Chapter 1
The Countess of Merivale had very fine china and very dull opinions, and Verity Sinclaire had been enduring both for the better part of two hours.
The room had been filled to bursting with mamas and matrons who met monthly and had deep opinions of the daughters they brought with them. Well, maybe brought was a kind word. Verity may have preferred the word dragged. One of these matrons, Mrs. Aldworth, looked at Verity.
"Your third Season, Lady Verity," Mrs. Aldworth said.
She set down her teacup as if making a point to be heard.
As if the room were not already almost entirely focused on her.
She was one of those broad, comfortable matrons who wore their own importance the way they wore their pearls.
Constantly and tightly. "One does begin to wonder what a young woman of your advantages could possibly be waiting for. "
Verity lowered her teacup and looked out the window as if pondering her words.
Anybody who knew her knew that Lady Verity Haverleigh did not ponder.
Instead, she liked making the other person wait.
A habit that everyone could see was annoying Mrs. Aldworth, whose finger was tapping on the rim of her teacup.
"Inspiration, Mrs. Aldworth." Verity smiled. "The right poem. A good wind. You know how it is."
Across the room, Lady Cressida Vale caught her eye over the rim of her cup and pressed her lips together in the precise expression she reserved for do not make it worse. Verity had been making it worse since they were fourteen. She saw no reason to change now.
Her mother, the Marchioness of Haverleigh, sat with the rigid brightness of a serene woman even while wanting to reach across the room and pinch her daughter.
"What Lady Verity means," she said, with a laugh like cut glass, "is that she has been most thoughtfully considering her options. She is not hasty."
"No," said Verity pleasantly. "I am not."
“Well, then, I do wish she would speak plainly,” Mrs. Aldworth huffed. “The lady has excellent features, fine hair, and an excellent figure, which comes from her good breeding. I am sure there are several suitors who would be worthy of her … thoughtful considerations.”
“I am attempting to make her less opinionated,” the marchioness sighed.
Verity opened her mouth and then closed it again. As much as she would have been amused to continue this line of conversation, she could see that her mother’s heel was clicking on the floor like an angry metronome. Any more, and she might lose her temper. That would be less amusing.
She caught Cressida's eye across the room. Both young women were young, well-bred, and witty enough in conversation. The difference? Verity had light blonde curls that her mother fussed over ever so much. Cressida had softer, brown hair and grey eyes. Her “muddy” appearance, although charming, had caught fewer eyes than Verity’s hair and her hazel eyes.
“I am afraid I must be away,” Cressida said, putting down her cup. “My mother has booked me an appointment with the modiste to fit my new dress, and if I do not go, I believe she will have a fit of the vapors.”
“Of course, Cressida.” The countess nodded. “I am sure we shall see you again shortly.”
“I am sure,” Cressida nodded. Verity stood with her.
“Verity,” her mother said stiffly. “You do not need to go to the modiste.”
“No,” Verity confirmed. “But I do need my shawl, and I believe it has been left by the entrance.”
Her mother let out something akin to a sigh and nodded, letting her daughter go.
Verity walked out with her friend.
“You are not getting your shawl, are you?” Cressida murmured.
“I am,” Verity insisted. “But then, I will simply walk out the door with you.”
“Now, whyever would you do that?” Cressida asked, pulling her own shawl around her arms.
“Perhaps one has run out of patience for feeling like a horse at auction.”
“I would say a horse is an improvement,” Cressida replied. “I believe last time you said you felt rather bovine.”
Verity covered her mouth to stifle a laugh and quickly walked out to Cressida’s carriage.
St. James's Street in late afternoon was loud, bright, and smelled of coal smoke and horse, and the particular green freshness that crept in off the park when the wind ran east. Cressida fell into step beside her at the bottom of the steps, hat tilted, gloves half-buttoned.
"You are quite impossible," Cressida said, not without admiration.
"I'm efficient. There is a difference."
"You left me alone with Mrs. Aldworth for eleven minutes. She told me about her nephew's prospects. Twice."
"He has a very good income, I'm told."
"He has a lazy eye and an opinion about women reading that I cannot repeat in a public street." Cressida tucked her hand into Verity's arm. "Come with me to Madame Leclerc's?"
"I have somewhere to be."
"You have Ellery and Sons to be at." Cressida said it with the weary certainty of long acquaintance. "You always have Ellery and Sons to be."
“Of course,” Verity nodded solemnly. “After all, how better to beat away suitors who dislike women reading than going to a book shop?”
Cressida laughed ruefully. “I could not agree more.”
Verity left Cressida at the corner and walked the remaining three streets alone, which was itself a small pleasure. The freedom of moving through the city without an escort at her elbow to manage the pace and the direction.
Verity had escaped her mother’s clutches enough times to know exactly where and for how long she could walk before it was realized she did not have an escort.
She kept her steps brisk and her chin level.
She had learned early that a woman who looked as though she knew exactly where she was going was rarely bothered by anyone who did not.
Ellery and Sons was everything a bookshop ought to be and that most were not: a narrow-fronted shop, slightly dim, smelling of old paper and linseed oil, with shelves that ran floor to ceiling and required a ladder for the upper reaches.
Mr. Ellery the younger had reorganized the natural philosophy section last month, and Verity had not yet forgiven him for it. Still, she had come to terms with the new arrangement insofar as she could now find the botany without assistance.
She was deep in the second shelf—Genera Plantarum open in her left hand, her bonnet pushed back slightly because she always forgot herself there — when she heard the argument.
It came from the back of the shop, near the display case where Mr. Ellery kept the rarer texts behind glass. A low voice controlled but impatient, the kind of voice accustomed to not repeating itself.
"I am telling you that the identification on the label is incorrect. That is not a Vanilla planifolia. The dorsal sepal alone—"
"Sir." Mr. Ellery, less controlled, more harassed. "Our supplier does the cataloging, and I assure you—"
"Your supplier is wrong."
Verity turned the page. Turned it back. The voice said dorsal sepal, which meant the man at the case had at least opened a botanical text in his life. She drifted closer, as one does when there is nothing more pressing worthy of attention.
The case held three volumes, the most notable of which was Bateman's Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala. A work Verity had been trying to acquire for eight months and had not yet succeeded in.
The man standing before it had his back to her: dark coat, dark hair that wanted cutting, the posture of someone who had spent considerable time outdoors and did not much apologize for it.
"The planifolia has a much more pronounced lip," the man continued, to a Mr. Ellery who was rapidly running out of patience.
"What you have here is almost certainly a Vanilla pompona.
The labeling affects the value, which affects the price you are asking, which is already—" He stopped.
Turned slightly, as though sensing a presence. "—already excessive."
"He is correct," Verity said.
Both men looked at her. Mr. Ellery with relief and mild alarm. The stranger with an expression that was not quite surprise but was its cooler, more contained cousin.
He was, she noted, younger than his voice. Or perhaps the voice had aged him. Dark eyes beneath a severe brow. Sharp features, the kind that looked as though they'd been cut rather than grown. He was watching her with the careful attention of a man deciding how seriously to take an interruption.
"I beg your pardon?" he said.
"The Vanilla pompona has a broader, more rounded lip than the planifolia, and the column is shorter.
It is a common misidentification." She nodded at the open case.
"The label also gives the provenance as Mexico, but pompona is predominantly found in the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America.
So either the label is wrong about the species, or it is wrong about the origin, or—" She considered it. "—both."
A beat of silence.
"Both," he said.
"Most likely."
The man turned back to Mr. Ellery, who looked as though he wished he had stayed in bed.
"I'll give you twelve guineas," the man said, "and not a shilling more."
"Fifteen," said Verity.
He looked at her again.
"I beg your pardon."
"Fifteen guineas. Even mislabeled, a Bateman text in that condition is worth fifteen. Twelve is an insult to the binding alone." She paused. "Unless you were hoping he would not know any better."
The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile.
Something more restrained. An acknowledgment of contact, the way a fencer tips his blade after a good touch.
Verity felt something shift in the air between them.
A small, almost atmospheric change, the way pressure drops before a storm. She kept her eyes on the case.
"Fourteen," he said to Mr. Ellery.
"Fourteen and sixpence," Verity said, "and he'll throw in the catalog from last autumn's sale."
“Fourteen, one sixpence, and one penny,” the man said firmly.
Verity looked up at him and sighed.
“I am afraid I would be a penny short.”