Page 7 of My Lady Melisende (Ladies Least Likely #6)

CHAPTER SIX

T he Duchess of Hunsdon’s bookshop, The Antiquarian Duchess, stood in Angel Court, a narrow passage abutting King’s Street in St. James. Its neighbors included Almack’s Assembly Rooms and a venerable public house called the Golden Lyon. The neighborhood was best described as varied; while nearby St. James Square contained such monumental edifices as Cleveland House and Norfolk House, residence of earls and dukes, in the narrow passages of Little King Street and King’s Place, which burrowed from King Street to the wider avenues of St. James Street and Pall Mall, a man was advised to guard his purse.

Melisende of Merania, if she knew this of the area, gave every indication of not caring, though her high-sprung vehicle with its painted crest and her rich robe and headdress would make her the target of many eyes, inquisitive and acquisitive alike. Then again, Philip thought, she seemed accustomed to scrutiny.

He wondered if she were accustomed to being the target of thieves. There was so much about this woman he didn’t know. And what he had seen of her so far, he couldn’t be certain what was real—save that she knew how to handle a fencing sword.

Philip had acquired his veneer of sangfroid through intense cultivation, to protect himself from the slings and arrows life was destined to throw a man who could be dismissed on so many levels: a lesser son who would never inherit, the son of a titled gentleman who would never need to work, being Irish, being Catholic, having a face that could make women sigh and angels weep. He wondered if Melisende had cultivated the same cool facade or if she had been born with a layer of aristocratic polish, hard and smooth.

It was only a mile from Soho Square to St. James, and they made a very dashing trip of it in Melisende’s four-wheeled phaeton, which she drove as if she weren’t taking her life, and his, into her hands. Philip had not arrived on a horse, to the great disappointment of Gin the hall boy, but as he was coming from the townhouse his family let in Great Russell Square, it was hardly worth the trouble of tacking up cattle, even if he had his own hack, which he didn’t. His mother and sisters required the carriage for a shopping excursion of their own, and since he was informed, in no uncertain terms, that organizing his youngest sister’s trousseau was of higher priority than Philip’s larks and escapades, he lost his bid for the equipage.

“Unless you are courting her.” His mother had paused in their entrance hall with one hand in the air above her picture hat, pinned to her powdered wig. “Is my youngest son, the one child I despair of seeing in a respectable marriage, aiming himself at a grand-duke’s daughter?”

“What would you say if I were, Mháthair ?” Philip tugged on his kid gloves.

She pulled at the brim of her hat, ensuring it was anchored. “ ‘Tis a long fall, and a graceless one.”

“Thinking the best of me, as always.” Philip swept up his walking stick and exited the house.

Many a stroller paused to watch them as Melisende guided her high-stepping pair around St. James Square with a light, sure hand, a small frown of concentration pulling together her arched brows. He wondered if she knew the sight she made with the high plume bobbing from the bandeau catching up her red-powdered curls, a ruffle of expensive lace peeking from the neckline of her open robe, and Philip Devlin, lesser son and sometime spy, seated beside her. She gave no sign of concern over the height or speed of the vehicle, or with being seen in the company of a known roué, so he did his best to appear as if he had nothing on his mind but enjoying a ride through a muddy spring day with a beautiful woman.

She pulled to a prancing stop before Nerot’s Hotel, one of the most fashionable hotels of the West End, and tossed her ribbons to a street boy who rushed up alongside. The high body of the carriage sprang as Bruyit, on the footman’s perch behind, descended to the street, then came around to lift Melisende out of the vehicle. Philip had been curious when the so-called butler deigned to attend his mistress on a drive, but watching the man survey the avenue before setting Melisende on her feet, suspicion solidified.

“I wonder why you’d request my protection when you already have a bodyguard.” Philip leapt down from the vehicle and drew close to Melisende’s side, scattering the knot of urchins clustering around the horses.

“Bruyit is very useful in a fight.” Melisende straightened the fall of her open robe over her silk petticoat, heavy with ruffles and trim. “But he cannot get inside London’s homes like you can. He never would have set foot in Arendale’s library, for example.”

She slipped her hand into the crook of Philip’s arm, and though she wore gloves, and his coat was a thick brocade, her touch fell like a solid punch to his chest. She smelled of orange and cloves, delectable. He took a steadying breath.

“He could escort you inside a bookshop.”

“Do you wish to be released from our agreement, Mr. Devlin?”

King Street was a noisy place. Plasterers and painters trucked in and out of Almack’s, patrons came and went from the hotel, and noisy chatter rose from the pub, all against the clatter of activity in the courtyards and the roar of traffic on Pall Mall. Trumpets sounded one street over, some royal or important visitor descending on the palace of St. James, and some altercation was taking place in the stable yard down the street. Yet the noise fell away as Melisende held his gaze. Her eyes were a dark brown veined with amber, the lashes thick, dark nets to entangle a man and drown him.

Philip had developed a sound intuition about danger, and it served him in his erstwhile profession. His intuition spoke loudly and clearly now.

Melisende of Merania was the most dangerous woman he had ever met.

Turned out, Philip enjoyed putting himself in danger.

A soft chime sounded as he pushed open the door to the bookshop, peering through the leaded window inset into the wood. The bow window with its displays of books should have prepared him, but didn’t. Shelves of books climbed to the moulded trim high above his head. Where a ceiling should have been swelled a cupola, embellished with carvings and frescoes, and more shelves of books circled the first-floor rotunda, where a wide window let in light. Standing shelves formed narrow passages running parallel to a main hall that led to a back room, where he spotted more shelves holding scrolls, pamphlets, and oversized folios. The place smelled of old leather, tobacco, and ink.

The shop wasn’t empty otherwise. Upholstered chairs placed here and there held patrons, men and women seated reading their volume of choice. A well-dressed matron and her daughter browsed one shelf, while a man in a suit made antique a decade ago, his long coattails covering a decorative sword, held spectacles to his nose as he bent to examine a folio laid open on a table before him. Philip whipped his head around at a sudden movement and realized a cat, its fur a mottled gray, had leapt from the floor to a shelf the height of his shoulder and stared at him with insolent yellow eyes.

A woman came around the low, broad desk. Philip recognized her at once; most of London would, for when she didn’t turn heads in public, her sketch appeared with regularity in The Lady’s Magazine . Her robe was simple but stylish, cut of expensive fabric. A tiny net bordered with flowers sat atop a pile of lustrous hair, black as ink.

Whereas Melisende of Merania possessed the kind of beauty that made a man stagger and reel, the Duchess of Hunsdon had an ethereal loveliness, softened by time and sweetness. She was somewhere in her late twenties, a mother and a hostess of some note, with an eccentric reputation as a copyist of medieval manuscripts and bookseller.

Her husband the duke was known for being equally unorthodox. He upheld about every radical notion one could imagine: he supported Catholic Emancipation, had spoken out against waging war with the American Colonies, and had promised to vote for abolition of the slave trade should the question ever arise in the House of Lords. He openly indulged his wife’s pastime—a duchess, dabbling in trade—and he not only acknowledged but financially supported his father’s bastard children, the product of a bigamous marriage. Yet despite the couple’s outré ideas, no one of any standing in society turned down an invitation to Hunsdon House; the gossips reveled for weeks whenever the duchess hosted a party. Setting foot in her bookshop was a statement in itself.

“I’ve been hoping you would visit me soon, Lady Melisende.”

The women met like two gladiators facing each other on the field, a match for elegance and manners. Melisende seemed younger, but the maturity to her polish suggested she had seen more of the world than the duchess had.

“I did not expect to have the honor of meeting you personally, Your Grace.” Melisende let go Philip’s arm to shake the duchess’s offered hand.

“I am making copies of Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the Queen for the royal princesses. The queen herself commanded the book be withdrawn from the British Museum collection for me, and it’s quite literally breathtaking. However,” the duchess said with glint in her eye that on a woman of lesser rank would have passed for mischief, “when a treasure hunt is involved, I can put aside my work.”

Beside him, Melisende went rigid. She’d snapped at Philip when he’d mentioned his friend Cadmus using the word, and he hadn’t told her where Cadmus had heard the rumor.

Perhaps he ought to.

“I don’t know where one might have taken the notion that this is a treasure hunt,” Melisende said sharply, gripping her hands around the small silk bag she held. “I am merely in search of an antique book.”

The duchess lifted one slender, dark brow. “To me, books are treasures.”

Melisende exhaled. “Then you have the volume I wrote you about?”

The duchess led her to the desk. “I’ve never heard of a language called Ladin, and I can recognize a fair number of them. Then again,” she sounded thoughtful, “I’ve never heard of Merania until your father arrived in London.”

“None of us had,” Philip said. It would be a fabulous con, really: prance into tightly knit British society, claim to be deposed from a small principality no one had heard of, gain support and favors and a hefty purse from the sympathetic, then move on to the next capital and the next set of rich and gullible aristocrats. He’d wager it wouldn’t be the first time such a farce had succeeded.

Which would make the woman beside him, not heir to a grand duke, but a beautiful liar. And a thief.

But that didn’t explain her collection of ten books. Eleven, now.

“Merania is often included with County Tyrol on the Continental maps.” Melisende tugged off her gloves. “It is not large, and on three sides you must climb a mountain to get there. Not a spot on the Grand Tour that the English are accustomed to making.”

Her eyes lit on Philip, and he twitched his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. He had not made a Grand Tour. His eldest brother, the scion and heir, had been afforded the luxury, but Philip had been too young to accompany him, and his parents had chosen not to spare the money to send him on his own jaunt when he was of age.

“I would like to read this history, when you have located the volume you seek.” The duchess pushed a small book across the table, octavo size, the plain green binding showing cracks.

Melisende’s eyes lit; Philip caught her expression before she smoothed it under her calm veneer, careless ease and that sleepy slant to her eyes.

“My search may prove fruitless. The book I seek was supposed to be in Italy. I could be looking for a Wolpertinger , as they say.”

The duchess raised her other brow. Melisende looked up from the book she was examining. “A wild goose chase, I think you say in English? Searching for something that does not exist.”

“Your family has ruled Merania for hundreds of years, have they not?” the duchess inquired. “I thought there was talk of a Habsburg ancestor, and someone who was a princess.”

Philip threw a sharp look, not hiding his surprise, and the duchess lightly waved a hand to indicate the shelves towering about them. “I have a great variety of books at my disposal, and occasionally, the time to peruse them. A—visitor came inquiring about Lady Melisende’s family, the Meinhardins, and thought I might have genealogical information among my assortment.”

Philip narrowed his eyes, his intuition clanging. “Who was asking?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Devlin, they asked me not to say. Embarrassed about their curiosity, I presume. I hope that is not a problem?”

“Strange that your visitor wouldn’t simply approach Lady Melisende herself.” He turned to his companion with a silky smile. “Tell us, highness, of your ancestry. An archduchess? Princess? Any other royals in the family tree?”

“Mmm. It does seem rather bold to broach the subject so directly, doesn’t it? And vaunting of me to boast of my connections.” She flipped several pages in her book, her eyes on the print. “But it’s hardly a secret if anyone wants to inquire. My grandmother on my father’s side was a Habsburg archduchess—they usually went to princes, but she was not a favorite of her father’s, I gather, a headstrong sort of girl who insisted on marrying for love. So did my mother. She was a princess of Sardinia.”

She had her nose practically pressed to the pages of the book, and he wondered if she were farsighted. If so, it would be the first flaw he detected in her, and there was something endearing in knowing she was mortal after all.

The daughter of a princess and descended from an archduchess—she was either fabricating ridiculously high connections, or she was royal on both sides of her bloodline. The first made her a bold imposter. The second made her a rarity, an island floating away from him before his eyes, a mirage just out of reach.

Philip had a better chance impressing the duchess. Amaranthe Delaval hadn’t been raised as an aristocrat; she was born a vicar’s daughter from Cornwall, and she’d captured the illegitimate son of a duke and turned him into a duke’s heir. She wasn’t likely to look down on anyone for their birth.

But Melisende of Merania had been raised an aristocrat. The blood of royals ran through her veins. She’d been born with a scepter in her hand, one foot in the clouds, one foot on the map of the territory she ruled.

Philip would be nothing but an accessory to her, a means to an end. Best to remember that.

“It’s here,” Melisende said. She stabbed a finger at the page. “He said it was written in Romansch—I’m not surprised. The languages are often confused.” She snapped the tome shut. “The book was brought to England a few decades ago by Giuseppina di Bastia as part of her wedding dowry.”

“Whom did she marry?” Philip asked.

“Cassius Bales, then Earl of Aldthorpe. Do you know the family?”

The duchess appeared to be searching her memory bank, but Philip knew. Of course the book wouldn’t reside in any commoner’s home, an easy crib to crack. Melisende would have to aim at the Bales, one of the most powerful and ancient families in all of Britain.

“He’s the Marquess of Langford now, and his son, Horace, is Aldthorpe. Solid man, very steady. I don’t know if Langford has his seat in Lords, but Aldthorpe is MP for one of the seats Langford owns,” Philip said.

The duchess nodded. “I’ve met the countess. The family is in residence at Langford House here in town. I believe she was recently delivered of a child, but the countess is a great one for entertainments. We never turn down an invitation.”

“Would Langford House have a library?” Melisende murmured.

The duchess tilted her head. “This book you seek, the history of Merania. It wouldn’t be similar to the volume which disappeared recently from the Marquess of Arendale’s library, would it?”

Philip had to give Melisende credit for coolness. She didn’t so much as flick an eyelash his way, betraying what she knew. She’d make an excellent spy.

Or diplomat. Or general commanding armies. Or queen.

“Disappeared, you say? It seems an odd volume to steal, if the British indeed know next to nothing of Merania. Perhaps someone only misplaced it.”

“I didn’t say it was reported stolen,” the duchess said. “But perhaps the thief, if there is one, merely wants to know more of the natural history of Merania, your highness.”

“Or he wanted to know more of Lady Melisende’s claims.” Philip wasn’t one to dance around a subject. He liked to throw the bomb and see how his adversary reacted. There was always a tell.

The duchess didn’t bat an eyelash, either. “Perhaps he did.”

“Then he’ll have found the genealogy he sought.” Melisende smacked the leather-bound book on the table. “Duchess, you’ve been singularly helpful. I do not know how I might repay you.”

“Oh?” The duchess looked around. “Perhaps there is another book that will capture your interest?”

“Devlin! The devil! Thought that was you.”

Philip turned to meet the man hailing him, and wished he hadn’t.

He knew more of Pinochle than he wished, because the man couldn’t hold his mouth or his drink. He was a handful of years younger than Philip, barely past his majority, and thought rather well of himself for doing nothing more clever than surviving his father and coming into the barony his sire had won for killing a prodigious number of Indians during one of the Carnatic wars.

Philip had investigated him for a time, as certain of Lord North’s cabinet wondered if Pinochle were supporting French efforts in the Colonies through his mistress, a notable French courtesan. It turned out Pinochle’s interest in the woman was the set of skills she had developed in an infamous French brothel and nothing to do with her connections to a certain French general. It had cost Philip money and time at the gaming tables to learn this, and he resented the money more than the time, as he was quite certain Pinochle cheated.

“How’d you turn up in a bookshop?” Pinochle clicked his tongue. “Must be the piece dragged you here.” He leered at Melisende. As his lordship was a hand or two shorter than her, he had a direct line of sight to her bosom, casually set off, but not covered, by delicate ruffled lace.

“Lovely piece,” Pinochle added. “I’d follow her anywhere, too. The foreign duke’s get, ain’t she?”

“Lord Pinochle.” The Duchess of Hunsdon’s voice was as frosty as a winter dawn. “May I introduce you to her Noble Highness, the Lady Melisende of Merania. Your highness, this is the Baron Pinochle of—Galling, I believe?”

The baron showed no awareness that the duchess was trying to dampen his pretensions. “A highness!” he chortled, holding out his elbow. “Can’t improve your standing to be seen with this rogue, then. Will you walk with me, milady? Like to hear more of this kingdom of yours.” He winked. “And maybe share a thing or two I know that’ll warn you off spending more time with this one. Like as not he’s got the pox, given where one’s likely to find him hanging about.”

Philip stiffened with outrage. If anyone was likely to have the pox, it was Pinochle; he was notorious for dipping his wick anywhere he could. Philip liked to be more discerning. If he leapt to Melisende’s defense, however, it was as good as a declaration, and how might that reflect on her reputation? He glanced at the duchess, who took a small step closer to her guest, her elegant gown rustling.

“I’m afraid the Lady Melisende is already engaged with me, Pinochle,” the duchess said. “I’m locating a book I recommend to her. Were you on your way out?”

“’Deed I was, and I’ll take this one with me. Save him dying from boredom.”

Pinochle herded Philip out of the bookshop. Philip shot a look over the man’s head at Melisende, but she moved off with the duchess, their exquisitely coiffed heads tilted toward one another as they conferred in low tones. Apparently the only protection she required was for Philip to pry Pinochle away. Philip sighed and followed the other man out the door, catching the scent of unwashed skin and greasy hair tucked beneath a wig in need of repowdering.

“Pinch?” Outside the shop, Pinochle dug a snuffbox out of the array of accessories decorating his waistcoat and offered Philip a small lacquered box. The image of a satyr seducing a nymph, the creature’s sexual organ extended in prominent display, decorated the lid.

“No, I thank you.” Philip hid his distaste behind a bland smile. A man like Pinochle, his motivations so obvious and so low, could be a useful pawn. Best not to alienate him.

“Suit yourself.” The box held the dark, coarse blend called rappee—Philip could smell it from where he stood. Pinochle held a thick pinch of the stuff to his nose, sniffed, and coughed.

“My own blend. Cracking good,” he wheezed, eyes watering.

“I’m sure it is.”

Bruyit stood with the phaeton, conversing with a workman while the ring of urchins argued with the street boy holding the ribbons of the pair, apparently fighting over the privilege. The street was jammed with pedestrians, sedan chairs, and other elegant equipages coming to and from the square. There could be cutpurses all over, and more men like Pinochle willing to make Melisende an offer she’d rather refuse. Likely there were no worse insults in store, but Philip stayed alert. Intuition told him something wasn’t right, though he couldn’t put his finger on the threat.

Was she lying again?

“So.” Pinochle tapped the lid of the snuffbox shut. “How’d you get a shot at the foreign chit? I heard she’s set down every man who’s made a play for her. Arrogant wench, but the best ones are. Are ye payin’ er?”

Philip gave the man his best icy stare. More than one jabbermouth had backed down from issuing a challenge when Philip delivered that look. Pinochle simply continued to leer.

“Think I could afford ’er, eh? Lure her affections away?”

“I wouldn’t advise you to try.”

Pinochle chortled to himself and patted his snuffbox into a fob pocket beside his watch chain and its many ornaments. “A word of advice, one young buck to another? Don’t get too attached to whatever paradise you think you’ve found between her legs. A queen’s the same as a housemaid in the dark.”

“Say one more coarse word about the lady,” Philip said pleasantly, “and I’ll gut you where you stand.”

“Eh?” Pinochle blinked.

Philip retained his inscrutable smile. “Since you’re moving along, Pinochle—” he wasn’t about to address this odious creature as my lord— “I think I’ll duck back into the bookshop. The Duchess of Hunsdon has a rather unique collection. Good day.”

He tipped his head in a nod and was turning toward the door when he heard a woman scream.