Ash closed the door upon the cold drafts swirling about his rented room. With no one to share his evenings with, he rarely spent any significant time in the boarding house. Why spend his hard-earned coin on coal when there was a cot tucked away in a back room of the greenhouse near the warmth of the dedicated furnace, a necessity for maintaining year-round growing conditions?
Here in London, the plants were his closest companions—and he’d spend Christmas Eve with them while making arrangements to tempt a bride. He missed his parents, brothers and sisters, as well as the holiday traditions of the north—wassails, a Yule log, evergreens dragged in from the countryside—and had torn into the package waiting for him, but a bright future with the Lister Institute beckoned. Trailing behind his father through the grand gardens for so many years had sparked his love for all things botanical, it just hadn’t been enough.
Here lay opportunity.
Working together, he and Miss Brown could win the contest, elevating both the library and the greenhouse in the eyes of Lister’s scientists and permitting them to tap into the genius of the men and women who worked within its many laboratories.
There was much to admire about Miss Brown herself. Imagine being able to hold so many languages—both living and dead—in one’s mind that every book was a treasure trove of knowledge. He marveled at her determination and drive, at the cutting insight she brought to so many projects. Yet for all her hard work, she’d gained very little. Even when the committee chose their project—for he refused to consider the alternative—she stood only to win academic prestige, while he would secure a promotion and, with it, a more generous salary. The means to support a wife. A family.
He would do all he could to see her contribution was not forgotten, but he also hoped she might consider merging their two lives by taking him as her husband.
With the holiday underway, not another soul would be present in the greenhouse to mock the small romantic touches he had planned. Tomorrow evening, as the sun fell, he would lead Miss Brown down a magical garden path to the small arbor tucked in a corner where the glass roof sloped downward, revealing a sweeping view of London. There, beneath an arch of passion flowers, he would lower himself onto one knee.
Aether, that kiss. Luring him behind a bookcase. Daring him to touch her. Melting beneath his lips. His heart pounded at the memory. Would that he’d declared himself weeks ago. He’d wasted far too much time, time they could have spent in each other’s company outside the library. A mistake he’d not make again.
A feverish heat swept over him. During that private tour she so craved, he might make the most of their solitude. Learn the shape of her lips. Savor their taste. Permit his hands to wander without worry of discovery.
He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. Pointless to let his thoughts drift in such directions when it would be hours before would be in Miss Brown’s presence again, and most of that in the company of her family. He was counting on the approval of her father, for family mattered very much.
Ash wrapped the new red muffler knitted by his mother about his neck and popped one of her special peppermint candies into his mouth, then stepped outside.
On this cold and blustery night, storefronts were ablaze with lights, their door chimes ringing as shoppers whisked in and out, many clutching brown-paper packages to their chests. A few paused on the pavement to turn an eye upward, predicting snow with excited voices. Street by street, Ash dodged crank hacks and steam carriages, smiling at those adorned with red bows and ivy wreaths.
Propelled by anticipation, he rounded a final corner and leapt up the Institute’s broad, stone steps two at a time.
“Tonight?” The night guard was accustomed to Ash’s odd hours, but still his eyebrows rose.
“No worries.” Ash grinned as he pressed his hand to the security pad. “I’ve big plans to put in place for tomorrow.”
Click. The guard waved him inside.
At the sight before him, the smile dropped from Ash’s face, and the peppermint in his stomach congealed. How had today’s disaster managed to slip his mind? The grim task of removing the remains, of scrubbing away the blood, had been attended to, but scorch marks still marred the tiles, the walls. Entire chunks of both were missing.
Awful. He couldn’t begin to imagine the sorrow Dr. Wilson’s family must be enduring this evening.
Not that everyone was genuinely distressed.
All about him, faces had registered shock and surprise. But that look in Bracken’s eyes at the moment of the explosion… He knew something. Something he didn’t wish to share.
Not that Ash had any evidence to offer.
Still, after the holiday, Ash would seek out the Queen’s agent, let him know of his suspicions. Polished, pompous and privileged Bracken might be, but Mr. Black wouldn’t leave any facet of a crime unexamined. If Bracken had something to hide, it wouldn’t stay hidden for long.
Solemn, Ash climbed upward, arrived at the greenhouse door. Passing its security, he stepped inside. Welcome heat and humidity wrapped around him as he shed his coat. With deliberate effort he pushed aside grim notions and focused on happier thoughts.
Would the waves of Miss Brown’s hair curl? Would she shed her jacket? Perhaps unfasten a pearly button or two of her collar?
With his spirits somewhat lighter, he rolled up his sleeves and set to work. She’d hinted that she wished to be led down a garden path and damned if he wasn’t going to provide her with an experience no other could rival. He’d start by adding a touch of lighting…
An hour or so later, Ash stepped back and surveyed his work. He’d outdone himself. If only nature would cooperate. He turned. Now he was the one with dreams of snow, for a touch of frost to the glass plates overlooking the street below—
Was that—? He swiped away the condensation and squinted.
No.
It could not be Miss Brown stepping out of a crank hack. She was snug in her parlor, surrounded by family.
Except.
That determined walk, though admittedly concealed by a thick coat, was precisely the one he’d spent so many hours in the library admiring.
What could possibly bring her here at such an hour?
Nothing good.
He exited the greenhouse at a run, rushed down flights of stairs, intent on offering assistance or, at the very least, his company. He rounded the last bend and dashed into the hallway.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Her leather shoes tapped a course intent upon reaching the library door with all due speed. From the stiff set of her shoulders, something was very much amiss. “Miss Brown!” he called, forcing his feet to slow.
She spun about with a squeak, a hand flying to her heart. The other clutched a thick iron key. “Mr. Lockwood!” Her eyes, though wide, were also bright with unshed tears. “What on earth are you doing here?”
He held up his hands. “I’m so sorry to have frightened you. I was upstairs, making arrangements for tomorrow’s tour, when I caught sight of your arrival.” He drew close. “What can be so wrong that you’re spending Christmas Eve here? What with the heat dialed to its lowest setting, you’ll be able to see your breath by midnight.” The reading room possessed a beautiful vaulted ceiling, but not one designed to conserve heat. Earlier, when they’d left, a chill had already hung in the air.
“There’s a fireplace. I thought…” A tear slipped down her cheek.
“Evie?” He chanced to use her given name and held out a hand. “What’s wrong?”
She sniffled, then gave a shaky laugh. “Perhaps it’s a sign.” Batting away his hand, she stepped closer and dropped her forehead to his chest. The feather of her hat brushed across his cheek. “It’s my father. Tonight, he announced his intention to return to a life among the clouds.”
Gently, he wrapped his arms about her, gathering her wool-encased form tight against his chest. “But the lesion. Haven’t the doctors—”
“Forbidden him from direct sunlight? Yes, of course. But he’s never been one to take orders.” She huffed into his chest, then started to pull away. “Japan. He’s leaving in three days for Japan. At his age… with his condition…” Tears began to brim in her eyes. “He might float away, never to return.”
Yet she was here. Why?
Why else?
“Determined to find him a cure? Evie, it’s—”
“All but impossible. I know. Physicians have been trying for millennia. But anything I can find before his departure, the airship’s doctor can ensure he uses. I have to try.” She looked up at him. Glanced away. Swallowed.
He knew that look. There was something more she wasn’t telling him. “There’s more. What is it?”
A long sigh. “Dr. Bracken appeared at my door, freshly pressed and ironed, flowers in hand.”
“And what did he have to say?” Ash growled, knowing he’d not like her answer.
“I’ve no idea. Wipe that pinched expression from your face. You’ve no reason to be jealous. Not everyone wishes to marry into the gentry.” She gave him a sympathetic glance. “Besides, any claim Dr. Bracken had to nobility passed down another bloodline a generation ago.”
Evie knew of Ash’s distrust of self-indulgent lordlings, knew about Mary’s betrayal. How else to explain the means by which a gardener’s son ended up at university? For she too had a dark moment in her past. The death of her fiancé had left her adrift until she found an anchor at Girton College in the form of medieval studies.
“I handled the situation in the most diabolical manner.” An evil glint stole into her eyes, and the corners of her mouth curved. “You’ll approve. I informed my sister of my plans, then abandoned him to Papa and her six sugar-fueled and over-tired children.”
Given Bracken was not a man to be trusted, Ash wasn’t entirely satisfied. He wouldn’t be, not until his ring was on her finger. A symbol for all the world to see. Still, almost against his will, a smile tugged at his lips. “And will they muss up the knife pleats of his trousers?” For a scientist, the man was unusually concerned about his personal appearance.
“If my sister permits their sticky fingers anywhere near them? Most certainly.” Evie took a deep breath and waved the iron key. “Enough unpleasantness. We received a donation from a gentleman whose grandfather collected old, rare and unusual medical tomes. Anatomy. Physiology. Written expositions detailing surgical techniques. But, for our purposes, herbals and various pharmacopeia. Several crates full. The donor even promised there was an illuminated manuscript from the 14th century. I meant to tell you, earlier, but was distracted by a certain kiss.”
Her teeth caught upon her lip, a motion that shot heat straight to his groin.
His hands fisted in the rough wool of her coat. His gaze dropped to her mouth. Why couldn’t he seem to move his thoughts away from her soft, pink lips? “Let me help.” He released her. “If there’s a new cure in one of those books, we’ll find it. It’s an entirely selfish offer,” he pressed, determined not to take advantage of the situation. “If we find one, not only do we cure your father, we validate the entirety of our project, ensuring we win the committee’s approval.”
“All true.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Though I was hoping you might possess a more intimate reason for wishing to remain at my side.”
“There’s that.” He swallowed. Hard.
“That conflicted, hungry expression.” She turned away, fitting the key to the lock. “It’s only been a few hours, but I’ve missed it.” A teasing glance over her shoulder and a flash in her green eyes singed his every nerve ending. The last of her proper, librarian persona slipped and fell to the ground and was kicked away by her next words. “It draws forth an all but irresistible urge to catch you by the collar and kiss it away. A most inappropriate response, and yet…”
Click. The door swung open, and a cool draft poured out. Winter had crept into the cavernous reading room, but he welcomed the brisk air. Perhaps it would act as antidote to the surging heat that rippled through him.
“Such words…” He followed, stiff with the effort, and attempted a teasing tone. “You would take advantage of an enlightened gentleman who only wishes to offer aid?” If she kept up her comments, steam would soon rise from his skin.
“I would not.” A faint blue-white glow intensified as she shook a Lucifer lamp. Her appreciative gaze swept over his form, hot and craving as it lingered upon his bare forearms, upon the cuffs he’d turned up while gardening. It was a measure of how hard he’d fallen for this woman that watching her loose the buttons of her coat was arousing. Over the past two months, he and frustration had become close companions. “We’ll work first. Play later.”
“Quite the incentive.” His heart leapt and lower parts of his anatomy stirred. Perhaps there was hope of sharing a bit more than a few heated kisses this very night, proprieties and traditions be damned. “Can you stop shooting sparks and muster a stern librarian’s scowl while you point me at the crate, Miss Brown? Efficiency has become a sudden priority.”
“Evie,” she said, moving closer to latch the door behind him. “Given our scandalous seclusion in the library after hours, and,” she rose on tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his lips, “our recent, immediate, and highly anticipated intimacies, we ought to call each other by our given names.”
A dam broke. Every thought of gentlemanly behavior evaporated like dew on grass struck with the sun’s first rays. He wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her onto a table, sealing his lips to hers before plundering her mouth. She tasted of nutmeg and apples and sweet, luscious woman.
My woman.
He would stop. In a moment. But as he wrestled with the primitive part of his mind for control, her fists clutched at the linen of his shirt and dragged him closer. Urging him between her knees. Who was he to deny such demands?
His hands slid beneath her coat, found the small of her back and pulled her to the edge of the table, cursing the frustrations of padded petticoats and billowing skirts that stopped him from yanking her tight against his aching cock. Tongues tangled, thrust and parried.
Her thighs clenched about his hips. Reason was fast escaping him. A deep need welled upward, a need to pierce the silence of this library where only hushed and reasoned discourse transpired. He cupped her breast, caged as it was behind her corset, and swept his thumb over the tip that lay beneath layers of linen, cotton and fine wool. When she pressed into his palm, he gave the peak a sharp pinch and smiled against her mouth as she gasped, imaging her response if he could only lower his lips to her bare flesh.
Her head fell backward. “Ash,” she cried, his name a needy sound as she clawed at his waistband.
Fire erupted over his skin. What would it be like to hear her cry his name, louder, faster, in the heat of passion as he buried himself inside her over and over?
While his fingers teased, while her legs wrapped about the backs of his knees. Her fingers threaded into his hair, as he nibbled at the soft skin beneath her ear, nipping, then—when she gasped—soothing his bite with the flat of his tongue.
He wanted nothing more than to toss up her skirts and take her here, on the altar of a reading room table surrounded by the very books she worshipped. Even now, the sharp edge bit into his thighs, heightening rather than diminishing pleasure. Like a desperate thing, need demanded completion.
But he was a civilized man. She was not yet his. There was a proposal. A ring. A wedding date to set.
“Enough.” His word was a harsh whisper. “We have to stop.”
Hot and sultry, their panting breaths mingled.
“Blazes,” she whispered, fanning her fingers across his jawline, over his beard. Her green eyes stared into his. “You make me lose my head.”
“Find it, and be sure,” he said, dropping note of warning in his voice. “For you hold my heart.”
“Ash…”
“Hush. We’ll talk more later. First, we attend to more pressing issues.” He kissed her nose. “Can you stand?”
She slid down his length, laughing at his agonized groan, to plant her boots solidly on the floor. “You’ll have to do better than that if you wish to weaken my knees.” Snagging the rolled cuff of his shirtsleeve, she dragged him behind the desk.
He willed his body to quiet, to calm.
Three days. Her project, a subset of their larger one, deserved every ounce of their attention. He loved watching Evie when she was elbow deep in rare and unique texts, delving in to study the time-honored healing properties of plants that had all but slipped away from modern medicine. And those were books that had been catalogued and shelved. Imagine her delight as she delved through an unknown collection. What hidden gems might they unearth?
Deep within the office space of the library, a chamber forbidden to patrons, rested five crates.
“We open them all.” Stress, hope, worry pulled at her voice as her gaze flitted from one wooden box to the next. She tossed aside her hat and coat. “Complete an inventory. If there’s anything exceptional, we need to know now. And if there’s not…”
Her concern tugged at his heart. Better to channel it into action. To have an answer, one way or the other. Picking up the crowbar, he popped off a lid. “No page left unturned.”
Bent over the crates, they began to sort through the manuscripts. The limited space in the room forced them to carry the various books out into the reading room. To help chase away the chill, he lit a small fire. Then confiscated a small tea kettle, two cups and a tin of biscuits from Mr. Davies’ office and set it upon the grate to boil. Ash would worry about any resultant grumbling by the head librarian another time.
As time passed, dust swirled in the air and piles grew. One for those texts that expounded upon anatomy and physiology. Another for surgical treatises. And, most importantly, one for those that detailed medicinal cures. As expected, the majority of the books were old, but not exceptionally so. Most had originated from a printing press. Yet—Evie gasped and exclaimed—a precious few were hand-lettered parchment, some containing a scattering of painted illustrations.
“Ash.” A reverent whisper slipped from her lips. His name and a sound that sent tremors coursing through his body, but her gaze was not on him. Was it possible to be jealous of a book? “Look.”
Seated at a table before the fire, she bent over an illustrated manuscript. Loose strands of honey-brown hair brushed over her cheeks framing its vellum pages. Leaning close, he tucked a few tendrils behind her ear, then let the backs of his fingers brush over the soft edge of her jaw.
The nonsensical words—to his eyes—of Old English lined its pages, but the layout and the illustrations were familiar. “An illustrated copy of the Old English Herbal?” If so, The British Library could no longer claim to possess the sole such surviving copy.
“Not exactly. I’ve studied the original, and this appears to be a partial copy. The handwriting is different, the drawings more basic, less detailed. Several herbs are omitted, about half. But…” With great care, she turned the pages. “Look.”
His stomach sank. “Ruined.” In the margins of nearly every page, the owner had dared to place his own pen to the parchment.
“Not at all.” Her voice was bright. “They’re known as glosses. Handwritten notations. Many,” she pointed an excited finger, “like this one, provide additional details, explanations not contained within the main body of the text. Each is its own gem.” Her face was alight with the possibilities. “Collectively, the insight alone is worthy of its own monograph.”
One Evie would no doubt write. He smiled, dropping a hand on her shoulder, swept up in her delight. He’d enjoy introducing her as his wife, medieval scholar.
“And the final third of the manuscript?” Ever so carefully, she turned pages. “The texture of the parchment changes.” Her fingertip skimmed over an un-inked margin. “There are no more illustrations, and the handwriting of the main body of text matches the earlier glosses. See? The spacing between the words is altered, leaving little space. Taxing to read, even for the most experienced of eyes.”
Ash stared at the strange lettering, struggling to discern the differences. Whenever he looked upon Old English lettering, he felt taunted, as if he ought to be able to read and understand its messages, yet it was another language altogether. “The punctuation marks, such as they appear to be, also change.”
“Exactly! Judging from the similarities of handwriting, the author of the glosses has written an entirely new herbal. Moreover, she signed her name!”
“She?” That explained a portion of Evie’s delight.
“Rare, but not unheard of, for a woman to put pen to parchment.” Evie’s finger underscored the phrase within the text. “Brea, scribe of Hardwicke’s Leechbook.”
“Most impressive.” And fascinating. As was the way Evie vibrated with energy. But she’d failed to address the question of the evening. “Is there any new information?”
“Some of it echoes Bald’s Leechbook, a ninth century text, but there are unique combinations of herbs prescribed for a variety of conditions—and a number of plants I’ve never before seen listed in an herbal.” Her face tipped upward, aglow with excitement. “The implications for our project are staggering. And if there’s a cure for my father, we’ll find it here.”