moment seemed to last forever, and yet it was over much too soon.
Then he’d made her a dashing bow, bid her adieu, and strolled away with Messier’s Catalogue of Star Clusters and Nebulae, leaving Alexandra holding an insipid book of stories for “obedient girls.”
End of scene.
Or at least, it should have been the end.
Alex resolved to scrub the encounter from her mental slate, but Penny—the incurable romantic among them—wouldn’t allow it. Since he hadn’t given his name, Penny anointed him with increasingly ridiculous titles. First he was merely the Bookshop Rake, but as the weeks wore on, he made a rapid ascent up the rungs of the peerage. Sir Read. Lord Literature. The Duke of Hatchard’s.
Stop, Alex told her again and again. That was ages ago, and I haven’t thought of him since. He certainly hasn’t thought of me. It was nothing.
Except that it wasn’t quite nothing. Some idiotic corner of her memory embellished the encounter with rainbows and sparkles until it resembled . . . something. Something too mortifying to ever admit aloud, even to Penny, Emma, and Nicola. In truth, Alex avoided admitting it to herself.
From that day forward, whenever she visited Hatchard’s—or the Temple of Muses, or even the Minerva Library—she looked for him. Imagining that they might collide once again, and he would confess, over afternoon tea that lingered into dinner, that he’d been haunting the bookshops, too—hoping to meet with her. Because, naturally, in those two minutes of painful one-sided conversation, he’d divined that an incoherent, clumsy, working-class girl small enough to fit into the average kitchen cupboard was everything he’d always yearned to find.
You’re exactly what I’ve been searching for.
Now that I’ve found you, I’ll never let you go.
Alexandra, I need you.
Common sense, feh.
Alex worked for her living, setting clocks in the homes of wealthy customers, and she didn’t have time for dreams. She set goals, and she worked to achieve them. Feet on the ground, shoulders squared, and head on straight.
She would not—absolutely not—be carried away with romantic fantasies.
Sadly, her imagination ignored this memorandum. In her daydreams, the afternoon tea led to walks in the park, deep conversations, kisses under the stars, and even—Alexandra’s dignity wilted just thinking of it—a wedding.
Truly. A wedding.
Do you take this man, Anonymous Bookshop Rake with Horrid Taste in Children’s Literature, to be your wedded husband?
Absurd.
After months of attempting to quash this madness, Alex gave up. At least the fantasies—foolish as they might be—were hers to keep secret. No one else need ever know. In all likelihood, she would never meet with the Bookshop Rake again.
Until, of course, the morning that she did.
The morning began in the same way as most of Chase’s mornings lately. With a tragic demise.
“She’s dead.”
He turned onto his side. As he blinked, Rosamund’s face came into focus. “What was it this time?”
“Typhus.”
“Charming.”
Using the sofa’s upholstered arm for leverage, he pushed to a sitting position. As he did so, his brain sloshed with regret. He rubbed his temples, ruing his behavior the night before. And his licentiousness in the very early morning. While he was at it, he decided he might as well regret his entire misspent youth, too. Clear a bit of his afternoon schedule.
“It can wait until later.” Once his head ceased ringing and he’d washed off the cloying scent of French perfume.
“It must be now, Daisy says, or else the contagion could spread. She’s preparing the body.”
Chase groaned. He decided it wasn’t worth arguing. Might as well have it done with.
As they began climbing the four flights of stairs to the nursery, he interrogated his ten-year-old ward. “Can’t you do something about this?”
“Can’t you?”
“She’s your little sister.”
“You’re her guardian.”
He grimaced, rubbing his throbbing temple. “Discipline isn’t one of my particular talents.”
“Obedience isn’t one of ours,” Rosamund replied.
“I’ve noticed. Don’t think I didn’t see you pocket that shilling from the side table.” They reached the top of the stairs and turned down the corridor. “Listen, this has to stop. Quality boarding schools don’t offer enrollment to petty thieves or serial murderesses.”
“It wasn’t murder. It was typhus.”
“Oh, to be sure it was.”
“And we don’t want to go to boarding school.”
“Rosamund, it’s time you learned a harsh lesson.” He opened the nursery door. “We don’t always get what we want in life.”
Didn’t Chase know it. He didn’t want to be guardian to a pair of orphaned girls. He didn’t want to be next in line for the Belvoir dukedom. And he most assuredly did not want to be attending his fourth funeral in as many days. Yet here he was.
Daisy turned to them. A veil of dark netting covered her straw-colored curls. “Please show respect for the dead.”
She waved Chase forward. He dutifully crossed to her side, bending down so that she could pin a black armband around his shirtsleeve.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. So very sorry. You don’t know how sorry.
He took his place at the head of the bed, looking down at the deceased. She was ghostly pale and swaddled in a white shroud. Buttons covered her eyes. Thank God. It was damned unnerving when the eyes looked up at him with that glassy, empty stare.
Daisy reached for his hand and bowed her head. After leading them in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, she poked Chase in the ribs. “Mr. Reynaud, kindly say a few words.”
Chase looked to the heavens. God help him.
“Almighty Father,” he began in a dispirited tone, “we commit to your keeping the soul of Millicent. Ashes to ashes. Sawdust to sawdust. She was a doll of few words and yet fewer autonomous movements, yet she will be remembered for the ever-present—some might say permanently painted—smile on her face. By the grace of our Redeemer,
