“A tragedy,” Elizabeth smiled, lighter than she had in days. The fresh air, combined with the shifting of her own heart, made her almost giddy.
“It is a matter of management,” Charlotte replied. “And what of you? Shall you wait on the bench outside, or do you have errands of your own?”
“I believe I shall step into the circulating library.” Elizabeth eyed the modest crooked storefront at the end of the lane. “I have finished my volume, and I am in need of something thatdoes not involve sermons or the proper spacing of parkland trees.”
“Very well. I shall collect you when the apothecary has finished explaining the humours to me.”
Charlotte veered off to a shop with a mortar and pestle painted above the door, leaving Elizabeth to continue down the cobbled pavement.
The Hunsford circulating library was a dusty establishment that smelled of old paper, binding glue, and the faint, nostalgic scent of lavender. It was a far cry from the magnificent, towering shelves of Hatchards in London which Elizabeth adored and never missed to visit when in Town, but it would do.
The bell above the door chimed a tiny greeting as she entered.
The shop was narrow, the shelves packed tightly together. Elizabeth navigated past the front counter, where the proprietor was fast asleep, and slipped into the fiction aisle. She trailed her gloved fingers over the leather spines, relishing the silence.
“I assure you, it is a masterpiece of political philosophy.”
The voice, a smooth, cultured, drawling baritone, drifted from the next aisle over. It was instantly recognisable.
Elizabeth stopped, and then peered carefully through a gap in the books.
Standing in the cramped aisle, taking up an unreasonable amount of space, was Robert Fitzwilliam, Viscount Keathley.
He was holding a massive tome in one hand, and a much smaller, suspiciously brightly coloured volume in the other. Hewas speaking to a bewildered clerk who was clutching a feather duster.
“Plutarch’sLives,” the viscount was saying, holding up the tome with deep reverence. “It is essential reading for any man who wishes to understand the foundations of republics and the fatal flaws of ambition. Excellent work. Truly.”
“Yes, my lord,” the clerk rasped, not knowing what to do with a six-foot-two peer in his dusty aisle. “And the other one?”
The viscount glanced at the smaller volume and coughed, a somewhat unconvincing sound. “This? Oh, this is a... a botanical study. For my cousin. Miss de Bourgh is very interested in... the flora of the Italian Alps.”
Elizabeth squinted through the gap. The title on the spine of the smaller volume was visible:The Mysteries of Udolpho.
A bubble of laughter burst from her lips before she could smother it.
Lord Keathley’s head snapped up. His hawk-like eyes darted to the sound. He stepped around the bookshelf, spotting Elizabeth standing there with her hand clamped over her mouth.
“Miss Elizabeth.” The viscount’s drawl faltered. “Good God. Have you come to witness my intellectual downfall?”
“I have come to browse, my lord.” Elizabeth smiled, stepping fully into the aisle. She dismissed the clerk with a nod, and the boy scurried away to the safety of the front counter where his father was still sleeping. “Though I must admit, I am fascinated to learn that Mrs Radcliffe’s Gothic romances are now considered botanical texts. I must have missed the chapter where the heroine identifies a fern while fleeing from a haunted castle.”
Lord Keathley sighed, looking down at the two books. “You have discovered my secret,” he confessed, slouching against the bookshelf. “I am a fraud, Miss Elizabeth. A hollow, frivolous shell of a peer.”
“I am sworn to secrecy,” she assured him, her eyes dancing. “Your reputation as a serious, brooding intellectual is safe with me.”
“Thank God. If Richard found out I was reading about swooning maidens and secret passageways, he would mock me until the end of my days. And Darcy...” Robert shuddered theatrically. “Darcy considers fiction to be a moral failing. He would probably force me to read a treatise on agricultural reform twice a day as penance.”
Elizabeth’s smile softened at the mention of Mr Darcy. “Mr Darcy is a man of strong opinions.”
“That is an exceptionally polite way of saying he is as rigid as a marble column,” Robert observed.
He moved closer, abandoning the lazy drawl for a moment. The mask of the rakish, carefree viscount slipped, revealing the perceptive, loyal, and deeply sympathetic man beneath. He looked at Elizabeth with an earnestness that surprised her.
“How are you faring, Miss Elizabeth?” Robert asked, his voice low and kind. “Truly. Our invasion the other day was a fearsome thing to behold, and my aunt’s presence is generally a suffocating blanket upon the entire county. You have endured much. I am aware of how our lot has kept you on your toes.”
Elizabeth saw the genuine concern in his eyes. He was not flirting. He was checking on a casualty of the Fitzwilliam family crossfire.
“I am faring quite well, Lord Keathley,” she replied. “I have a robust constitution. And I find your family... illuminating.”
