Page 28 of Surrender Your Grace (Impromptu Brides #1)

The carriage jolted to a halt. Henry, the guard Andrew insisted be at her side whenever she left the house, opened the door and hopped down. That’s as far as he went, his gaze sweeping up and down the narrow side street just off Piccadilly.

“Are you certain this is the place?”

Cici drew back the curtain and peered out the window at the shuttered shops and a scattering of unsavory figures lingering near the shopfronts.

Foxlow’s Books & Curiosities looked anything but inviting.

Its crooked, weathered sign listed precariously.

The front window was so thick with grime, it might as well have been painted.

“This is the address Hatchard’s provided,” she said as she stepped down, tucking her gloved hands into her muff. “The owner was to set the book aside for me. It’s the only copy.”

Mary climbed down after her, looking ready to bolt. “I don’t like the look of this neighborhood.”

“Nor do I,” Henry muttered. “If His Grace hears you were let out here—”

“Let’s make sure he doesn’t,” Cici replied, moving forward with purpose. “We’ll be in and out in a wink. The book is to be his Christmas gift, so discretion is essential.”

Inside, the bell over the door gave a feeble jangle. The shop was dim, dusty, and far too warm. Books were stacked in leaning towers, jammed into groaning shelves, or piled on rickety tables in no discernible order.

Two men near the back glanced up eyes flaring wide at the sight of a well-dressed lady. A third entered behind them—tall, twitchy, his collar turned up against the cold outside. He carried a cane, though he didn’t appear to need it. When his gaze locked on her, he froze.

Cici’s breath caught. Something about him was familiar, but she couldn’t recall what exactly.

From the back came a voice. “Be with you in a tick!”

As if released from a trance, the fidgety man ducked between the shelves and vanished.

“Mind the floorboards,” the voice added. “Bit of a slope near the poetry.”

Cici blinked. “Charming.”

Henry stood at her elbow, visibly agitated. His hand hovered near his coat pocket—where she was certain a pistol hid. “Let me fetch the book. You should wait in the carriage.”

“Better I stay near you than without you in this neighborhood,” she countered. “Besides, while we’re here, I’d like to look around.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, Your Grace, but this ain’t the kind of place a duchess should be browsing.”

“You’re right, of course,” she conceded, the other patrons’ eyes still upon her, making her uneasy. “Could you see if you can hurry the proprietor along? He was supposed to be expecting me.”

Henry faced the back and bellowed, “If you want a sale, you’ve got one minute to get out here and make it before we leave.”

She looked up at her towering guard—who eclipsed Andrew in height by at least three inches. “Where did you say my husband found you?”

“I didn’t. But if you must know, His Grace hired me through a private enquiry firm in Bloomsbury. I’m former military—now I mind wayward duchesses with a penchant for trouble.” He strode to the dusty curtain that doubled for a door behind the counter. “Now you’ve got thirty seconds,” he hollered.

Mary sidled closer, looking around in distaste. “This place is positively dreadful.”

“And dusty. Try not to breathe,” Cici murmured.

She tried to follow her own advice as she moved down the cramped aisles. The lack of organization was appalling, novels shelved with science texts, poetry buried among treatises on war and politics.

Still, she searched, since the owner seemed in no hurry, unlike Henry. Her gaze skimmed up and down the haphazard shelves. Near the back, at the very top, a red leather-bound volume gleamed faintly, its gilt lettering glinting in the gloom.

It was how the man at Hatchard’s had described what she came for. Curious, she rose onto her toes and reached for it.

Dust cascaded down, drawing out a sneeze—then another.

“I’m fine,” she called when Mary fussed. She blew across the cover and uncovered the title. A Compendium of Arendale: Folklore, Ruins, and Founding Families This was it. What a stroke of luck.

Delighted, she turned to the first page. The inscription was faded except for the date, 1789.

A creak behind her. A shadow flitted past the end of the aisle. The twitchy man again?

“Henry?” she called, unease prickling the back of her neck.

Another creak. Then a groan and splintering crack.

She looked up.

The bookshelf—an entire five-shelf unit—tipped forward. Books slid loose like tumbling bricks.

“Look out!” Mary cried.

Cici spun to flee. Her slipper slipped. Something heavy slammed against her shoulder and she stumbled—

Crash.

Pain shot up her leg like fire. She tugged and twisted to free herself, but her foot and ankle were trapped beneath splintered wood and heavy leather volumes.

Boots thundered over the warped floorboards.

“Bloody hell!” Henry said as he burst through, pulling off the debris. “Are you hurt?”

“Not overly—I don’t think. But I’m stuck,” she said through gritted teeth.

He lifted the shelving, freeing her. Books tumbled again with a deafening clatter.

The noise propelled the shopkeeper from the back. “What the hell have you done to my shop?” he demanded, glaring at Cici among the wreckage.

“You don’t think Her Grace did this,” Mary snapped. “Someone toppled that shelf.”

“Why would someone do that?”

“I don’t know,” her champion replied, “But it didn’t fall on its own!”

Henry scanned the shop, jaw clenched. “The twitchy bastard is gone.”

“You noticed him too?” Cici asked as she crawled over books.

“Of course I did,” he growled as he bent to help her up. “Should’ve dragged you out the moment I laid eyes on him. Now you’re hurt, and I’m out of a job.”

“Why would you be?”

“Your husband doesn’t strike me as the forgiving sort. I let you get hurt on my watch.”

Cici leaned against the shelf, wincing. “I’ll speak to His Grace on your behalf.”

“You’d better.” He squatted a bit to study her face. “Can you walk on your own?”

“I think so but wait—” She bent awkwardly and sifted through the wreckage until her fingers curled around a faded red spine. “Here it is,” she breathed.

Henry let out an exasperated groan. “That old book better be worth the trouble you’re borrowing.”

She smiled weakly and tossed her reticule to Mary. “Pay the man, or this was all for nothing.”

Minutes later, the carriage rolled toward Mayfair. Cici sat with her foot propped on the bench, the book beside her, ankle throbbing. Something nagged at her.

Not the bruises. Not Andrew’s temper.

Only the man. The twitch. The cane.

She had seen him before—she was certain. But the memory dangled just out of reach.

***

As she set her foot down to test its strength, pain shot up her leg. Cici glanced toward the townhouse. She might be able to hobble as far as the walkway, but the stairs were an impossibility.

“Mary, run in and see if my husband is at home. I think I’ll need his assistance getting inside.”

Her maid hurried up the stone steps. Henry cleared his throat. “I can carry you. His Grace won’t thank me if I let you injure yourself further.”

“I don’t think that would be proper.”

Her arched a brow. “Much like entering that bookstore in the first place, I suppose.”

Mary reappeared, flustered. “His Grace has not returned yet.”

Cici sighed. “I supposed we have no choice.”

Henry scooped her up easily and carried her up the six stone steps, shifting her slightly so she wouldn’t knock her head on the doorframe as they passed. Even that mild jostling made her shoulder ache and her ankle throb mercilessly.

“The book, Mary!” Cici called over his shoulder. “It’s still in the carriage. After what we went through to get it, I’d hate to lose it.”

Inside, the entry was quiet, but Andrew arrived like thunder from the opposite end of the hall. “What in blazes is going on here?”

She squirmed to get down as Henry turned, almost dropping her. He caught her at the last moment around the shoulders as her legs thumped inelegantly to the floor.

Cici didn’t know which hurt more, her shoulder or her foot, and doubled over as she clutched both in pain.

Andrew crossed the foyer in two strides, swept her up, and carried her to the salon. He lowered her gently onto the settee. Book-spine bruises marked her everywhere, including her posterior. She sucked in sharply and shifted gingerly.

“Someone had better explain.”His eyes flicked from Cici, bruised and disheveled, to Mary, his expression harder than stone.

“We were… in the book… shop… when a shelf… fell. It near killed Her Grace,”Mary’s stuttering tearful explanation was mostly unintelligible.

“Andrew, you’re frightening the poor girl.I’m fine, except for a tender ankle and a battered shoulder.”

He sat beside her and raised her foot to his lap. In front of everyone, he reached beneath her skirt and peeled down her stocking. “It’s black and blue, and swollen,” he murmured as he examined her injury. “Can you move it?”

“Only a little,” she said, wincing as his fingers probed. “Putting weight on it, though, is excruciating.”

“It might be broken. Jenkins!” he called. The ever-present butler appeared at once. “Summon Dr. Wadsworth. Mary, bring cool compresses. Henry, you and I will speak of this later.”

The others scattered, leaving her alone with her husband.

“How does a bookshelf fall over?” he asked.

“I don’t know.I was perusing a book when I heard a loud creak. One heavy book fell from above then another. And suddenly—everything tumbled. I tried to run but tripped. It was quite an ordeal.”

“This happened at Hatchard’s?”

“Um… no.”

“West Haven’s?”

“It was… a more exclusive shop.”

“I’ll have the name. I plan to speak with the owner.”His tone brooked no further hedging.

Her voice barely rose above a whisper. “Foxlow’s, off Fleet Street. Just beyond Temple Bar.”

His fingers stilled, and his head came up. “You left Westminster? Tell me you are joking.”

“I was well guarded, and we didn’t intend to linger.”