also dispersed. I fear they may soon disband from whatever falling-out occurred. Did Daunt tell you?”
The woman’s sly question gave her pause, and for the first time, her anxiety settled enough for her to make a deliberate, considered response. “Tell me what?”
“One worries when one’s particular friend leaves behind everyone capable of entertaining him.”
Magdalene smiled weakly.
“You are in colors again, aren’t you?” Mrs. Taylor fingered the edge of Magdalene’s shawl. She stepped out of reach. “I do hope so, for I would not wish him to be reminded of his recent loss, and if you are not out of mourning, why, you shan’t fit in at all.”
“I rarely do.” The color of her clothing was completely immaterial to Daunt, of that she was certain. Why anyone else would care was also mysterious.
“Men declare themselves baffled by a woman’s interest in fashion.” Mrs. Taylor shook her finger at her, then began another turn around the anteroom. “I promise you they understand and applaud the effect.” She examined a rather dreadful painting of a dragon poised to devour a knight. “A gentleman may tell you he does not care what colors ladies wear, but it is not true.” Mrs. Taylor walked away with the painting listing to the left and stopped near the windows.
Magdalene straightened the dragon painting, and when she turned again, Mrs. Taylor was staring at the flowers on the table. “Those flowers.”
“Are in a vase.”
Mrs. Taylor’s upper lip twitched. “Entirely inappropriate, I fear.”
“How so?” Should they be simply lying about on the table? What nonsense.
“They are excessive and the wrong color.”
From Daunt’s supposedly dangerous melancholy to parties and the colors of ladies’ gowns and now on to flowers? “Flowers are the colors they are.”
“Yes,” the woman said.
If those sly and cunning glances hadn’t convinced her, her disapproval of the flowers did. They were not destined to be friends.
“This is not the sort of bouquet one gives a grieving widow.”
“Yes. I am.” Her heart lurched. She wanted very much to sit down. “A widow.”
“Naturally, I inquired about you, Mrs. Carter. You must not be shocked that I know who you are.”
“I am Lord Daunt’s neighbor.” Behind her back, she clasped her hands hard. Her palms were damp. She was better focused now that their conversation had turned to flowers. There was relevant history to relay. “Daunt says Vaincourt’s gardens are superior. I dispute this.”
“I went for a stroll shortly after I arrived to enjoy the beauty that is Vaincourt. I can tell you categorically that Vaincourt’s reputation is well deserved.”
“Nevertheless, the gardens at Plumwood are without parallel.”
“Plumwood. Do you mean the charming cottage a forty-minute walk from here?”
Forty minutes? Unless the weather was inclement, which it was not now, the walk between Plumwood and Vaincourt never took longer than twenty minutes. “That is likely.”
“I agree the gardens there are lovely. What I saw of them.”
“You have been to Plumwood?”
“I do believe so. Entirely by coincidence, I found myself passing the most charming cottage. Such a lovely little house. So cozy and rustic.”
“Daunt claims Vaincourt’s gardens are superior to Plumwood’s—”
“I’m sure they must be.” Mrs. Taylor seated herself on the only chair. “Vaincourt is renowned for its history and beauty.” She considered the flowers, which, yes, must indeed seem excessive to a casual observer. “My dear… You do not understand.”
“I believe I do. The flowers are beautiful and extravagant exactly as Daunt intended.”
“Daunt makes extravagant gestures whenever he has ulterior motivations.”
“He hasn’t got those.”
Mrs. Taylor laughed, and it was a beautiful, compelling laugh.
“The colors of a bouquet can only come from what is in bloom.” Magdalene squeezed her fingers. She’d talked enough. Too much. “Daunt is making a point.”
“How droll you are.” Mrs. Taylor let her amusement fade. “Perhaps you understand more than I gave you credit for at first.”
With that, the conversation took another sharp left. “Droll.”
“When he wants something, no gesture is too grand.”
“The flowers are a point, not a grand gesture.”
“Are you really so naïve?”
“No.”
“I hope you do not think he intends to have an affair with you.”
Magdalene was too horrified to speak. In a sideways sort of way, she had been thinking that. About that. Not that it would happen, but the remark hit uncomfortably close to home.
“He is responsible for those flowers, so I daresay you were an expected guest rather than one who merely arrived.”
“You arrived from?”
“London, of course. I must say you strike me as far too sweet and gentle a woman to understand men and their motives.”
“Motives. Again, motives.”
Mrs. Taylor rose and faced Magdalene from across the table. “Motive is all that matters.”
“I do believe I understand the motives to which you refer. I have a son who was conceived with a great deal of motivation.”
“With your husband.”
“Yes. Good heavens, who else?”
“Do you agree Lord Daunt’s interest in you is limited to your knowledge of books?”
Now a sharp right. “Books. Yes.”
“And so, my dear Mrs. Carter, given your infamous husband—”
She stiffened. “Infamous?”
“Given your most infamous husband, you must be aware of the very real possibility that Lord Daunt intends to seduce you—”
“Are you mad? You must be.”
“Lord Daunt is a rake. As charming and delightful as he is, that is indisputable. Every tolerable-looking woman in London has a story to tell of him.”
“Why would Daunt seduce me, then?”
“Oh, you poor, dear woman. You are too precious. You are a widow, and Lord Daunt is an accomplished flirt and an even more accomplished lover. I adore him for both reasons. But surely you see that those flowers prove he invited you here for the purpose of obtaining one of the Dukes.”
The reason for those sly looks came into sharp focus. “You mean De Terris Fabulosis.”
Mrs. Taylor smiled slowly and with altogether too much satisfaction. “I presume you found the book in your husband’s collection.”
She made a show of consulting the watch pinned to the bodice of her frock. “You must go now. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
“If you’re wise, you’ll heed my warning about Daunt.”
“You must go now.” She met the woman’s gaze head on.
Mrs. Taylor curtseyed and headed for the door. Once there, she paused. “I hope you will do everything you can to convince Daunt to attend tonight’s celebration. His happiness and good spirits depend upon it.”
“Good night, ma’am.”
When she left, in a cloud of perfume and the rustle of silk, Magdalene stared at the door for some time, very much worried that Mrs. Taylor was a bibliophile of the ruthless, cutthroat sort.