Chapter Two
Tess Hawthorne’s first sign that the day would not go as she’d planned was the stopping of her pocket watch. The bevel-topped,
etched-case heirloom had ticked along comfortingly for all the years since her late father had gifted it to her, urging her
to conquer her tendency to overcommit and stop showing up tardy to one of her many charity events or to the house of someone
in the village who she’d promised to visit.
Since taking short-term employment in London, it had become a daily reminder of home, not to mention a useful device to ensure
she got to Lady Goddard’s elegant town house on time.
This morning, like every day of the past week, she’d rushed out of her boarding house, caught the omnibus heading toward Hyde
Park, and glanced down half a dozen times at the watch’s face, as if it was more talisman than timepiece and could somehow
help her get to Mayfair at precisely the right moment.
But the last time she’d glanced down, the clock’s hands had stalled where they’d been minutes before. She’d wound it this
morning as she always did. The watch had never failed her. She shook it as forcefully as she dared, considering its age and
preciousness to her. All to no avail.
The stopping of the watch felt like an omen of events to come, and despite her aim to be logical in nature, she couldn’t help
but give in to a bit of the superstition that her twin, Tristan, and those back in her village were prone to.
Yet the moment Mr. Newby, the kindly white-haired butler at Goddard House, bid her good day and took her coat and gloves, she felt a bit lighter.
London was flush with watchmakers. She’d get her watch looked at and hopefully repaired, but now that she’d arrived, her mind
was fully on the task at hand.
Lady Goddard had hired her to catalog a vast collection of books and documents inherited from an uncle who’d fancied himself
an antiquarian. Tess relished the task, never knowing what she might uncover. Secretly, she hoped to find something that would
further her father’s life’s work—penning a history of Norfolk, which she and her brother continued writing whenever they could.
Nothing had popped up yet, but she held out hope. After all, the county had seen habitation by the Romans, the Angles, the
Danes, and been subject to Viking raids, so its history crossed paths with that of many others.
Though she realized her ladyship’s goal was to pare down the collection and discover any pieces that might fetch a substantial
price with a book or antiquities dealer, Tess found something interesting in every book, every scrap of paper the noblewoman’s
uncle had collected.
So, after parting from Newby, she strode eagerly toward the library, ready to immerse herself in the day’s work. But as she
neared the door, she slowed, a frown tugging at her brow. The door was ajar.
Tess always made sure to pull the door shut when she left each afternoon as Lady Goddard entertained in the evenings. Her
ladyship had mentioned a desire that none of her guests visit the library until Tess had put the whole jumble she’d inherited
into some kind of order.
But even more disturbing than the half-open door were the noises emanating from the room. A clattering thwack interrupted the quiet of the town house. And then after a brief silence, the same awful sound again.
Tess pushed the door open and her heart dropped to her boots. She clutched at her stomach as a sudden queasiness took hold.
She struggled to make sense of the sight before her. Books—a horribly disorganized pile of those she’d organized over the
past days—lay on the rug in the center of the library. As she stepped inside another flew down to join the heap. Thwack.
Looking up, she saw a tall, broad-shouldered madman on the rolling oak staircase above her. He loomed overhead, one foot perched
on the high rung of the stairs and his long arm reaching up to snatch another volume from the shelf. He was dark-haired and
wore no suit coat, as if he was quite comfortable at his dastardly task of dismantling all she’d worked to put in order.
After retrieving one of Lady Goddard’s books, he flipped through its aged pages roughly and then reached out his arm as if
to drop it down to join the jumble in front of her.
“Stop!” Tess’s shout echoed up to the high ceiling, and yet it still didn’t seem like enough. She reached out her arms, palms
up as if she could push the book back up onto the shelf by sheer force of will. “Cease this instant!”
She’d startled the man with her shout. After a quick glance at her, he weaved on the staircase, then clutched its railing
for balance.
All she cared about was the book and let out a tiny puff of relief that he still held it pressed against the frame of the
staircase.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he barked down at her. He’d braced himself and shifted, subjecting her to a direct glare. “I could have fallen to my death.” He gestured toward the book-strewn carpet.
Tess glanced back at the open library door, debating whether to seek Mr. Newby’s help to remove the intruder.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” the miscreant shouted from his high perch.
“Me?” she scoffed, struggling to form thoughts in the face of the man’s turpitude. “You come into this room and defile Lady
Goddard’s property, and you question me? How dare you, sir.”
One dark brow arched, and his square jaw hardened. But there was no apology. No regret. Not even an ounce of shame seemed
to trouble him.
Something reared up in Tess then, a spitefulness that was usually not at all part of her nature, but this . . . this . . .
book abuser, with his thick biceps and dark tousled hair and extraordinarily broad shoulders, had sparked it in her.
“Maybe you deserve to fall to your death for how you’ve mistreated her ladyship’s property.”
Her heart beat a frantic and somewhat guilty tattoo. She wasn’t cruel and never wished real harm on anyone. This man brought
out the worst in her.
Then he shocked her completely.
His reaction to the most heinous declaration she’d ever made to any individual in her six and twenty years was to smile. Not
just a flicker of amusement. Not a flash of mirth. A genuine, toothy grin.
He suddenly looked impish and unbearably handsome all in the same moment.
And she no longer felt guilty for being mean to him.
“You find me amusing?” she rasped, for the man had so much audacity that it had all but taken her breath away.
“Are you a housemaid?” he called down as if they were now going to engage in a pleasant chat.
Tess made a sound that she’d never heard emerge from herself before. Somewhere between a squeak and a splutter.
A housemaid? She ducked a quick glance down at her day dress. It wasn’t the height of fashion by any stretch of the imagination,
but it was well-tailored and of decent quality.
“I,” she said with a proud notching up of her chin, “am a librarian.”
Or at least she had been hired as such two months ago and would be for the next several weeks. Though Lady Goddard might offer
an extension, now that she had to undo the mess this man had made.
His grin had eased into something less excessive but was still somehow potent.
“A librarian,” he murmured as he stared at her.
Then he shifted, stepping down closer, then closer, his gaze never leaving hers.
Tess sucked in a sharp breath and a trace of his scent came with it. The man smelled like pine trees and fresh air and—
Heaven help her, what did it matter what he smelled like?
No, no, she was not that foolish, gullible girl anymore. She’d given in to a rogue’s charm once and paid the price. Never
again.
She turned away from him. She’d tell Mr. Newby or Lady Goddard, if she was at home, about the man’s atrocious treatment of
her books.
“Wait.” A large hand brushed Tess’s upper arm.
She turned but flinched away as if she’d been singed. Then she laid her hand against the spot where he’d touched her.
“Don’t you want to know who I am?” he asked in a warm, deep voice that held far too much humor for the matter at hand.
“Who are you?” Tess said, irritation causing her to tap the toe of her boot against the carpet. She cast a mournful glance at the jumble of books on the floor and was angry all over again.
“You don’t recognize me?” he said, now resting quite casually on the stairs with his thick arms crossed over his chest. He
seemed to be posing, as if waiting for some artist to capture all the sharp angles and brooding beauty of his face in oil
paint.
What he looked like was a rogue, a man who knew his own appeal. He was an impressive specimen of manliness, even if he was
an abuser of books. She tried thinking of an occupation that seemed the least likely for a man such as himself.
“The chimney sweep?” she offered dryly.
He chuckled and flashed that irritatingly appealing smile again.
“You’re not very good at being snappish, Miss Librarian.” Leaning toward her, he whispered, “But I admire the effort.”
Tess made the splutter-squeak sound once more, and the man managed to look the slightest bit contrite.
“Now stop hissing at me and tell me your name,” he said softly.
“Tell me your name first so that Lady Goddard can pass it on to the police for—”
He reached out and hovered two fingers over her lips. She felt the warmth of them, but he did not touch her. “I was invited
here to assist Lady Goddard. Seems that you were too. So we might as well be allies. Now tell me your name.”
Dominic didn’t know why he was determined to flirt with the young woman who’d stormed into the library and looked at him as if he was the worst sort of villain.
She was a beauty with sunbeam-gold hair and eyes as bright green as spring’s first leaves.
Most distracting were her lips: a too-perfect Cupid’s-bow mouth.
Sharp little peaks but with a full lower lip lush enough to be a mighty distraction.
Of course, he’d bedded beauties aplenty. Yet there was something about the fiery spirit of the petite librarian glaring at