The Book of the Dead Husband (A Marriage Made of Blood 1)

Chapter 1 The House That Listened

The rain had been falling long before Miss Constance Brown reached the square, and it had given London the look of a city copied in blurred ink.

The cab wheels hissed along the wet stones.

Lamps trembled behind veils of water. Faces passed in brief yellow flashes and vanished again, each one made anonymous by umbrella, collar, and haste.

Constance sat with one gloved hand braced against the worn leather strap and the other laid upon the satchel in her lap, as if the letters of introduction inside it might escape if she ceased to guard them.

She had travelled with trunks enough for six months of work, though she had no certainty Lord Jasper Dacre would require her for six weeks.

The advertisement had been discreet, the correspondence more so.

An archivist and rare-book cataloguer was required to examine, order, and produce a private catalogue of a noble family’s London library and selected papers, including older materials to be transported later from the family seat.

The handwriting in the first letter had been that of a solicitor.

The second, shorter and more elegant, had been signed by Lord Jasper Dacre himself.

It praised method, silence, accuracy, and professional discipline in equal measure.

Constance had read that letter twice before accepting, not because she admired the praise, but because she distrusted its precision.

She had known houses of this kind before, though never this one.

They were not merely homes. They were performances in brick and stone, acts of public memory, declarations that some families had a right to be seen and others existed only to arrange their shelves.

Her own profession placed her in the narrow space between those worlds.

She entered by the front door if her employer wished to flatter himself, by the side door if his wife disliked strangers, and by the servants’ entrance if old pride found scholarly labor too necessary to refuse and too lowly to acknowledge.

She had learned to be offended by none of these arrangements.

A woman who catalogued private libraries could not afford quick offense. She could, however, afford memory.

The cab turned into a quieter street, then slowed before a house that seemed less built than imposed.

Dacre House stood behind black iron railings, its pale stone front rising with a severity that refused ornament even where ornament existed.

The windows were tall and narrow, some lit, some dark, their reflections wavering on the wet pavement.

A portico sheltered the entrance, and on either side of the door two lamps burned with a steady, guarded flame.

The house did not look welcoming. It looked attentive.

The driver descended, muttering about the weather as if London had personally wronged him.

A footman had already opened the door before Constance’s hand reached the handle.

He was young, very clean, and too carefully expressionless.

That was her first impression of Dacre House: not grandeur, not wealth, not even the coldness of the stone, but the face of a servant who had mastered the art of appearing not to hear anything.

“Miss Brown?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“My lord expected you before four.”

“The train was delayed at Clapham Junction, and the weather did not encourage speed.”

He bowed as if the explanation had been received but not accepted by the house itself. Another servant came to assist with the trunks. Constance stepped beneath the portico and shook the rain from the edge of her cloak. She did not remove her bonnet until she had crossed the threshold.

The hall was vast enough to make a person conscious of footfalls.

Marble lay beneath her boots, black and white squares polished to a shine that reflected the gaslight in broken strips.

A staircase curved upward from the left, its banister dark, carved, and severe.

On the right stood a row of portraits in gilt frames, all men except for one woman, and even she had been painted as if she regretted having been seen.

The air held beeswax, damp wool, and some expensive floral scent that seemed to belong not to flowers but to restraint.

A housekeeper received her at the foot of the stairs. She was a tall woman in black, with a narrow face and a cap arranged so precisely that Constance suspected pins had gone into it with military intention.

“Mrs. Venn?” Constance asked, remembering the name given by the solicitor.

“Mrs. Venn retired last month. I am Mrs. Harrowby, housekeeper to Lord Dacre while the family is in town.”

The correction was delivered without warmth, yet without discourtesy. Constance inclined her head. “Then I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Harrowby.”

The housekeeper’s gaze passed over Constance’s cloak, satchel, gloves, and boots, assessing the scholar in practical wool as one might assess a parcel left in the hall. “Your room has been prepared. Lord Dacre has asked that you be shown first to the library, if you are not too fatigued.”

“I am not too fatigued.”

“Very good. Mr. Wroth is waiting.”

The name shifted something in Constance’s attention.

Lionel Wroth had written the first letter.

Solicitors were often present at the beginning of private cataloguing work, especially where family papers touched settlements, titles, or old disputes, but they did not usually wait in libraries for the arrival of the cataloguer.

They sent instructions. They kept themselves away from dust.

Mrs. Harrowby led her across the hall. Their passage took them past the portraits.

Constance allowed herself one glance. The painted men had the Dacre face in variations: narrow nose, high cheekbones, watchful eyes, mouths trained toward command.

One portrait, newer than the others, showed a man of perhaps thirty-eight or forty, handsome, pale-eyed, and composed, with dark blond hair brushed back from a clear forehead.

He held a book in one hand, not as a reader holds a book, but as an owner displays an object.

“Lord Jasper Dacre?” Constance asked.

Mrs. Harrowby paused only a fraction. “Yes, miss.”

The library doors stood at the rear of the hall. They were high and dark, their panels carved with branches, leaves, and small hunting animals caught in a border of vines. Mrs. Harrowby opened one door and announced Constance with the solemnity of a courtroom.

The library was warmer than the hall, and more oppressive.

Books rose from floor to ceiling on three walls, interrupted by ladders, glass-fronted cabinets, and a fireplace of black marble.

The fourth wall contained tall windows overlooking the wet garden, their curtains drawn only halfway, so that the room seemed caught between the public world of shelves and the private world of rain.

A long table stood near the center beneath a shaded lamp.

Several volumes had been placed there in a careful row, their spines turned exactly outward.

Beside them sat a man in a dark frock coat, thin, greying, and severe, with spectacles low upon a long nose.

He rose. “Miss Brown. Lionel Wroth.”

Constance set down her satchel and offered her hand. His fingers were dry and cool. “Mr. Wroth. Thank you for arranging my journey.”

“I arranged only what was necessary. The weather, I regret, remained outside my influence.”

It was not quite humor, but perhaps he intended it as such. Constance smiled politely.

Mrs. Harrowby withdrew. The library door closed behind her with a soft, heavy click. It was the sort of sound one noticed only after it had ended.

Mr. Wroth gestured toward the table. “Lord Dacre is engaged for the moment and asks me to begin with the practical matters. Your terms are as agreed. You will be paid monthly, with an additional fee should the catalogue be completed before the family removes to Dacre Court. You will have use of this room between seven in the morning and six in the evening, unless his lordship requires privacy. Certain cabinets are to remain locked until he gives express permission. No document is to be removed from the library without written authorization. No copies are to be made except for the catalogue. No matter discovered in the course of your work is to be discussed with any person outside the household or with any servant not assigned to assist you.”

Constance listened without interrupting. The restrictions were more elaborate than most, but not astonishing. Families often believed their papers contained secrets. The older the family, the more often they were correct.

“Will I be given an existing catalogue?” she asked.

“You will.”

“Complete or partial?”

Mr. Wroth’s thin mouth tightened with something like reluctance. “That depends upon what one means by complete.”

“I usually mean that the catalogue matches the shelves.”

“Then partial.”

The answer came too readily. Constance glanced toward the shelves. “Are there previous catalogues?”

“There is a printed family catalogue from 1849, a manuscript shelf list maintained by Lord Dacre’s late father, and his lordship’s private notes. You will begin by reconciling them.”

“That is a large task.”

“Lord Dacre is aware.”

“And the family papers?”

“They are not yet to be touched.” Mr. Wroth rested one hand upon a closed leather portfolio, then removed it as if he had revealed too much by touching it. “You will be told when they become relevant.”

Constance let that phrase settle. Relevant to what?

A collection might be relevant to scholarship, inheritance, valuation, sale, pride, litigation, or blackmail.

She said only, “I prefer to understand the whole arrangement before I begin. If the books and papers are connected, separating them may create errors.”

“Lord Dacre values accuracy, Miss Brown. He also values obedience to instructions.”