Four

Tea sloshed from her cup as she poured it, but that was only to be expected. Dawn had barely streaked the horizon when the blasted birds had started tweeting right outside Rosemary’s window. And it had taken her two hours to get to sleep last night, what with that ridiculously soft mattress, free of lumps. The pleasant smell of flowers from the bedside table. And the unending, bizarre, utterly baffling silence of the night.

Sirens might warn of approaching monsters in the dark, but silence surely cloaked them.

“How does anyone live like this?” Willa poked a finger at the tea service. Serviceable and plain, but still beautiful. Free of chips. Elegant. Just like the birds, Willa had come with the first streaks of dawn, having apparently heard via the village gossip that a librarian had taken up residence in the cottage at Kensey Manor.

“Happily, I should think.” Rosemary opened the little bowl by the teapot and let out an involuntary squeak. Sugar! And it wasn’t even Christmas. She scooped a heaping spoonful into her not-quite-steaming cup. “Have some toast.”

Willa had already taken a bite out of a slice slathered in marmalade and closed her eyes in bliss. “For a day or two, certainly. But don’t you think it would get boring? Never wondering what comes next? Never needing to work for anything?”

Rosemary’s gaze drifted to the middle of the small table in the cottage’s kitchen, where a shard of glass still sat. It had been stuck in the laces of her half-boots last night, and she hadn’t noticed until she’d had the lights on in here. “Oh, I daresay everyone wonders what comes next, now and then.”

Willa followed her gaze, and her brows knit. “I saw the window covered over with card paper when I walked up the drive. What happened?”

“Someone threw a stone through it.”

Her sister paused with the toast halfway back to her mouth. “Rosie, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. If you get hurt . . .”

As if she were afraid of random stones or the cowards who would throw them. No Cornish vandal could possibly intimidate someone from the roughest streets of London. Rosemary took a sip of tea and leaned forward. “A thousand pounds, Willa. One. Thousand. Pounds.”

Willa ran her tongue over her teeth. “It’s a fortune. More than we’ve ever brought in, combined. Even factoring in that diamond necklace Barclay lifted.”

“I know.” But that was the problem with stolen goods—they had to be fenced, and fences never paid full price. It was better when they had clients requesting specific things, but there were never enough of those. “We could find a place in a better neighborhood. Perhaps even all together. We’ve never all been together. We could send the little ones to school.”

Willa sat back, her eyes unfocused. “They could have a chance. A different life, if they wanted it.”

The words hung in the air like fog. How many times had they cheered for their life, their success in it, the fact that they were no worse off than the honest blokes in the factories and hadn’t had to work so hard to achieve it?

But they’d never really had other options—not really. If Jory could, though, and little Olivia . . . if they didn’t have to go through life ducking every time they heard a bobby’s whistle . . .

Willa reached for Rosemary’s cup, having not poured her own. “And with the greatest risks, right? Just be careful, Rosie. Even carefuller than careful.”

“I know. I will.” She picked up a slice of toast but then put it back down. Mrs. Teague had fed her last night, scowling the whole while, and had obviously slipped in this morning with the tray of food and tea. Rosemary hadn’t even heard her, which wouldn’t do at all. She must stay alert, on her guard. Rosemary Gresham, librarian. She couldn’t afford to slip, even for a moment. “I’d better head to the house. Get started. I’ve no idea what to do with that library, Will.”

Smirking, Willa polished off the last bite. “Maybe you should have sent Barclay here in your place.”

She snatched back her teacup and took a swig as she stood. “I am every bit the thief he is, and more. I read German.”

“Whoever would have thought it would prove useful a second time?” Willa stood too and grabbed a second piece of toast. “I’ll spend the day in the village, then come back here tonight to see you. Is there anything you need me to do?”

Give me a quick course on how books ought to be organized in a proper library? Rosemary downed the last of the tea from the dainty china cup and set it upon the table. “Nothing I can think of yet. I’ll let you know if there is.”

Willa paused with her hand on the door, surveying the kitchen much as she had twenty minutes earlier, when she first came in. “We could fit the whole family in this place—and they call it a cottage.”

Rather close to the thought Rosemary had entertained the night before when she’d followed Mrs. Teague over the darkened lawn and to the stone house set against the woods. It had five bedrooms—five! And electric lights. Hot water actually came from the tap when she turned it on in the bath . . . and the tub. The tub deserved to have sonnets written about it. In London, they shared a lavatory with the whole floor and counted themselves lucky if they managed to find time for a ten-minute bath—and that after hauling up their own hot water.

This had been pure bliss . . . and accounted for her lateness in retiring. Before the terrible quiet and too-comfortable mattress had kept her awake.

Willa narrowed her eyes and leveled a finger at Rosemary’s nose. “Don’t get spoiled. Even with a thousand pounds, we’ll not be that well off.”

“I know.” But she smiled as she grabbed up the linen jacket that matched her new dress. It was somber, beige, even had a border of the most boring brown plaid. But it was similar to what she’d seen other women wearing when she’d gone in search of Mr. Hall. “But it makes for a nice little holiday, doesn’t it?”

Willa grinned and opened the door.

The morning air was cool and damp—nothing unusual. But there were no traffic sounds. No crowds pushing their way toward the factories. And it smelled of . . . of . . . Rosemary sniffed. “What is that?”

Willa sniffed too. “Grass? Flowers?”

Bizarre. Rosemary enjoyed walking through a park, of course, but to be hit in the face with the scent of green life the moment she stepped out her door would take some getting used to. “It’s so quiet.”

“Even the village is—though not compared to this.”

They walked a few steps together before Willa turned toward the driveway. Rosemary lifted a hand to wave good-bye. “Have a good day, Will.”

Striking out along the brick path that led toward the kitchen, Rosemary adjusted the bothersome spectacles she’d nearly forgotten to put on and wished for the sound of the tube chugging by.

The kitchen door stuck, but she employed a hip to get it open and then collided with the rock-solid glare of Mrs. Teague, who stood beside a woman she’d been introduced to last night only as Grammy. The cook.

Rosemary produced a smile. “Good morning. Looks as if it’s going to be a beautiful day out there. To whom do I owe the thanks for the lovely breakfast tray?”

“Mr. Holstein for ordering it sent out, that’s who.” Mrs. Teague sniffed and spun away.

Grammy—who looked an awful lot like Mrs. Teague, now that Rosemary saw them both in morning’s light—offered a small smile but turned back to her pot.

Well then. She didn’t really want to linger here anyway. “Thank you. Now don’t mind me, I’ll just slip through to the library.”

No one stopped her, though she did hear the housekeeper mutter something about watching her. Rosemary aimed a departing smile at the older woman and wiggled her fingers in farewell. Let her watch. She didn’t intend to lift the silver, and the woman certainly wouldn’t be hovering over her shoulder in the library to notice anything she was interested in.

The manor house wasn’t so big that she could really get lost, especially having been shown this ground floor last night. She easily found the hallway with the library and Holstein’s study, the drawing room with the broken window, and a few other anonymous rooms. She headed for those terrifying double doors at the end of the hall.

Then paused outside Holstein’s closed study door. An unmistakable click-clacking came from within. The typewriter. Whatever he was writing, he was going about it quickly. Click, clack, ding, slide. And then again.

Rosemary shook her head and continued to the library. Much as he had done yesterday, she paused outside for a fortifying breath, then pushed open one door. A search of the wall showed her no convenient switch for producing light, and the lamps had no cords. But they were filled with oil, and matches lay nearby.

She took a few minutes to light each and every one she found sitting on tables or stands, that click-clack-ding echoing, muffled, through the room. Then she turned to the wide table that someone had cleared off for her. Though that only meant moving the stacks of periodicals from its top to the floor beside it.

Really, what did one family need with all this?

She picked up the valise she’d left in here last night, set it on the smooth tabletop, and paused.

A folded piece of paper rested in front of the single chair, Miss Gresham scrawled across it in an elegant but decidedly masculine hand. Warily, she reached out. A summons from the barrister? Or perhaps instructions from the master of the house?

She flipped it open, sinking down into the chair when she saw that the page was more than half filled with the neat, looping hand. Her gaze returned to the beginning.

Confession: I have trouble expressing myself in speech. A deduction I daresay you have made already on your own. But you raised an interesting question tonight about the point of literature, and I did want to discuss it.

I am by no means an expert, of course, but love of the written word runs deep in my family—also no great mystery to you, having seen the library. But I do hold fiction in especial esteem. Fiction is a way to express mankind’s deepest heart. His fears. His hopes. His failings. His successes. Fiction is truth . . . in a pretty wrapping.

Rosemary leaned back in the chair as she read the rest of it, as he spoke of The New Machiavelli, which she had picked up last night, and Wells’s way of speaking of Parliament. Of Moby Dick and the soul’s quest for God—adding that, yes, he had the complete works of Melville, and she was welcome to borrow them.

Her lips tugged up at that, especially when he went on to inquire about the brother she’d mentioned.

Barclay would have an apoplexy over the fact that she’d mentioned him at all. But she had already claimed Willa as her sister, and how was she to be around all Barclay’s favorite novels and not bring him up?

At the end of the letter were a few quick lines of instruction that reiterated what he’d mentioned yesterday—that in addition to organizing the room, her focus should be on finding a set of journals that his father and grandfather had written. And that if she could look through any books that might mention his family history, he would appreciate finding some solid information as to why the Holsteins had left Germany and that expounded on their ties to England rather than the Fatherland.

He knew, then, of the suspicions. And wanted to be able to meet them head-on.

Well, she was far more likely to find what she needed—evidence to the contrary.

All of which promised to make her eyes ache, and she was happy to ignore the daunting stacks a few minutes longer. She drew out a sheet of fresh paper from her valise, along with the fountain pen she’d purchased in London before she’d left but hadn’t yet had cause to use.

Her hand hovered above the page. Her writing wasn’t so neat, so tidy, so elegant. She’d learned her letters, after all, behind Pauly’s bar, on a stray piece of slate he’d dug up for her somewhere. No fancy tutors or expensive schools.

Would he expect something more from a librarian? Would she be giving herself away with her very hand?

“Drat it all.” She put down the pen and stood again. She would do better to focus on slaying this many-paged dragon.

Should she begin in the corner and work her way around? Or from right here at the table and work her way to the outsides of the room? Or maybe take a sampling from each section and see if there were any classification within it at all?

Or perhaps she’d start at the door. There was a certain logic to that. Then she might not have to fend off claustrophobia just by stepping inside.

Notebook in hand, she headed that way and knelt on the floor to trail a finger down the spines of the first stack. The two on top were religious works. She made a note, jotting down the authors—one English, one German.

The book beneath those, on the other hand, appeared to be . . . mathematics? She slid it out of the stack. Essay on the Theory of Numbers. For a moment, she could only stare. Who in the world could spend a hundred pages theorizing about numbers? Now, if they were attached to a pound sign and one was discussing what to do with them—but plain, simple numbers?

Copernicus lay beneath that one by Dedekind. But beneath him was a book on floral arrangements.

Floral arrangements.

She shook her head and wrote that down too. Perhaps these by the door had been looked through more recently and put back in here helter-skelter. Perhaps in other parts of the room, there would be more order.

She turned to the other side of the doorway. Boxes were stacked upon boxes there, all of them closed up. Rosemary took the lid from the topmost one and peeked inside. Unbound papers filled it to bursting, all of them unfolded but bearing creases. Setting lid and her notebook down, she pulled one out.

A letter. Addressed to Peter from . . . her eyes went wide. The signature merely said George. But there was a crest under it, one everyone in England knew. She held in her hands a letter from the king himself. Only inviting Holstein for a game of cricket on some Thursday long since past, but still. And there, a reference to Peter’s last letter to him. I have been pondering your words.

What words? That was the question, wasn’t it? But how was she to know only from the letters he received? She would have to try to piece together from the responses what he’d written in his. Leaning against the wall, she read that last line again.

The wall shifted—or rather, the stack of boxes she’d mistaken for the wall shifted. Swayed. Teetered. “No!” Tossing down the letter, she reached to steady the stack.

She only made it worse. The two top boxes came crashing down. They were so densely packed, their contents didn’t even spill, but they did send a stack of books tumbling, which created such a din that it would surely bring the whole house down upon her.

“What a start to a new job, Rosemary,” she muttered under her breath.

The door to the library opened, and Holstein surged in, brows up. “Miss Gresham, are . . . are you all right?”

She shoved back a curl that had slipped free and knew her smile was more frustrated than reassuring. “Sorry. Clumsy me—I won’t knock over everything, I promise. Just not quite used to how close everything is.”

“No n-need to a . . . apologize.” He wove his way through the room, frowning at the boxes now on their sides on the floor. “You n-needn’t worry with . . . with those. They are m-mine. Just . . . letters.”

Letters from the king. She smoothed down the linen of her jacket over her hips, reminding herself not to overstep. “Excellent. I’ll just move them to a corner, then, shall I? So they’ll be out of the way and I won’t knock them over again.”

“I can h-help you.”

“No need, sir, I assure you. I can manage a box of papers well enough.”

But he had already arrived at her side and crouched down to retrieve the lid to the formerly topmost box. And her notebook, which he glanced at.

So much for keeping her handwriting from him. Her cheeks went warm when he squinted at her scrawl, and she snatched the book from his hand. Then backed up a step—she was well used to using close proximity to strangers to her advantage, but it seemed different in an otherwise unoccupied room. Far too . . . friendly. “Forgive my script, Mr. Holstein. I was by nature left-handed, you see, but forced to learn with my right, and . . .”

It was Pauly’s excuse for his poor penmanship, and it seemed to appease her employer. He slung his hands in his pockets and made no move to get any closer. “Are y-you sure you . . . you d-don’t need any help?”

“Quite. Though I do appreciate the offer, I don’t want to keep you from your business.” She darted a glance toward his study.

“Ah.” He edged back in that direction, gaze latched on the open door. “Right. Then . . . if you need any . . . anything, j-just let m-me know.”

“Certainly, sir. Have a pleasant morning—oh, and thank you for having breakfast sent out.”

He disappeared into his study with a wave over his shoulder, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Rosemary pursed her lips. She ought to be paying attention to him as much as to the documents in this room. And to be sure, he had some odd quirks. But then, how many of them stemmed from his unfortunate inability to speak properly? That would be enough to make anyone a bit of a hermit.

So then . . . how had he come to be such chums with the king—a man at least a decade his senior? She’d have to go through those letters. And she’d have to be discreet about it, since Holstein could burst back through that door at any moment.

For now, she did as she’d said she’d do. Moved the boxes into a corner—which required first scooting out the stacks of books that had already been there. Books that ranged from French poetry by some chap named Baudelaire, to a Latin something or another that went well beyond her comprehension, to an English tome two inches thick on how to cultivate cotton. Cotton!

Within half an hour, she’d shed her jacket. After another hour of shoving, pulling, stacking, and sorting, she flung open the windows. She couldn’t be sure she was organizing things as anyone else would, but it at least made sense to her—she was making stacks for each subject. Shoving into the corners the ones she couldn’t see having any bearing on his family history, and putting in the middle of the room the ones that might.

By noon, she couldn’t tell by looking at the room that she’d done a thing, but there was a line of perspiration trickling down her back, and curls that had slipped free of her chignon were sticking to her neck. She’d tossed the spectacles onto the table after they’d all but rubbed her raw behind the ears. And her growling stomach was reminding her that she hadn’t tried any of that lovely-looking marmalade on toast.

She needed a rest. Some water wouldn’t be ill-placed either, but she was a bit too tired to venture into the kitchen just now. The table looked inviting though, so she took a seat again. She ought to pull forward one of those volumes she had set aside that seemed as though it might deal with Holstein family history.

But the letter was already out, before her. She looked at it again instead. Never in her life had she gotten a proper letter. Willa had left her a note here and there, when she’d slipped out before Rosemary awoke, but those had always been scrawled with chalk on that same slate—they hadn’t funds enough to waste on spare paper.

She picked up her pen. Her first proper letter deserved a response.

Are we confessing our insecurities? Then I shan’t be left out. I have always been afraid of the dark, and I noticed that the library is the one room in this lovely house of yours without electric lights. Cruel irony, sir. Though I shall further confess that my flat in London doesn’t have them either.

What it does have, however, is family, about whom you asked.

My family? Positively huge. And we always, always encourage one another. I can’t imagine life without them. My eldest brother is the one I mentioned last night, Barclay, who seems to share your taste in fiction. My sister Willa is a year younger than I—she is the one who drove me out here yesterday. And there are scads of younger ones.

I do see your point about the power of fiction. That is, perhaps, why Willa and I both like stories with a bit of romance to them. They remind us that there’s always hope for happiness tomorrow, no matter how bleak today might be.

Her new pen was perhaps too smoothly flowing, too easily used. Why else would she have written so much, and all of it true? Screwing the cap back on, she folded the letter. She wouldn’t give it to him. He certainly didn’t really want to know about her family. Or why she would take Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester over The War of the Worlds any day.

Except . . . he had asked, hadn’t he? And why would he have done so if he didn’t want to know? He was under no obligation. If it were nothing more than polite interest, then this was nothing more than a polite response.

She opened the page again, and the pen. Glanced at the letter from him. He’d signed it Peter, which seemed rather familiar, but what did she really know of letter-writing? Perhaps that was how one always signed a letter, with one’s first name.

So be it, then. She had practiced her name more than anything else and could write it with a fair imitation of beauty, she thought. A looping R, careful middle letters, and a long, curling tail on her Y.

She stood, grabbed up the paper. He obviously received a mountain of correspondence. This would mean nothing to him—just an answer to his question. That would be that.

A breeze came through the open window, ruffling the pages of a magazine and soothing the heat trapped under her collar. She enjoyed it for a moment and then moved to the door joining the library to his office.

No click-clacking. No dings. She rapped on the door.

Nothing.

Well, he did say she could borrow a novel, didn’t he? She opened the door slowly, peeking in. Empty. Good. Breathing more easily, she strode over to his desk. And gaped.

Last night it had been so neat. Now there wasn’t a spare inch of space on it anywhere. The entire top was covered with papers and books and half-filled teacups, a plate with crumbs, and miscellaneous rubber bands and paper clips.

The rock that had made such an ignominious acquaintance with the window anchored down a pile of papers.

The typewriter sat empty. And none of the papers strewn about had anything typewritten upon them.

“Hmm.” That twitch in her stomach told her she’d have to find out what he was typing at some point—but not without knowing his schedule and routine. If he would be happening back into this room in a matter of minutes, she didn’t want to be caught with her hand in a desk drawer. Wouldn’t do to be dismissed her first day here.

She put the note on top of the typewriter—that being the only space not already littered—and then turned to the shelves. He didn’t seem to employ any better order to his books here than he did in the library, but there were at least fewer of them. It took her only five minutes to find Moby Dick.

He still hadn’t returned, but that twitchy place inside told her he’d been gone long enough to be due back any second, so she slipped into the library. And jumped, squealing, when she saw a figure straightening from the table.

Mrs. Teague scowled at her. “And what are you doing in Mr. Holstein’s study, young miss?”

Her instincts had certainly been right on not wanting to arrive as a domestic. She could only imagine how unpleasant it must be to live under this woman’s thumb. If ever she were mistress of a house like this, she wouldn’t let her housekeeper lord over the rest of the staff. Holding up the book, she breathed, “He said I might borrow a novel.”

“And you were quick to take advantage, I see.” The housekeeper lumbered a few steps her way. “I brought you your meal—you will of course want to take it in here so you can keep working as you eat and get done all the faster.”

Rosemary fought the sudden urge to insist on eating it somewhere else—anywhere else. She dredged up a smile. “How thoughtful. Thank you.”

“You’re not fooling me, you know.”

Her pulse might have increased, but she had long ago trained herself not to show it. She had slithered right between two bobbies last autumn, hadn’t she, with a liberated bracelet on her wrist? And they hadn’t suspected a thing. She lifted her brows. “I’m not trying to fool you, Mrs. Teague.”

The woman pointed a chubby finger at her. “I know what you’re doing here, and I’ll not have it.”

Rosemary blinked. She may have thought she knew something, but she certainly didn’t know Rosemary’s real purposes. “You don’t want me to help Mr. Holstein with the library?”

“Oh, by all means. Help him with this heap of nonsense. And let that be the end of it, do you hear me?”

“All right.” Sidestepping the wide woman, she slid the book onto the table and tried not to ogle the tray of food. Sandwiches, fruit, even fresh greens.

“The Penroses may have invited you to join Mr. Holstein for dinner at their home tonight, but don’t think it’s for any purpose but to keep an eye on you.”

Strawberries. There were strawberries, and they smelled like heaven. “I’m not—pardon?” She snapped back around. “Penroses? Dinner?”

“Mr. Holstein asked me to inform you. You’ll leave promptly at seven, and don’t think Mr. Teague or I will so much as blink until you’re back again.”

Dinner with the lawyer? She had to stifle a groan. “How lovely. I look forward to meeting Mrs. Penrose.”

Given the housekeeper’s satisfied hmph, she had to wonder at what kind of beast she’d find in the lawyer’s wife. “And she’s looking forward to meeting you too, I’m sure. Now I’ll be off. Don’t want to distract you—and you’ll do well to extend the same courtesy to Mr. Holstein and keep that door shut.”

Unable to resist any longer, Rosemary swiped a strawberry from the plate. “What does he work on in there all day?” It was, she thought, a reasonable question for anyone to ask. And if she could get an answer with a simple inquiry . . .

Mrs. Teague pulled the door closed with a solid thunk, apparently not trusting Rosemary to do so. “I don’t know, nor do you need to. Mr. Holstein’s business is his own. You’ll do well to remember that—he’s our employer. Nothing more.”

Funny—she could have sworn the Teagues both greeted him with far more warmth than they would a mere employer. But she wouldn’t detain the woman any longer. She put the strawberry to her lips and took a bite, letting the juice trickle over her tongue.

Her eyes slid shut until the teetering stacks of books simply ceased to exist and it was just her and the fresh red fruit. There would be time enough to worry about overbearing housekeepers, foul-tempered barristers, and stuttering employers with clefts in their chins. Just now, Rosemary Gresham, librarian, was going to enjoy this life she’d borrowed.