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When Irene stumbled into the Queens Hotel in Leeds at nine o’clock that night, all she could think about was the bath she planned to run. She had retrieved Lady Mary’s pearls from a hapless highwayman, returned them, and negotiated for a book in return. The least she deserved, she felt, was a hot bath and some sleep before she travelled back to the Library.
Leaving the door to swing shut, she was already unbuttoning her cloak and reaching for the back of the long, loose dress she favoured in this world when a voice brought her up short.
“Winters.”
One glance at his haggard face and Irene forgot all about her bath.
“My dear Vale.” He was seated in the ornate, uncomfortable chair next to the ornate, impractical desk. His hair, generally fastidiously neat, was hedgehog-wild, and muscles stood out tautly in his neck and around his jaw. He looked like a man pushed beyond exhaustion and close to madness.
“What is it?” she demanded. “And how did you know where to find me?”
“A silly question.” But his tone was without the bite she deserved, and she hurried towards him.
“What’s wrong? Something heavy chimed in her chest. “Is it Kai? Is he—”
“Kai is fine.” He squeezed her hands briefly. “At least, he was when I left him and that Sterrington creature arguing about the intricacies of the new contract.”
“Well, something has brought you a long way from London at a time when most people are preparing for the festivities.” A thought occurred to her. “Are you visiting family?” He was, after all, the Earl of Leeds, although as far as Irene knew he preferred not to associate with his family any longer.
His lips thinned and he closed his eyes briefly. “I am not visiting family.”
“Then what is it, Vale?” She parked herself on the desk and leaned towards him. His eyes were clear, thankfully, which meant he was managing his use of that terrible drug better than he had previously, but… “Is it chaos contamination? I thought you were over it, but—”
“It’s not chaos.” His voice cut through her questions loudly enough that she sat back. “Irene. Winters. I have come to ask…to ask a favour of you. In your capacity as a Librarian.”
“A favour?” Irene’s spirits, not particularly high to begin with after her tiring day, sank a little. “You’ll have to tell me what it is you want,” she said. “You know the Library doesn’t look, well, favourably on Librarians getting too involved in their assigned worlds.”
“I do know,” he said heavily, “and I wouldn’t ask this of you if there were any other way. I considered the matter from every angle on the journey up here.”
“Well.” Irene flopped onto the bed and bent to loosen her boots. “You’d better tell me what’s going on.”
Vale was silent for so long that she began to wonder if he had taken some poppy after all, but then he heaved a deep sigh. “There is a book,” he began.
Irene had assumed this was the case, since books were her raison d’être, but she reined in her sarcasm. “Yes?”
“It came into my family because my aunt was fast friends with a woman whose name I believe you may know.” He looked up at her. “Her name was Anne Brontë, although that was not the name under which she was published.”
“I do know her, yes.” Irene hadn’t got around to looking up the Brontës in this world; in some worlds their influence was lasting and unmistakeable, while in others their books fell into obscurity well before the sisters died. She’d even found one world in which Branwell Brontë, or someone very like him, had become a famous artist, before dying in a garret in Paris surrounded by unfinished canvases. Anne, though…she thought about what she knew of the youngest Brontë sister. Overlooked and outshone, despite writing a novel that was quite shockingly feminist for its time. “Er, what’s the name of the book?”
Vale swept his hair away from his forehead. “It’s called Death at Wildfell Hall.”
Irene frowned. “That doesn’t sound like the book I’m familiar with. Is there a woman who runs away from her alcoholic husb—”
“It is a later book,” Vale interrupted. “A book featuring the same characters but a kind of…” He hesitated. “Murder mystery? Rather like the stories of Mr Wilkie Collins, except that I find Miss Brontë’s prose is slimmer, more to the point. Not bad, only…”
“…without the page-long descriptions that characterise the work of Mr Collins and Mr Dickens?” Irene supplied, and Vale nodded.
“All right. What do you want me to do with this book?”
Vale took a breath, then hesitated again. “My family…I do not approve of their ways, and they do not approve of mine. We agreed long ago to go our separate ways. But…” He stopped, staring down at his long, slender fingers.
Irene stood up and reached into one of the mahogany drawers under the desk, bringing out a bottle of brandy and two glasses.
“I’m getting the distinct feeling that we need a little something for this discussion.” She poured them both generous measures and sat back on the bed. “Now, Vale. I think it's time I reminded you I have experience of societies that are much more liberal than yours, and that while you may be concerned to tell me a shocking secret about your family, I am, at this point, more or less unshockable.” Unless it came to matters of Alberich, but Irene preferred not to think about Alberich wherever possible.
Vale took the time to down his brandy and pour again.
“My family…” He stared into the amber glass, lifting it up to the light. “My family are not vampires.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“However, they – they fell under the influence of a certain Doctor Polidori, many years ago. There are many vampire families in the north, as you are aware, and sometimes they require…acolytes.”
“I am indeed aware,” agreed Irene, who had had a narrow escape from such a situation recently. “So are you saying that your family give blood to the local vampire nobility? But – forgive me for asking – aren’t you the local nobility? You are the Earl of Leeds, after all.”
“Yes,” Vale said miserably. “And my family were very angry when I refused to join myself in matrimony with the Countess of Scarborough.” He looked around at Irene. “Who is, in fact, a vampire.”
Irene wanted to reach for his hand, but she held back. Vale didn’t tend to react well to overtures that could be misconstrued as pity. Or to overtures in general, unfortunately. Instead she held his gaze while she finished her drink and proffered her glass for more.
“Well,” she said, “I’m glad you’re not married to a vampire.”
“My thoughts exactly, Winters.”
“But what does this have to do with the book? What was it, Death at Wildfell Hall? Why do you need my help?"
Vale let out his breath in a sigh. “Because, Winters, the book was never published. Miss Brontë agreed that we should keep it in the family archive, but that the secrets it contained were too inflammatory to become public knowledge. In her will, my aunt stipulated that it must never be destroyed. And now my silly spendthrift of a young brother has put it up for auction. An anonymous auction. And my old school-friend Robert Arthrington has put up the money to buy it, and my sister has sworn to seduce him in order to regain the manuscript, and my uncle has sworn Arthrington will be blackballed at every club – not that Arthrington is very social, but it’s the point of the thing, isn’t it – and the Countess has become engaged to my younger brother, which means that unless I produce an heir of my own, our line will be severely endangered and possibly vampiric, and the Countess is also vowing to wreak her own kind of justice on Arthrington.” He poured himself more brandy.
“Do you have a mother?” Irene ventured.
“My mother left us all to it many years ago.” Vale swirled the liquid in his glass. “Rather as I did. I have no idea where she is; in the New World somewhere, I believe.”
Irene swallowed the last of her brandy and stood up. “We need to strategise,” she announced. “I need a lot more information before I can decide how to proceed.”
“There isn’t time for information!” said Vale. “The auction is to be completed at midnight.”
"Tonight?"
"Tonight."
Irene sighed. “All right,” she said. “We'll strategise in half an hour. But first, if you don’t mind, I am going to have a bath.”
~~~
While soaping off some of the smog that enveloped this part of the country nearly as thoroughly as London, she had time to consider Vale’s request. Technically Librarians were not supposed to become too involved in their assigned world. On the other hand, if she could prove that this issue might blow up into a larger one, imperilling the balance between order and chaos (and vampires were always liable to tip the balance in favour of chaos); possibly even the tentative treaty between dragons and fae, or at least, those dragons and fae willing to sign up to it…perhaps she would be able to defend her actions if anyone in the Library took issue with them.
Dry, warm and clean, at least until she stepped outside the hotel, Irene followed Vale up the broad street that led to the town hall. She still hadn’t checked in the book she’d rescued earlier, but she had decided a few hours’ delay wouldn’t hurt. Her orders from the Library hadn't seemed urgent and she’d made good time with the errand. Confusing the highwayman who had stolen Lady Mary’s pearls had been an easy matter using the Language, and she had let him ride off towards Garforth none the wiser. He would realise the pearls were gone eventually, but that wasn’t her problem.
The town hall was new and most imposing, with an impressive clock tower, and a pride of stone lions guarding the main entrance. Irene gazed up at their inscrutable faces for a long moment, considering how different they appeared from the dragons she had encountered. Until recently, she would have put them in a similar category: dangerous predators. Now she knew dragons were infinitely more dangerous.
Inside the building, statues and art worthy of a museum lined the walls, and people clustered around them. Vale led her straight towards a tall man whose distant eyes lit up when he saw them.
“My dear Vale!” He shook Vale’s hand heartily. “My god, it’s been too long, hasn’t it? Must be five years if it’s a day.”
“Too long, indeed,” Vale admitted. “Arthrington, it is good to see you, but we must have words in private, if you please.” He turned to Irene. “This is Miss Winters. She is a literary expert and will be able to advise you on this scheme.”
Arthrington’s smile faded to puzzlement. “Oh, but I don’t need an expert opinion in this case,” he said, although he followed Vale down a corridor and into a small room with an inordinately high ceiling. He nodded at Irene cordially, and she tried to look as Librarian-like and expert as possible. “There’s no question of the provenance in this case, is there? The whole county knows your aunt had a…um, a special friendship with Miss Brontë, and that the manuscript was given into her care. Also—” He held up a hand as Vale tried to speak. “I wish you to know immediately that I intend to return the manuscript to your family’s care — to you, in fact — as soon as the auction is over.”
Vale’s outreached arm didn’t quite touch his friend’s shoulder before he pulled it back. “Arthrington. My dear friend, that is very good of you. But I’m afraid it won’t do. My family—”
“Nobody need hear of it, you know,” Arthrington said. “If it’s about the money, then what of it? I have more money than I can spend in five lifetimes, and nobody to spend it on.” He hesitated. “Although your sister...”
“Stay away from Cissy,” Vale said sharply, and Arthrington drew himself up.
“Old fellow, you don’t mean to say you don’t think me good enough for her?”
“You are a very good fellow indeed.” Vale leaned against the wall. “That, in fact, is the problem, Arthrington. My family is full of people who are not good fellows at all, and I would no sooner leave you in their clutches than I would cast you adrift at sea.” He turned to Irene. “Miss Winters, please. Would you be so good as to explain your plan?”
~~~
The auction room was packed with people dressed in their finery; apparently the auction was quite a local spectacle, despite the late hour and the supposed secrecy regarding the provenance of the items to be sold. Arthrington and Vale made space for themselves and Irene near the front, which was not her preferred position, but it would make it easier during the bidding process. Arthrington was bemused but not unduly upset by the change of plan. Vale was paler than usual and he sat stiffly, staring straight ahead. Irene herself was anxious, aware of the attention they were attracting, and certain that, while Vale was pretending to know no one, plenty of people around them recognised him and were agog at the Earl of Leeds making an appearance in his home town.
On the stage, two men were conferring in front of a blood red curtain. As the hubbub of the audience rose, one of them picked up a gavel from a low desk and banged it.
“Silence! Silence, please.” He outlined the auction rules in a monotone while two boys in flat caps scurried across the stage, wrenching back the curtain. Then he raised his voice again. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the first of tonight’s items. Who will give me five pounds for this beautiful necklace? Rumoured to have been the property of Lady Jane Grey before she became our gracious Queen Jane, this delicate piece has survived for centuries in the hands of only three families. Five pounds, who will give me five pounds?”
"Poor Marguerite," a woman behind Irene hissed. "She's tried so hard to manage, but they are destitute, my dear, completely destitute. The price of cotton, you know."
So much for anonymity, thought Irene. A man in the front row raised his arm, and the bidding began.
Irene sat back in the uncomfortable chair, wishing she could close her eyes. Obviously it was an anonymous auction, but still, she didn’t see why it had to be held at night, and particularly not this night, which she’d already spent waylaying a highwayman and negotiating with a distraught teenage noblewoman for a book.
She wondered how Kai was getting on back in London, and longed to be back there with him right now. But…she felt Vale’s leg, taut in his expensive evening wear against her own. She’d never seen him so undone. Kai would agree that they must help him if they could.
The noise of the audience ebbed and flowed as the artefacts were sold. At one point, a female voice hissed, “Perry!” and Vale froze against Irene for a second. She followed his gaze to a young woman who was dressed as if heavily under the influence of a fae libertine, all heaving bosom and bare arms, waving excitedly from the aisle. Beside her was an older woman, red-lipped but otherwise quite ordinary in appearance – except for the knowing expression in her eyes, which were those of a much, much older woman. As Vale signed for them to find a seat elsewhere, Irene looked away, not wanting to attract the attention of those eyes.
She was more alert as the auction drew to its close, wondering if the women – who would call Vale ‘Perry’? – were watching her and curious about her connection to the men who flanked her. When Vale stood and bowed his silent apologies to her, she nodded. It wouldn’t do for Arthrington to be alone if the rest of Vale’s family were out for his blood. Vale had to be the one to play this role in her plot.
The younger girl must be Vale’s sister, of course, although she looked many years his junior. Another marriage, perhaps, after the mother had flown the coop? The older woman was undoubtedly the Countess. Irene was fairly certain she wasn’t fae – she would have sensed it even in such a febrile atmosphere – but any vampire presented quite a challenge.
“And now,” the auctioneer announced, holding up a small glass case, “one of the truly interesting pieces among tonight’s wealth. A treasured gift from a celebrated author to her dear friend. Rumoured to be cursed and to contain terrible truths; bound up in secrecy and never read. Never to be read…until now, if you, the buyer, choose to do so.”
Despite the tension, Irene’s back tingled at the words. To read a book nobody else had ever read – and a Brontë book at that! But she needed to concentrate.
Arthrington stood. “I offer five thousand guineas.” His voice carried confidently over the whispers and mutterings in the hall.
Irene glanced around. Vale’s sister and the Countess had taken seats on the end of a row near the back, and now they were glaring at Arthrington. Vale’s sister looked almost intoxicated, and Irene wondered bleakly if the rumoured benefits of being a vampire's acolyte were true.
The auctioneer waited a moment before asking, “Can anyone go higher than that? The gentleman’s reaction proves the worth of this artefact, ladies and gentlemen, to any who may doubt it!” As the silence stretched, he added, "Really, ladies and gentlemen. A little competition, if you please."
It was time. Irene pushed herself to her feet alongside Arthrington. “I bid ten thousand guineas.”
This time, instead of muttering, there was utter silence. She could sense Arthrington beside her, drooping back into his chair, and the gazes of everyone behind her, including Vale’s sister and the Countess.
The auctioneer waited again before bringing down his gavel. “Sold to the lady next to Mr Arthrington. Ten thousand guineas, ladies and gentlemen!”
The chatter erupted again, and Irene sat down. She was trembling – she hated being the centre of attention – but this was only the first part of the plan. She caught Arthrington’s eye and they both sidled out in the direction Vale had taken.
They were intercepted by a polite man in evening wear, who ushered them backstage. Irene fingered the cheque in her bag, signed a little while earlier by Arthrington. He hadn’t taken much persuading.
“If milady would sign here, here, and here,” the man said, indicating with a fountain pen. Irene picked it up. Just before she looked down at the paper, she glimpsed the Countess and Vale’s sister approaching from one direction, and a man with a large camera who could only be a reporter closing in on the other side. She set her pen to the paper and held her breath.
The lights went out. That was the first thing, a thing she hadn’t expected, and a few people shrieked. Any noise in the room was quickly drowned out by a bell ringing above them, deep and sonorous. It chimed once, twice, three times…Irene counted absently, while she took a firm grip on Arthrington’s arm and led him through the darkness in a direction that she hoped the Countess would not expect. Seven, eight…They were in an alcove between the backstage area and the corridor. Ten, eleven, twelve…thirteen.
She didn’t know if others had counted the peeling of the bell the way she had, but she had the sense of people freezing in the ringing silence. Then screams erupted, and a man’s voice called, “Out! Everybody out!”
Fighting down panic, Irene pressed through the mêlée. She wasn’t sure if the lights failing was Vale’s work, like the bell, or a coincidence, but she suspected the latter, and she did not like coincidences. She was also painfully aware that darkness was the perfect cover for any vampire wishing to pounce.
‘Little mouse’, Lord Silver called her when he wanted to antagonise her, and Irene felt very mouse-like at the moment. It was impossible to keep her sense of direction in the darkness; all she could do was manoeuvre through the distressed crowds towards where she thought the glass box holding the book had been.
A couple of people had produced gas lanterns, and something glinted a few metres away. She darted for it, dragging Arthrington with her, but someone laid a chilly hand on her forearm and a cool voice murmured in her ear: “I think not.”
Irene drew herself up. “Countess Scarborough, I presume?” She projected all the courage she did not feel at the dark shape beside her, trying not to think of fangs piercing her exposed neck in the darkness.
“You presume correctly,” the voice breathed. “Now, what do you mean by upsetting the family I am marrying into?”
“I’m trying to help the family.” Irene gritted her teeth. “As was Mr Arthrington here. If you would stop assuming everyone shares your deplorable moral code, you might discover that some people are not trying to harm you, but rather the reverse.”
“Perhaps you are trying to help the family,” the Countess murmured, “but that does not mean you would be helping me.”
“Matilda?” A lantern approached, outlining a pair of very attractive, and very bare, shoulders. “Here you are. And with Mr Arthrington, too!” In one sentence, her tone shifted from anxious to sharp to saccharine. “Do you know, Mr Arthrington, I have so been looking forward to meeting you again! I remember so fondly the days when you would visit Perry when you were both down from Harrow.”
Irene felt Arthrington shift beside her. “Do you, Miss Vale? Goodness, how very gratifying. I did not expect – that is, I am delighted to make your acquaintance again.”
“Call me Cissy, please,” she cooed, and the shoulders advanced. An impressive décolletage was revealed, and then a face, wide-eyed and sultry in the lantern light.
“Cissy,” the Countess said, “why don’t you help Mr Arthrington outside? You can’t possibly get acquainted in the darkness like this.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Cissy beamed at Arthrington. “It’s the most romantic thing, don’t you think?”
“Cissy.” Irene shivered at the note of command in the Countess’s voice. She might not be fae, but she also wasn’t mortal, and clearly Cissy was under her spell. For her part, Cissy led Arthrington away without demur, leaving Irene to wonder how much of her breathy, wide-eyed act was, in fact, an act. As for Arthrington himself, he cast a glance at Irene but allowed himself to be led, under just as much of a spell as Cissy, if one of a different nature.
“And now,” the Countess said, “I shall take my property.”
The glass cabinet was close enough to touch. Irene looked around, but there were no books in this part of the building, and so no possibility of opening up a temporary escape route to the Library.
“You perceive that I am trying to help you,” she tried in the Language.
The Countess blinked, then laughed, while Irene braced herself against the backlash of the Language failing to take hold. “How kind of you. But I repeat, helping the Vale family will not achieve my ends.”
“Which are?” Irene longed to shake off the woman’s arm, but she had a feeling that to do so would not work in her favour.
“To unite the earldoms of Scarborough and Leeds in my person,” the Countess said.
“I heard you’re going to marry the younger brother,” Irene agreed. All the time, as people flowed past them towards the main exit, she was watching for Vale’s tall figure. She hoped he had made it down from the clock tower without mishap. “And the current Earl shows no sign of wishing produce an heir, so you’ll get your way eventually, won’t you?”
“Eventually is not a word I enjoy,” said the Countess. “I see no reason to wait for nature to take its course. Peregrine Vale betrayed his family's ideas long ago; they will not object when I remove him.”
"I'm surprised you don't want to enslave him." Irene spoke sharply, fighting down her fear at the Countess's cold tone. "Your kind do seem to enjoy that kind of adoration a little too much."
As the Countess's nails dug into Irene's arm, a noise echoed through the room. In another world, Irene might have thought it the cough of a car, but there were no cars in this world – not yet. It came again: a deep growl, a grumble like the earth turning over, and Irene knew their gamble had succeeded. And perhaps backfired.
Because now she was in the dark, in an enclosed space, with a vampire and a lion.
~~~
Irene’s first thought was that she hoped it was just the one lion. There had been four on the plinths outside the Town Hall, and according to Vale, they had been carved by a fae artist who had laid a spell on them, linking them to the clock bell.
Her next thought was that – perhaps – a lion that had recently been made of stone might be easier to control than a scheming vampire.
“Lion,” she called, “attack the vampire!” She wrenched herself out of the Countess’s grasp and dived for the cabinet containing the book.
The Countess’s shriek of rage was drowned out by the lion’s roar as it leapt out of the darkness. Irene scurried away as silently as she could, hugging the cabinet in shaking arms.
Behind her she heard a scream and several thuds. The Countess seemed to have retreated to the other side of the room, and the lion stalked towards her. It was slowing now, perhaps because it recognised the threat in the dagger that glinted in the Countess’s hand.
Irene spotted a darker hollow ahead and sprinted for the doorway, praying firstly that there were no more lions inside the building, and secondly that she hadn’t condemned the first one to death at the hands of the Countess. She ought to feel guilty about the Countess, too, but she didn’t, not yet. What did the woman mean about uniting the earldoms of Scarborough and Leeds? Nothing good for Vale.
Outside, the smoking air was a cacophony of police whistles, growling lions, screaming people…and Vale. He lowered his swordstick and Irene fell into his arms, letting his strength hold her up for a few seconds, the book between them, before she straightened.
“Ring the bell, man,” she heard Vale say over her head. “That ought to settle things down.”
The auctioneer bellowed an instruction to the adjunct who had spoken to Irene earlier, and the man hurried back into the building. Three of the lions had congregated on the forecourt and were glaring at the crowd that surrounded them. Vale wasn't the only one here with a sword. Irene watched the chaos, wondering how much of it she was going to have to explain to Coppelia. It wasn’t going to look good if her hasty plan had resulted in deaths, even if she had scooped the Vale/Brontë book as an exclusive for the Library.
“Cissy,” Vale said sharply, and strode behind a plinth on which one of the lions had rested. “Arthrington!”
They were crouched in the lee of the plinth, and Cissy was brandishing a dagger like the one held by the Countess a few minutes earlier. “It will not hurt,” she crooned in Arthrington’s ear as he cowered against the stone. “Just a little nick—”
“Cissy!” Vale reached her and pulled at her arm and she whirled to face him. “Robert is my friend and you will not treat him like your plaything.”
“And where have you been?” she shrieked, stabbing the knife towards him for emphasis. “What kind of friend have you been to me all those years, leaving me shut up in that house with Father? Where were you?”
For once Vale had no words; he stood there, one hand still on her arm, the other warding off the knife. As Irene watched, the clock bell tolled again, just once. One o’clock. Outdoors, its chime was lighter, less overwhelming, but its effect was instant. People stopped milling about and shouting, the police whistles subsided…and the lions that were still on the forecourt padded quietly back to their plinths.
A few moments later, a fourth lion appeared silhouetted in the doorway. It roared once, and goosepimples ran down Irene's back. Then it made its way to the plinth behind which they were standing. Vale set his hand on his swordstick, but the creature merely leapt onto the platform and lay still.
As the lions shimmered from gold to grey, another figure staggered through the doorway.
“Melinda!” Cissy cried. Releasing Vale, she hurried up the steps.
Irene was suddenly very conscious of the cabinet she was hugging to her chest. “We need to get out of here,” she murmured. "Immediately."
Arthrington needed no prompting. “My carriage is waiting around the corner,” he said, and led the way down the Headrow.
~~~
“I must say, that was a more interesting evening than I anticipated.” Arthrington rose as a servant carried in a silver tray on which rested several bottles and three crystal glasses. “Thank you, Barnes. You must go to bed now, and please don’t get up tomorrow morning. I am quite capable of dressing myself and even frying bacon these days!”
As the servant, backed out, expressionless, Arthrington’s cheerful smile faded.
“No cook here yet,” he murmured. “Can’t seem to get the women to stay in this house, don’t understand why.”
The were in Arthrington's study, a high-ceilinged, wood-panelled room at the back of the house, well away from the carriages that clattered up and down Headingley Lane, even at this hour of the night. It was also pleasingly full of books, as far as Irene was concerned.
“I’m sorry about my sister, old chap,” Vale said sombrely.
Arthrington poured himself a measure of whisky, added water and sat down heavily. “Your sister,” he said, “is a beautiful – a most beautiful – woman who can do what she pleases after tonight. Do you know, I believe she’s cured me for good of wanting a wife.”
Irene wondered what Vale would make of this, but he only shrugged.
“She should have been the one who was sent to school,” he said, “not left cooped up in a mansion in the Dales under the influence of my family and that Scarborough woman.” He stretched out his long frame. “I will be here for some time settling my brother’s affairs, but after that I have invited her to stay with me in London for a while. I hope that will give her something else to think about.”
“And your brother?” Arthrington asked.
“My brother and my uncle can go to hell.” He stared at his glass, and Irene ached for him. She had had her troubles with her parents – her adoptive parents – but she couldn’t imagine not wanting to be part of their family.
Arthrington’s gold filigree clock chimed two, and they all yawned.
“There are rooms made up for you,” Arthrington offered. “Vale, I have the perfect room, overlooking the valley. Or perhaps I should offer that one to Miss Winters?” He bowed. “Or perhaps—”
“You’re very kind,” Irene said hastily, “but I must get back to the Library. I have two books to check in now, and some explaining to do.”
She caught Vale looking at her, and hoped she wasn't blushing. “Ah, but perhaps I could return here afterwards? If the Earl is staying a little while?”
Vale held her gaze. “I shall have business here for some time – or rather, I shall be untangling my brother’s business. Perhaps you and Strongrock are due a break from the travails of your work?”
“I’m not sure Librarians ever have proper holidays,” said Irene, but her mind was running ahead: she, Kai and Vale, away from the smoky capital (although Leeds seemed even worse in that respect, and how was that possible?), perhaps enjoying gentle walks in the countryside (avoiding the vampires) and taking refuge in rustic hotels (again, avoiding the vampires). Fresh air, no politics and many, many baths. And beds. And—”
“I should be most happy,” said Arthrington gallantly, “to invite Miss Winters and her, er, associate for a longer stay.”
“You’re too kind,” said Irene, gathering her thoughts. “But first…” She felt for Lady Mary's book inside her coat and gripped the small glass case containing the Brontë book. Removing it from this world ought to take care of the immediate scandal, and she also intended to ask Lord Silver to take a look at the vampire situation in the north of England. Or perhaps Sterrington, who would enjoy the challenge and would probably bore the Countess of Scarborough to death. “I have some deliveries to make before we are all safe.”
And before that she vowed to herself, she would find a quiet corner in which to scan the book and discover exactly how damaging it might be for Vale. She cared not a jot for his family, but the Library had no compunction in using levers, and Vale had proved himself a most useful lever in the past.
She would not destroy Anne Brontë’s book – never! But there were quiet folders in which information could be buried for a long, long time.
Nodding at Vale and Arthrington, she turned to face the alcove filled with books. “Door,” she commanded, “open to the Library!”
And it did.