“That’s...” It was an enormous bloody understatement. He’d met the lady at a society soiree, and she’d invited him to assess some items she’d inherited from her mad collector uncle. But the moment they’d stepped into her opulent library alone, she’d all but accosted him.
He wasn’t opposed to liaisons with widowed noblewomen, but there’d been no spark of attraction with Lady Goddard, and he didn’t fancy being in the same room with her ever again. Though he hardly wished to explain why to his sister.
“Please. It shouldn’t take long. But she’s determined to flog any books that might fetch her a good price.”
Dom nodded in the middle of Eve’s explanation. “Very well. I’ll go.”
“Thank you.” She beamed and he could all but see her shoulders rise as if a burden had been lifted from them. “I’m off then.”
He rested his hand against the doorframe after closing it.
“Steaming hell and bollocks.” How could he determine a time to visit Goddard House when her ladyship was not at home?
Even if he had felt a glimmer of attraction to the lady, the last thing he needed before departing for Norfolk and a dig that could put him in the annals of notable discoveries next to his father’s name was some ill-fated flirtation.
Best get this favor done posthaste so that he could focus on the dig.
Chapter Two
Tess Hawthorne’s first sign that the day would not go as she’d planned was the stopping of her pocket watch. The bevel-topped, etched-case heirloom had ticked along comfortingly for all the years since her late father had gifted it to her, urging her to conquer her tendency to overcommit and stop showing up tardy to one of her many charity events or to the house of someone in the village who she’d promised to visit.
Since taking short-term employment in London, it had become a daily reminder of home, not to mention a useful device to ensure she got to Lady Goddard’s elegant town house on time.
This morning, like every day of the past week, she’d rushed out of her boarding house, caught the omnibus heading toward Hyde Park, and glanced down half a dozen times at the watch’s face, as if it was more talisman than timepiece and could somehow help her get to Mayfair at precisely the right moment.
But the last time she’d glanced down, the clock’s hands had stalled where they’d been minutes before. She’d wound it this morning as she always did. The watch had never failed her. She shook it as forcefully as she dared, considering its age and preciousness to her. All to no avail.
The stopping of the watch felt like an omen of events to come, and despite her aim to be logical in nature, she couldn’t help but give in to a bit of the superstition that her twin, Tristan, and those back in her village were prone to.
Yet the moment Mr. Newby, the kindly white-haired butler at Goddard House, bid her good day and took her coat and gloves, she felt a bit lighter.
London was flush with watchmakers. She’d get her watch looked at and hopefully repaired, but now that she’d arrived, her mind was fully on the task at hand.
Lady Goddard had hired her to catalog a vast collection of books and documents inherited from an uncle who’d fancied himself an antiquarian. Tess relished the task, never knowing what she might uncover. Secretly, she hoped to find something that would further her father’s life’s work—penning a history of Norfolk, which she and her brother continued writing whenever they could.
Nothing had popped up yet, but she held out hope. After all, the county had seen habitation by the Romans, the Angles, the Danes, and been subject to Viking raids, so its history crossed paths with that of many others.
Though she realized her ladyship’s goal was to pare down the collection and discover any pieces that might fetch a substantial price with a book or antiquities dealer, Tess found something interesting in every book, every scrap of paper the noblewoman’s uncle had collected.
So, after parting from Newby, she strode eagerly toward the library, ready to immerse herself in the day’s work. But as she neared the door, she slowed, a frown tugging at her brow. The door was ajar.
Tess always made sure to pull the door shut when she left each afternoon as Lady Goddard entertained in the evenings. Her ladyship had mentioned a desire that none of her guests visit the library until Tess had put the whole jumble she’d inherited into some kind of order.
But even more disturbing than the half-open door were thenoises emanating from the room. A clattering thwack interrupted the quiet of the town house. And then after a brief silence, the same awful sound again.
Tess pushed the door open and her heart dropped to her boots. She clutched at her stomach as a sudden queasiness took hold. She struggled to make sense of the sight before her. Books—a horribly disorganized pile of those she’d organized over the past days—lay on the rug in the center of the library. As she stepped inside another flew down to join the heap.Thwack.
Looking up, she saw a tall, broad-shouldered madman on the rolling oak staircase above her. He loomed overhead, one foot perched on the high rung of the stairs and his long arm reaching up to snatch another volume from the shelf. He was dark-haired and wore no suit coat, as if he was quite comfortable at his dastardly task of dismantling all she’d worked to put in order.
After retrieving one of Lady Goddard’s books, he flipped through its aged pages roughly and then reached out his arm as if to drop it down to join the jumble in front of her.
“Stop!” Tess’s shout echoed up to the high ceiling, and yet it still didn’t seem like enough. She reached out her arms, palms up as if she could push the book back up onto the shelf by sheer force of will. “Cease this instant!”
She’d startled the man with her shout. After a quick glance at her, he weaved on the staircase, then clutched its railing for balance.
All she cared about was the book and let out a tiny puff of relief that he still held it pressed against the frame of the staircase.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he barked down at her. He’d braced himself and shifted, subjecting her to a direct glare. “I could have fallen to my death.” He gestured toward the book-strewn carpet.
