A Lady Without Peer, page 21
He rested his cheek against her temple. “A pattern that won’t emerge. I know what you mean. Hephaestus is laughing at us. Don’t move.”
He was on his feet and rifling the pile of clothing in the next instant. Philomena lay on her back amid pillows and blankets, her shift undone and bunched beneath her ribs.
“What a glorious picture you make,” he said, using a handkerchief to swab at himself. He was matter-of-fact about the whole shockingly personal business, handling his own flesh with brisk familiarity.
While Philomena felt as if she’d been reborn in another woman’s skin. I know so many languages and so little that matters.
Without putting on so much as a shirt, Ramsdale knelt beside her and used the handkerchief on her belly, then tugged the shift down over her thighs and gave her a pat between her legs.
“Lest the sight of you tempt me to excesses my conscience forbids. Take a soaking bath when you get home tonight, please. I was not as restrained as I’d hoped to be. Next time…”
His gaze traveled over her, and a world of passionate possibilities blossomed in the silence. Philomena stretched up and kissed him.
He kissed her back, gently cupping her right breast, and a few of those possibilities crept nearer.
A soft scraping sound at the door intruded.
“I will make the damned beast into a pair of gloves,” Ramsdale said, going to the door and opening it an entire six inches.
Genesis strolled in, tail held high, nose wrinkling.
“‘A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast,’” Philomena quoted, ‘“but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ I doubt Proverbs contemplated such a creature as Genesis.”
Ramsdale pulled a shirt over his head as the cat stropped itself against his bare legs. They’d clearly done this often—the man donning clothing with the cat in casual attendance—and Philomena was jealous of that cat.
“I’m sure my breeches are somewhere…”
Philomena rose and passed Ramsdale his breeches. “Why did Hephaestus name his cat Genesis?”
Ramsdale took the breeches, shook them once, and stepped into them. “Because that cat is the originator of all mischief, perhaps? Perhaps he’s the runt of a litter of seven, all of whom were named in alphabetical order. I don’t suppose you could locate—”
She passed him his waistcoat, and with each piece of clothing, Philomena yielded a little more to the pull of the library. Her heart wanted to linger here, where she and Ramsdale had become lovers. Her mind sought the safety of the linguistic challenge Hephaestus had bequeathed her, because she needed a refuge from her emotions.
“Your hair,” Ramsdale said when the pillows and blankets were all put to rights and he was dressed but for his coat. “Your coiffure has been disarranged.”
Philomena looked over at him between lacing up her left boot and the right. “By the wind, perhaps?”
Ramsdale slung his cravat about his neck and blew her a kiss. “By a mighty tempest.”
Hephaestus had prosed on in several places about tempests. With the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones, was his favorite quote.
“Was Hephaestus particularly religious?” Philomena asked as she tied Ramsdale’s cravat.
“Hardly. Uncle had contempt for what he called the pious hypocrites of proper society. I want you again already, Philomena. I thought if we indulged our passions, I might have a prayer of—”
She kissed him and ran her fingers through his hair, which the tempest had also left sticking up on one side. “We have work to do, your lordship. Why so many biblical references from a man who disdained religion?”
Ramsdale caught her hand and kissed her palm. “Am I already back to being a lordship, Philomena?”
That one small kiss caused inconvenient, lovely stirrings. “When we leave this office, you will most definitely be a lordship, and I will be a Miss Peebles, sir. On that topic, I will brook no discussion.”
He kept hold of her hand, leaned back against the desk, and drew Philomena between his legs.
“‘She is more precious than rubies,’” he said, kissing her knuckles this time, ‘“and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.’”
Some of the most beautiful words in the Bible, and Ramsdale looked like he was about to offer her more lovely quotes.
Philomena wanted to hear them, but later, because her imagination chose then to leap upon a potential connection.
“That’s it,” Philomena said. “The biblical allusions. Hephaestus uses them frequently, more than any other reference, almost to the exclusion of any other reference. For a learned man to limit himself to a single source of literary comparisons makes no sense.”
“Philomena, might we discuss dear Uncle and his daft—?”
“Come along, Ramsdale. We must list every biblical reference in the will, because if I’m right, this could be a clue to the Duke’s whereabouts.”
The cat resumed his place on the hassock, and Ramsdale pushed away from the desk. “To the library, then, but let me see to your hair first.”
Her—Philomena put a hand to her head—hair. Her thoroughly mussed hair. “Of course. I’m as bad as my father.”
A gallant lover would have argued with her. Ramsdale smiled, tidied up her braid, and escorted her to the library.
Chapter Seven
Three days remained until Peebles’s retirement banquet, and little remained of Ramsdale’s sanity.
Philomena had hastened through the remaining codicils for the sole purpose of listing biblical quotes or allusions, while Ramsdale had done his paltry best to aid her. The family Bible—an enormous tome of ancient pedigree—probably hadn’t seen this much consultation in all its decades of gathering dust.
Nor had the library been the scene of so many kisses.
Only kisses, alas. Ramsdale had ordered a ring for his intended, though he’d yet to settle on an inscription.
The front door banged and Genesis, who’d taken to supervising his owner, was startled from his napping place to the left of the desk blotter.
“My sister is apparently going out,” Ramsdale said. Meaning the person most likely to intrude had considerately left the premises.
Philomena sat at the desk, petting the cat and staring out the window. She stared out the window often, and looked lovely doing it too.
“Her ladyship isn’t off to pay calls,” she said. “She must have a visitor. A coach and four have pulled up out front, very fine. Matched grays in harness.”
Ramsdale went to the window, which had been cracked to let in the fresh air. Amesbury’s crest adorned the coach door, though Philomena likely hadn’t noticed that. She went back to scrawling quotations from the will, intent as ever on finding any trace of her Duke.
Ramsdale had found his countess and wished finding the dratted Duke were not still such a matter of urgency for her.
“If Melissa is entertaining, I’d best put in an appearance,” he said, because he was nothing if not a dutiful brother. “Will you manage without me?”
Philomena waved a hand, not even looking up. “There’s a pattern here, Ramsdale. I know there’s a pattern. I can feel it.”
The pattern was he longed to visit the office with her again, and she longed to find the Duke. Gentlemanly scruples weighed in favor of offering the lady a formal proposal—or at least chatting up the professor—before another such interlude.
If Philomena had to choose between spending one of the next seventy-two hours in her intended’s bed or pursuing her Duke, he suspected she’d choose the Duke.
Ramsdale paused, his hand on the door latch. “You want to find the Liber Ducis for yourself, don’t you? Not only for the professor.”
The pen stopped moving across the page. Philomena looked up slowly. “Would that be wrong, my lord?”
“You need not my-lord me when we are private.” More than her polite address, the caution in her eyes annoyed him.
“Would it be wrong for me to want all my years of study and scholarship to result in accomplishing what my father could not? Would it be wrong for me to claim a small portion of the respect and deference he’s been shown his whole life?”
Ramsdale’s every instinct told him to answer carefully. Philomena was tired, frustrated, anxious, and facing significant changes to a future she’d thought well settled.
“I understand that ambition, Philomena, but some quests take more time than we can allot them. My regard for you does not depend on your achieving the impossible.”
As far as Ramsdale knew, none of his fellow bibliophiles had located so much as a page of the missing manuscript.
She stroked the quill over the cat’s nose. “Is that why you neglected to pay me today? Because you don’t think we’ll find the Duke?”
Her gaze was as inscrutable as the damned cat’s, and Ramsdale was abruptly at sea. They were no longer employer and employee. They were a couple all but engaged. But then, a woman raised without wealth was likely incapable of treating money casually, and they were not quite engaged.
“An oversight on my part,” Ramsdale said. “I’ll correct my error tomorrow.” He crossed the room to kiss Philomena’s cheek, though the gesture was awkward when appended to a discussion of wages.
He left the library for the formal guest parlor. When a marquess came calling, only the formal parlor would do, of course. If Lady Maude had accompanied her dear papa, then Ramsdale was doomed to take a cup of tea.
To his relief, only the marquess graced the pink tufted sofa in Melissa’s parlor.
Amesbury rose, a tea cake halfway to his mouth, when Ramsdale made his bow.
“Amesbury, a pleasure, though I’m afraid my schedule does not permit me to linger. I do hope you’ll be able to join us for dinner on Wednesday next?”
Almack’s held its assemblies on Wednesdays, and Lady Maude would be well motivated not to linger over dinner when she might instead be waltzing. Melissa’s slight smile said she knew exactly why Ramsdale had chosen the date.
“Dinner would be lovely,” Amesbury said, finishing his tea cake. “Just lovely, though Lady Maude and I will soon be removing to the family seat. Only a fool remains in London during summer’s heat, eh?”
A fool or a man intent on avoiding matchmaking papas.
“More tea, my lord?” Melissa asked, sending Ramsdale a you-owe-me glance.
“Until Wednesday,” Ramsdale said, sketching a bow and nearly running for the door.
Melissa was a widow, and the occasional gentleman did call upon her, though why Amesbury, who was old enough to be her godfather, would trouble himself to pay a—
“My lord!”
Ramsdale had been halfway down the stairs, rounding the first landing, and thus he hadn’t seen Lady Maude coming up the steps—or lurking below the landing. She clung to his arms, her grip painful as she sagged against him.
“You gave me such a fright, sir! My heart’s going at a gallop. To think I might have tumbled to my death!”
For pity’s sake. “Hardly that. The stairs are carpeted, my lady. I’m sure you’ll catch your breath in a moment.”
She’d chosen her opportunity well, because this flight of stairs was in view of the front door. Callers came and went all afternoon, and somebody was bound to see her plastered to Ramsdale’s chest, panting like a hind.
The first footman remained at his post by the porter’s nook, earning himself a raise by keeping his eyes firmly to the front.
“You are uninjured,” Ramsdale said, trying to set the lady at a distance on the landing. “We didn’t even collide.”
Though not for want of trying on her part.
“But I am feeling quite faint,” she retorted, refusing to stand on her own two feet. “I vow and declare I might swoon.”
A door clicked open below—not the front door, thank the benevolent cherubs—the library door. Philomena emerged and, of course, moved toward the stairs.
She stopped at the foot of the steps, staring at the tableau above her.
Ramsdale knew what she saw: her almost-betrothed with a sweet young thing vining herself around him like a vigorous strain of ivy, and not just any sweet young thing—Philomena’s titled, unmarried, younger, wealthy cousin.
Ramsdale was his usual attentive escort on the way home, and he made a few attempts at conversation, but Philomena could not oblige him.
How sweetly Lady Maude had nestled against his lordship’s chest. How delicately she’d clung to him—and how tenaciously. Ramsdale had grumbled about presuming women and scheming misses, but to Philomena’s eye, he hadn’t been trying very hard to dislodge Lady Maude from his embrace.
Not very hard at all.
Thank heavens that Lady Maude had not seen Philomena gawking like a chambermaid at the foot of the steps.
“You’re very quiet, Philomena,” Ramsdale said as they turned down the alley.
“I’m tired, also pondering the Duke. Tomorrow I’ll make a list of the objects Hephaestus is referring to when he makes his biblical comparisons.”
“Hang the damned Duke. I know what you think you saw, Philomena.”
What she thought she saw? “We are not private, my lord. I am Miss Peebles to you.”
“You will never be Miss Peebles to me again, dammit. We have been gloriously intimate, need I remind you.”
The alley was deserted, else Philomena would have delivered his lordship a severe upbraiding for his careless words.
“You need not remind me, nor do you need to tell me what I did see with my own eyes. A comely, eligible young lady in your embrace in a situation where you and she had every expectation of privacy.”
“The footman was at his post in the foyer, and she was not in my embrace.”
Philomena stopped walking long enough to spare the earl a cool perusal. For a marquess’s daughter, footmen were no source of chaperonage whatsoever. Even she knew that much.
“Then Lady Maude wasn’t in your embrace, but you were certainly in hers, and it’s of no moment to me in any case. Polite society has its rules, and I grasp them well enough even if they don’t apply to me. I’ll bid you good evening, my lord.”
Philomena had too little experience arguing to make a proper job of it. She never argued with her father, never argued with Jane. She accommodated them and then found some other way to accomplish her ends.
With Ramsdale, that meek course would not do, even if he was an earl.
Even if his uncle’s will did hold the key to finding the Duke.
“Philomena, please don’t bid me farewell when we’re quarreling. Lady Maude ambushed me. I’ve stood up with her from time to time, and she’s gone two Seasons without attaching a suitor. I consider her father a friend and would not avoidably hurt a lady’s feelings.”
Philomena did not want to have this stupid disagreement. Ramsdale owed her nothing, save for a few coins. He’d made her no promises, and even if he had, she wouldn’t have believed them.
“I don’t seek an apology, my lord, or an explanation. I’m tired, peckish, and cross. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He put a hand on her arm. Just that, and tears threatened.
Philomena wanted to be the only woman nestling against his chest. She wanted to wear pretty frocks that would catch his eye. She wanted her hair styled in a graceful cascade of curls artfully arranged to show off her features, not a boring old bun that also served as a pencil holder.
“We’ll find your dratted Duke,” Ramsdale said. “The damned manuscript has put you out of sorts, but if anybody can find him, it’s you. Until tomorrow, Miss Peebles.”
Philomena would have fallen sobbing into his arms, except he gave her cheek a lingering kiss, and that… helped. The earl had put her out of sorts, but so had the Duke. She’d never felt this close to success, or this assured of failure.
She’d also spoken honestly. She was exhausted from successive sleepless nights, hungry, and frustrated.
“Until tomorrow, my lord.”
He bowed. She curtseyed and mustered a smile.
He touched his hat brim, and Philomena slipped through the garden gate, latching it closed behind her.
Jane sat on the bench near the sundial, her expression as thunderous as Philomena had ever seen it.
“Don’t you dare remonstrate with me, Jane Dobbs. I’m eight-and-twenty years of age, my father stopped seeing me as anything but a free translation service fifteen years ago, and my dealings with Ramsdale are my business. If you’ll excuse me, I haven’t had any supper.”
She would have swept past the bench, except Jane began to slowly applaud.
“If his lordship has finally put you on your mettle, he’ll get no criticism from me, but a certain apothecary in Knightsbridge claims you’ve found a portion of The Duke’s Book of Knowledge. They’ve put that story about to lure young ladies into buying love potions, which—I can assure you—are flying off the shelves at a great rate.”
Chapter Eight
The coins on the blotter winked up at Ramsdale in a shaft of morning sunshine, while the cat silently mocked him.
“She isn’t coming,” he informed Genesis. “Miss Peebles—I am to call her Miss Peebles—says she has an urgent matter to see to involving the Eagan Brothers’ Emporium in Knightsbridge this morning. She will resume her duties tomorrow.”
Ramsdale set Philomena’s note—he thought of her as Philomena—before the cat, who gave it a sniff.
Knightsbridge was a hodgepodge of shops, taverns, inns, the occasional newly built mansion, and lodging houses more famous for the highwaymen who’d bided among them than for hospitality. What would matter so much to Philomena that she’d use the next to last of the Duke’s ten days shopping and in such surrounds?
Genesis rose from the desk, leaped down, strutted across the library, and affixed himself atop the family Bible, which was closed for once.
“Blasphemer. Philomena is about the least-mercantile female I’ve ever met.” Unlike Lady Maude, who likely kept half the shops in Mayfair in business.
