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“I must continue cataloging our newest acquisitions, so please do excuse me.” Mr. Okafor bowed before retreating.
Leaving Grace alone with Mason.
Her mouth dried and her pulse hammered as she looked at him. Damn, he was pleasant to look upon. She could study the shape of his curved lips for hours, and fill page upon page in her sketchbook with the angle of his jaw or the dimple in his left cheek. He wore his light brown hair neatly trimmed, revealing a high, intellectual forehead. His green eyes regarded her with fondness.
Only fondness.
Summoning her courage, she said with as much breeziness as she could muster, “Now that you’ve returned to London, perhaps you’ll join my family for dinner tonight? We’re having guests, so it wouldn’t be any trouble to add another.” Her pulse hammered—she’d never before asked Mason to dine.
“Alas, I cannot.” He sounded genuinely regretful. “Within a day of my homecoming, my social calendar became appallingly overcrowded. Especially as I intend to leave for an expedition to Greenland in less than two months.”
She ignored her plunge of disappointment. “Of course.”
“Nothing would please me more than a tête-à-tête with you,” he continued. “Every day brings new developments in the field, new texts with new theories—”
“Such as the Cuvier.” She eyed the book he held.
“Indeed.” He sighed. “But, unfortunately, I’m expected at no fewer than three dinners tonight.”
“To be seated beside young, unmarried ladies,” she said, before silently groaning at her gaucheness. Why did she have to bring that up?
He chuckled. “Highly unlikely. Who would want their daughter to marry a naturalist? No one dreams that their beloved girl will spend her honeymoon tramping through the wastelands of the subarctic, tracking the migration patterns of the local fauna.”
“That sounds ideal.” Just her and Mason, out in the wilderness, devoted to their studies and the expansion of knowledge during the day. And at night . . .
Her cheeks grew warmer.
“Of course you would think so.” He grinned and her insides went gelatinous. “Because you’re a true scholar. But, unfortunately, no prospective bride offers such delights. No,” he said, sobering, “when I do find the right woman to marry, I can only pray she tolerates my work. Ah, well. She’s out there, somewhere. I merely need to be patient and hope to find her.”
Grace made herself smile, but within, she shriveled. “I wish you luck in your search.”
“My thanks.” He regarded her warmly. “You’re always so easy to talk to, Lady Grace. Will you also be at the Creasys’ garden party? I believe it’s next week, and they were adamant I stop by.”
She’d never intended to go. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’ll see you there, then, and I’ll finish with the Cuvier quickly.” He bowed before strolling off with the book.
Dejected, she headed into the stacks, barely aware of the rows and rows of comforting books, or how their spines formed trees in a colorful, reassuring forest. She turned at random down an aisle, hardly noticing the little cards that proclaimed the section’s subject matter.
She stopped and rested her hand on a book from the shelf. System and Methodology for Creating Algebraic Taxonomies. Despite knowing next to nothing about algebra, she pulled the volume down.
With the book absent from its place on the shelf, a small gap opened up, revealing the face of a man standing in the next aisle.
He glanced up absently from the tome he held. His gaze slid back down to the book, then moved up again before a smile bloomed.
“Lady Grace.”
“Oh!” She lowered her voice when an unseen person shushed her. She pulled herself out of her gloomy haze enough to smile at Sebastian Holloway. As always when she saw him, a little fizz of happiness rose up within her, slightly pushing aside her melancholy. “Sebastian. You know you can call me just ‘Grace.’ I promise it won’t sully your reputation to be on familiar terms with me.”
“Can you be certain? I hear such scandalous things about you.” He pushed his shaggy blond hair off his forehead, but it slid back almost immediately. Light from the window reflected off of his spectacles as he tilted his head. “You’ve developed an interest in mathematics and other numeric subjects?” His eyebrows raised.
She glanced down at the book in her hand. “Have I ever shown the slightest inclination for mathematics?”
“Considering that you still count on your fingers . . .”
She scowled at him, but without malice. “How dare you, sirrah!”
“My most abject apologies. I’m a bookish man, unaware of social niceties.”
“Here in England,” she pointed out. “When it comes to the social customs of villages in the Azores during Lent, you’re an expert.”
He bowed. “Madam, you flatter me.”
They shared sly smiles, and a shard of her unhappiness worked its way free from her mood. Being with Sebastian was always so easy, so comfortable. They didn’t have the same disciplines, but that hardly mattered when they both loved the pursuit of knowledge.
Four years ago, they’d met in this very library. She never would have expected the tall, fair man with a rather strapping frame to be one of England’s most devoted anthropologists—but then, she should know better than believing there was a direct correlation between how someone looked and who they truly were.
Since then, they’d become friends. A handful of times each month, they would attend a lecture together, or visit a museum, or go on some other excursion. Grace always looked forward to these outings. She and Sebastian enjoyed each other’s company, and though they didn’t share a subject of study, they both loved to observe the world around them, often with a slightly wry perspective, and shared their observations over cake and cups of tea at Catton’s.
Over the years, she’d come to know things about him. His love for anthropology and the study of rituals, customs, and cultures stemmed from his perspective as a perennial outsider—a feeling with which she could empathize.
“How did the conversation with your father go?” she asked.
He gave her a wry grin. “Oh, it was as delightful as expected. I stammered for fifteen minutes, he glared at me, and then we both retreated to opposite sides of the study.”
“Oh, no.”
Sebastian exhaled. “It’s a consistent disappointment, trying to get my father to understand that his youngest son has any actual significance.” He undercut this statement with another flash of ironic smile, but Grace saw the hurt beneath it.
“It’s just one man’s opinion,” she offered.
“I know.” His brow furrowed. “I know. But . . .”
“Knowing that your own parent doesn’t understand you . . . I imagine it’s an injury that never quite heals.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Should be used to it by now.”
A sympathetic ache resounded in her chest. “There’s no should when it comes to what we feel. There aren’t scientific laws when it comes to the human heart.”
After a moment, he said, “My father made the charming threat that if I didn’t take a place in the business I wouldn’t see a farthing more than my crumb of an allowance. Pure joy it is to have such a man as my father.”
“Did you tell him that you can’t do any true fieldwork without financial support? That you’re stuck doing research by reading alone? Wouldn’t that move him at all?”
Sebastian gazed at her. “John Holloway, founder and owner of Holloway Ironworks, is . . . I believe the technical term is a closed-fisted bastard.” He coughed. “Beg pardon about the language.”
“By all means, call a bastard a bastard.” She almost reached through the open bookshelf to lay her hand across his.
Almost.
Sebastian might be a fellow natural philosopher, and her friend for several years, but he was still a young man in his prime and she was a woman of marriageable age. She couldn’t just go around touching eligible bachelors, not without consequences.
And . . . whenever she looked at Sebastian’s hands, her belly fluttered with awareness. They were large hands, with long, blunt fingers, and more than once she’d caught herself daydreaming about what it would feel like to have his hand stroke along her arm, or down her back, or tenderly cup the back of her head . . .
Mentally, she shook herself. She wouldn’t throw away four years of friendship on a few uninvited sensual thoughts. Oh, maybe when she’d first met Sebastian, she’d hoped their camaraderie might evolve into something more intimate. But he’d always been scrupulously polite and treated her strictly as a colleague and confidant.
She’d already faced rejection from the belles and beaux of Society—she didn’t need to experience it again with Sebastian. So she’d carefully weeded out the seedlings of attraction, and the garden of their friendship remained tidily maintained.
“We’ve discussed my bastard father enough.” He tilted his head. “I might be a trifle nearsighted, but I’m fairly certain I saw you talking with Mason Fredericks a few minutes ago.”
Heat flooded her face. “He’s back from his latest expedition.”
“So I gathered.” Sebastian peered through the bookshelf. “Your conversation with him looked pleasant enough to an outside observer. But then . . .” His gaze turned sympathetic. “. . . I’m not the one nursing a tendre for him.”
“For the love of everything holy, lower your voice.” She glanced around, hoping no one heard Sebastian.
“Apologies.”
“Oh, Sebastian.” She groaned, tipping her head forward so that it rested against the shelf. “What am I going to do?”
From somewhere in the library, a voice hissed, “Shh! People are trying to work.”
Further mortification worked its way into her bones. God above, but she was a disaster.
But rather than gazing at her with understanding, Sebastian’s expression turned opaque. She’d no idea what he was thinking or felt. Perhaps it was wrong to talk about another man with him, though it was far from the first time the topic of Mason had come up.
To Grace, he said, “Follow me.” Then he strode away.
Had she pushed her friend too far?
Chapter 2
Uncertain where he led her, she followed Sebastian, but since his legs were much longer than hers, she had to hurry to keep up.
She passed Mr. Okafor. The librarian held a substantial book.
“Mr. Fredericks left you the first volume of the Cuvier,” Mr. Okafor murmured.
So, Mason had gone. She was almost relieved so that she didn’t have to wallow in her one-sided attraction anymore today. “If you’d be so kind, please hold on to it for me.”
Sebastian stopped and said over his shoulder, “Lady Grace and I must discuss something in the study room—unless someone is currently using it.”
After glancing with curiosity toward Grace, the librarian shook his head. “It’s unoccupied until four, when Mrs. Graves has reserved it. By all means, make use of the room.” It wasn’t uncommon for patrons to confer with each other about sundry topics, regardless of their specific discipline.
She nodded her thanks and, before she could change her mind about what Sebastian intended to do, moved with him toward the study room.
He opened the door for her, and when she drew close to him she was struck anew—as she always was—by his unusual height.
She herself was of average stature for a woman in this part of the world, but Sebastian must have been descended from Norsemen who had long ago invaded Britain. He certainly possessed the size, fair coloring, and defined features of a Viking.
He gestured for her to enter the study room and she stepped inside.
The room contained a circular table and four chairs, with a single window that looked out into the mews, and a handsome portrait of Mr. Benezra’s mother painted when she was a young bride.
Sebastian glanced at the picture. “Imagine she’s heard some fairly intriguing conversations over the years.”
“The world is changing rapidly,” Grace said. “Who knows where we’ll be in three years, let alone three decades?” She gazed at him. “What are we doing in here?”
“Didn’t seem judicious to discuss your feelings about Mason Fredericks in the middle of the library. And,” he added in a kind voice, “you looked on the verge of either tearing the library down to its foundation or bursting into tears.”
The pressure in her chest loosened at hearing his words of understanding. She could always rely on him. “Can’t I do both?”
“Surely. If you need any help with the former, I believe the library has a Pictish hammer somewhere in its collection.”
She tried for a smile before giving up and dropping down into a chair. “It’s hopeless. Do you know what Mason said to me at the circulation desk? First he said that he was running off to Greenland in less than two months. And then he lamented ever finding a wife who could tolerate his scientific pursuits. That such a woman was nigh impossible to find. All while I was standing right in front of him.”
“Damn.” Sebastian scowled. “That was ruddy thoughtless of him.”
Warmth touched her at Sebastian’s defense. “I suppose. But in all the years I’ve known him, he’s never seen me as anything other than a colleague. He’s always surrounded by flirting belles. And you know more than anyone that I’m decidedly not a belle. Nor do I want to be,” she added with vehemence, “but it’s hard to get someone’s attention when they’re encircled by sparkling fireworks and I’m a laboratory brazier, burning steadily away.”
Unable to sit still any longer, she surged to her feet and began to pace the confines of the small room. Sebastian quickly stood, watching her with concern.
“I only want . . .” She shook her head, trying to make sense of her tangled feelings. “I only want him to see me. As I am. Not merely a fellow natural philosopher, but as a woman.”
“I’m certain he knows you’re a woman,” Sebastian said drily.
“In an abstract sense. But no one ever held hands in a moonlit garden with an abstract sense.”
Sebastian inclined his head. “Point taken. And he’s no notion of your feelings for him.”
“You and Jane Argyle are the only two who know.” She wouldn’t trust anyone but her two closest friends with the knowledge.
“Don’t think I don’t appreciate that.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the table. “He’s ideal, isn’t he? A man who’s respected in his field as well the larger world of society. The best of both worlds.”
“Never thought of it like that.” Mason had always drawn her attention and admiration, from the first time she’d met him during her debut. Yes, he was handsome, but it was the substance of him that ensnared her. Considering it now, he did possess everything she desired but feared to reach for.
She went on, “I never told you this, but in the first months of my debut, I’d been candid with fellow debutantes and prospective suitors about my love of reptiles, my fascination with amphibians. The looks I’d received, the laughter . . .” She shook her head as if she could dispel the hurt that still resounded. Being snubbed was a terrible thing. It struck to the very heart of the need to belong. “Only Mason was kind. Only he listened and asked questions and seemed to believe that my work was worthwhile. That I was worthwhile.”
In those months, she’d come to see Mason as the lone beacon of light in the dark cavern that was the Season.
“Oh, Grace.” Sebastian’s look was one of deep sympathy. “I . . . we here at the library, we think you’re worthwhile.”
“And I’m grateful for it, truly.” She dipped her head, humbled by the kindness of her colleagues. With them, she didn’t have to retreat behind a shield of irony. She didn’t need to pretend to disregard their opinions using a protective barrier of wit.
“But it’s not the same as winning the heart of a man you admire,” he added.
“I’m being foolish, aren’t I?” Yet the need within her, the palpable ache to be seen and accepted and loved—that didn’t feel foolish. It felt alive and so very close, as if the pain lodged just beside her heart, cutting into her with each beat, reminding her over and over that she wasn’t enough. She would never be enough.
At least she had Jane. And Sebastian. Her two friends. That was something. It was more than many people had, and she ought to be grateful.
“Not foolish.” Sebastian regarded her sympathetically. “It lies at the core of us, the need for love and recognition. All my years of watching people, observing them as they go about the rituals of their lives . . . it always comes back to love.”
Seeking relief from the oppressiveness of her feelings, she teased, “How deeply romantic. Are you turning from anthropology to poetry?”
“What rhymes with kinship systems?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Flagship Tristams?”
He kissed his fingertips. “Perfection.”
A moment later, they both broke into laughter. She leaned into the release, allowing the absurdity to ease pressure from the hurt at the center of her.
“Thank you,” she said.
He looked baffled. “For what?”
“For listening to my self-indulgent diatribe. The next time we meet, I’ll be less of a sapskull.”
“Reminds me.” He rifled around in his pockets before producing a crumpled piece of paper, which he held out to her. As she read it, he went on. “At a private home in Chelsea, there’s a temporary exhibition of medieval woodcuts that’s open to the public. I heard that some examples of early studies of reptiles were included. Come with me tomorrow?”
“I would,” she said at once. “Only . . . woodcuts of lizards aren’t exactly your bailiwick. Is there anything there that would interest you?.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “The whole world interests me.”
“If I was talking to anyone else, I’d say that statement was an exaggeration. However, it’s you, so I know that you mean that with complete honesty.” She smiled fondly at him, her good friend.
It was a wonder that he was still a bachelor. He never even spoke of lovers. Why could no woman ever see what a wonderful man he was? But, then, finding people who could support your scientific interests was a difficult task. He was also poor as a churchmouse, which, unfortunately, meant that he hadn’t the financial means to court anyone.
Sebastian returned her smile, then pulled out his timepiece. “Damn. Supposed to be at McKinnon’s bookstore to pick up a special order.” He bowed, then asked, “I’ll see you tomorrow? We’ll meet at the exhibition?”
“Tomorrow at the exhibition,” she said brightly. Grace shooed him toward the door. “Now go, and enjoy your new books.”
“There is nothing more enjoyable than new books,” he said solemnly. “Except old books.”
“Truer words . . .”
With a wave, he left the reading room. She stood alone, torn between gratitude and despair. Gratitude for Sebastian’s camaraderie, and despair that Mason had put her firmly in the classification Amica asexualis.
Nothing would ever change that. She was as fixed as a pin through a butterfly.
Seb took advantage of his long legs to walk quickly from the Benezra. Brisk afternoon air cooled his face.
He needed distance between himself and Grace, distance that would help clear his head and remind him of some Very Important Facts.
She was the daughter of an earl and could trace her ancestry back to before the Tudors.
He was the son of a man who’d made his fortune from mining and selling iron, and his grandfather had been a blacksmith with barely any literacy.
Her pin money was likely ten times the amount of the pittance that was his quarterly allowance.
In four years, not once had she looked at him with anything warmer than friendliness.
She was besotted by Mason Fredericks and only Mason Fredericks.
She owed Seb nothing. He couldn’t feel anger or resentment that she considered him strictly a friend.
But, damn, none of that made it easier to hear about her infatuation.
He neatly dodged around a liveried messenger hurrying down the street, and sidestepped around a fallen meat pie someone had dropped. Physical action came so easily and without thought. He could settle into the movement, confident that his body would perform as it needed to, even excel in the motions required. At least in that regard, he had full confidence.
Oh, and thanks to the fact that he couldn’t secure money to fund field research, he knew his way around a library.
That totaled up to two areas of expertise. When it came to talking—more specifically, wooing—he devolved into a stammering blancmange.
Which was one of the reasons why he never tried to say anything remotely flirtatious with Grace. He’d never tell her that her gray-blue eyes reminded him of the sea at dusk. Or that he could spend hours contemplating the curve of her neck. Or give voice to the fact that when he saw her, he forgot anything unpleasant that had happened to him earlier in the day and it was as though the sun had broken out from behind a heavy cloudbank, brightening everything within him.
The reason—the only reason—why he could talk to Grace at all was because she thought of him merely as a friend. He didn’t lose his awareness of her as a woman, but so long as she valued his platonic companionship, he’d keep all thoughts of kissing his way across her collarbone to a minimum, thank you very much.
The sign for McKinnon’s came into view. He breathed out, letting the last of tension slip from his body.
“Afternoon, Mr. Holloway,” the bookseller called from behind a table laden with tomes of every size. “A moment, and I’ll head back to fetch your order.”
“At your leisure, Mr. McKinnon.” Seb slipped between the bookshelves, which, along with the Benezra Library, formed the walls of his spiritual home. He had to content himself with other people’s research, since having the funds to actually go out into the field—outside of England—and conduct research of his own was a distant dream.
Grace stepped into the foyer of her home, her face heating as she recalled her mortifying conversation with Mason. Then Sebastian had listened so patiently to her bemoaning that humiliating interaction. He always listened—one of the reasons why she was so grateful to call him a friend.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re home, my lady!”
She paused in the act of handing Katie her bonnet as Grenville, the butler, hurried forward. Grenville’s mouth was tight, and creases of worry fanned out from the corners of his eyes.
Considering how he had once calmly announced at teatime that a fire had broken out in the kitchen, the butler’s tense expression shot alarm through Grace.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“The earl . . . your father . . .” Grenville’s gaze lifted to the top of the staircase, toward her father’s bedchamber.
Grace shot up the stairs, hiking up her skirts to take them two at a time. Every stride made her heart pound harder as countless disastrous scenarios played out in her mind.
In the hallway outside her father’s bedchamber, she nearly collided with a middle-aged man in dark and serious clothing. A servant carrying a covered basin was on his heels. It took her addled thoughts a moment to recall that he was Dr. Campbell, the family physician.
“Lady Grace.” Dr. Campbell bowed. “I’ve just been attending the earl.”
“Tell me what’s wrong with him.” She gripped the physician’s sleeve, dimly noting the whiteness of her knuckles.
“I’ve bled him, and he’s resting now.”
“But what happened?”
Dr. Campbell hesitated. “I don’t want to overset you. Young ladies can have delicate temperaments.”
She fought down a wave of impatience. “You attended my birth, Dr. Campbell, so by now you should know I have no delicate temperament.”