Page 155 of The Ladies Least Likely
All Amaranthe heard was the blood in her ears. She recognized the dark leather. With trembling fingers she unwound the long straps and opened the cover.
“My book.” She looked up but saw nothing at first, her eyes blurred with tears. For a moment, the signs she wanted escaped her. “You rescued my book?”
Wenna glanced at her husband and took the lead explaining. “Me luv went to the gig that day to wash it, seeing it was splashed with mud,” she said. “And ee saw your book in the well. Didn’t want to wet it, now did ee, so ee set it aside meaning to give to you later. Only you disappeared that day, miss—and we know now why you did—but ee didna have a chance to return it.”
“You had it all this time,” Amaranthe breathed. “It’s safe. It’s not damaged at all.” Her eyes filled with tears of joy.
“We’re sorry, miss, that we had to keep it,” Wenna said. “Watched the mail, we did, to see if we could find your address or direction. But we never saw post from you, and when I asked at the house, it was all surly answers. We wanted to return it to you all this time, but we didn’t know where you were.”
“It’s all right.” Amaranthe laughed shakily. “In truth, I hardly dared hope I would find it again. I thought Reuben had stolen it and, I don’t know—burned it out of spite.”
She lifted the pages delicately. They were as fresh and beautiful as they’d been six years ago. Her first book, the cornerstone of her collection. The first in her library, back when she meant to become simply an antiquarian bookseller and not also a thief.
“Then we did all right, me luv,” Wenna said softly.
“More than all right,” Amaranthe said, signing to her friend with an expansive gesture. “Thaker, Wenna—thank you. I can’t tell how much this means to me.”
She lifted eyes blurred with tears to find Mal watching her, his expression intent. She closed the pages gently and turnedthe book, shielded in its leather apron, to show him the list of women’s names on the front flyleaf. “Mal. It’s your mother’s name, isn’t it? She signed it Lady Vernay.”
His gaze riveted on the faded script, his throat working before he could voice the words. “But you said this was valuable. How would she have come by a Book of Hours?”
“You and your aunt both said she loved old things. Perhaps it was a wedding gift. His to her, most like. I expect your aunt sold it with some other things after she died. I wanted to ask her about it, but I had already been so pert.”
She laughed, the sound a bit wild with guilt. “By rights, the book ought to be yours, I suppose. But I have a bill of sale, you see.” And she didn’t want to part with her book again. Not for anything.
“I won’t attempt to take it from you. Only…” Mal lifted a hand and traced a finger over his mother’s name, all he had left of her. “If she wrote anything else in it, I hope you will let me see.”
Amaranthe closed the book and fastened the clasp, then wound the extra length of leather about it once more and bound the whole in the linen scrap. She held the book to her chest more tenderly than she had held the child. Her life had been restored to her, a great wrong made right.
“This is a priceless gift, Thaker. It makes me brave enough to face Reuben, even. I suppose it is time we went to the house.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Iam very sorry for your loss, cousin,” Amaranthe said for the dozenth time. She sat in the formal parlor of Penwellen, a dark and shadowed chamber, the mirrors hung with black fabric. “I wish I had been here to help her at the end. It must have been terrible for you both.”
“My wife dead, and no heir.” Reuben prowled the length of the narrow room, close and airless, as if the drapes had not been drawn back in ages. Perhaps Favella had stopped using the room. The funeral was done with, and the house had seen no callers that day besides them, as far as Amaranthe could tell.
“No heir. You know what this means.”
He paused to glare at her, and Amaranthe tensed. Did he want to discuss Joseph? The musty smell of the house cloyed in her nostrils.
The years had not been kind to Reuben. He had gone from fleshy to portly, his face florid with signs of heavy drink, his hair greasy and his sideburns unevenly shaved. A man could be forgiven dishevelment after losing his wife and child, but Reuben’s appearance suggested the neglect had gone on far longer.
“I have to marry again,” he growled. “Soon.”
“If you say so.” Amaranthe curled her hands in her lap, pressing her knees and ankles together. She wished she hadn’t left Mal upstairs, freshening up in the room the housekeeper had shown him. The surly, gloomy woman, no one Amaranthe recognized, had greeted them at the door and accepted their names as if she didn’t care who they were.
Amaranthe’s old room held no signs that she had ever lived there. It, along with the rest of the house, felt strange and familiar at the same time. The furnishings were the same, everything in place, but shabby and in need of care. Favella had been insistent about housekeeping, very often pressing Amaranthe to engage in cleaning herself, yet this dust and decay had been accumulating. Did they not entertain? Had Reuben no pride? What had happened here after she left?
“I won’t have just anyone.” Reuben continued his circuit of the room, his face flushed with anger. “Our name is too good for that.”
“Of course,” Amaranthe replied, paying him little mind as she looked about, wondering at the cause of the house’s decline. Reuben’s high opinion of his worth rested on very little basis, from what she could tell. Being a baronet put him above most of his neighbors, but there were far grander people in the world. Dukes, for instance.
She was calculating how long politeness required her to stay when Reuben wheeled on her with a sneer. “So this is why you rushed here, I take it.”
“For what?” She blinked.
His contemptuous gaze settled on her bosom. Her traveling gown today was less smart than the others, but nothing of the duchess’s was dowdy. Even if her figure was unremarkable—and in Amaranthe’s opinion, hers was—the dress gave its own advantage.
