Holiday Duet: Two Previously Published Regency Novellas Read online

  Hannibal squinted up at him.

  “She’s pretty, she’s young, she’s kind,” Max went on, “and if the library won’t have him, Miss Antonia will.” Max hoped. Spinsters were a self-possessed lot, much like cats but not half so prone to purring. That she was Miss Antonia at her age, not Miss Smith or Miss Whoever, suggested an even older unmarried sister. In some families, that meant the younger sisters waited in vain for a match, or perhaps in her case, they contented themselves with the company of books.

  Beelzebub and Hannibal touched noses, and Hannibal joined Beelzebub under the couch.

  “Fine, then,” Max said, unwrapping his scarf and trailing it slowly over the carpet. “I’ll check on him next week, only because you insist and only the once.”

  Edward yawned, stretched, and squinted at Max out of his one good eye, then joined the other two under the couch. Max suffered an unaccountable urge to go back to the library and check on Lucifer at that very moment, but that would set no sort of example for Dagger.

  He tossed his scarf onto a peg behind the door and added half a bucket of coal to the fire.

  Mr. Paxton slapped the book down on Antonia’s desk loudly enough to wake the cat, who was curled in a basket beside the fireplace.

  “I specifically told Mr. Kessler to locate a first edition of Richardson’s treatise,” Mr. Paxton snapped. “This is not a first edition.”

  Across the reading room, the Barclay sisters peered at Antonia over their sermons. They’d intervene if she indicated a need for assistance, so she ignored them and met Mr. Paxton’s glare with a calm eye.

  “This is a fourth edition, sir, though your request was made only the day before yesterday. We’ll be happy to notify you if and when a first edition arrives. You are welcome to borrow this copy until then.”

  Antonia remained seated, while Mr. Paxton drew himself up, a hot air balloon of male self-importance preparing to lift into a flight of indignation. The bell on the front door tinkled and Lucifer left his basket. He greeted each patron as conscientiously as a butler would, then went back to his basket, almost as if he were expecting one caller in particular.

  “What sort of librarian,” Mr. Paxton began, “cannot tell a first edition from subsequent printings? What sort of institution employs staff who cannot fulfill a simple loan request? Was I not clear that I wanted a first edition?”

  He braced his hands on the desk and leaned closer. “Did I not complete your form to Mr. Kessler’s satisfaction? Did he perhaps allow Mr. Lincoln Candleford to have the first edition before I was permitted to see it? I know the library on Constable Lane has one, but it’s lent out, and they won’t tell me who has it.”

  Mr. Paxton needed a closer acquaintance with several sheaves of fresh parsley. His breath reeked of the tobacco habit, which did not blend well with the excessive rose pomade in his hair.

  “Libraries value the privacy of their patrons,” Antonia replied. “If Constable Lane had a first edition available to lend, I’m sure they’d have sent it around. Did you seek to research a particular topic covered by Mr. Richardson’s treatise?”

  Mr. Paxton’s gaze crawled over Antonia’s feminine endowments. He might have been any one of a hundred half-drunk, blond, blue-eyed fortune hunters forgetting himself in a Mayfair ballroom, and in that setting, Antonia would have known what to do about him.

  The cut direct, a raised eyebrow, a knowing glance to the chaperones waiting to pounce on a man’s reputation from among the potted ferns. He’d find himself in want of invitations for the remainder of the Season, which was a fortune hunter’s version of doom.

  “Young woman, are you listening to me? Is your female brain overtaxed by a patron’s request when that request is plainly and succinctly put before you? Must I complain to Kessler about his paltry collection and his dimwitted staff?”

  Antonia rose, standing eye to eye with Mr. Paxton, the desk between them. “Your request has been submitted to our sister institutions. Is your male brain too limited to grasp that Mr. Richardson’s treatise was published in 1788, and first editions have had nigh three decades to become lost, damaged, or destroyed? Locating one might take more than two days, though I suggest you retrieve your manners in the next thirty seconds.”

  His gaze roamed over her in a manner so far beyond insulting that had Antonia been at one of polite society’s social functions, she would have slapped him.

  He obviously knew she couldn’t. Not here, where she was a volunteer on probation until a paying post became available. Not now, with only a pair of old women to gainsay Paxton’s version of events. At the library, Antonia was simply “young woman,” not an earl’s daughter with a private fortune. For the first time since embarking on this literary adventure, Antonia understood why her cousins had tried to dissuade her from it.

  She wasn’t afraid, exactly, but she was uneasy.

  “You were a governess, weren’t you?” Paxton said. “A long meg like you was passed over by the bachelors. You probably lost your position because you got above yourself. You think a little French and a smattering of Italian make you an intellectual. What you need is—”

  The smell of freshly baked bread gave Antonia an instant’s warning that her conversation had acquired another witness.

  “What you need,” Mr. Haddonfield said, positioning himself at her elbow, “is to leave. Now.”

  Paxton put a hand on his hip. “Who might you be and what gives you the right to intrude here?”

  “Max Haddonfield, at your service. Your rudeness invites any gentleman in the vicinity to intercede. Apologize to the lady for behaving like a petulant brat and find another library to patronize.”

  “Please do leave, Mr. Paxton,” Antonia said. “You’ve disturbed the other patrons, and contrary to your imaginings, librarians are not magicians. Finding a thirty-year-old first edition will take some time.”

  “Go,” Mr. Haddonfield said, making a shooing motion.

  “And are you a librarian, sir, to be so dismissive toward a man of my academic credentials?” Paxton sniffed, picking up the book.

  Mr. Haddonfield plucked the book from Paxton’s grasp. “I’m a chemist.” He smiled at Paxton as if being a chemist was better than having put Wellington on his first pony. “Haven’t blown anything up in more than two weeks. I grow short-tempered when I can’t blow something up.”

  Paxton took two steps back. “Kessler will hear about this.”

  Mr. Haddonfield crossed his arms, which made his coat stretch over broad shoulders and muscular biceps. “He certainly will. Your rudeness toward both the staff and the other patrons will doubtless result in revocation of your lending privileges.”

  “Other patrons? I assume you refer to yourself?”

  Mr. Haddonfield twirled his finger. Paxton glanced over his shoulder, to where the Barclay sisters were no longer even pretending to read. Miss Dottie waggled her fingers. Miss Betty smiled over a bound volume of the Reverend Fordyce’s wisdom.

  “Other patrons,” Mr. Haddonfield said. “Away with you. Be gone.” He clapped his hands rapidly at Mr. Paxton, like a housekeeper impatient with a sluggardly maid.

  Paxton leapt back, jerked his coat down, and marched for the door. The silence in his wake was broken by bells on a passing gig tinkling, a merry sound.

  “Do you really blow things up?” Antonia asked.

  “Yes, but usually only on purpose.”

  Chapter Two

  Max was a scientist, which to his siblings meant he indulged in a quaint hobby, sometimes breaking things, sometimes arriving late to social gatherings with odd smells lingering on his clothes. He read a lot of books and liked to go for long walks by himself.

  His brothers and sisters were kind people. If he’d told them he chose to arrive late because explosives were simply more interesting than polite society, they would have been puzzled, if not hurt. Chemistry, physics, natural science—the world that could be studied and understood—held far more fascination for Max than the world that waltzed and
swilled tea.

  Miss Antonia was an item of anomalous data. She was clearly not of a species native to the workaday surrounds of the library’s neighborhood. Her height set her apart, height usually being characteristic of the reliably well fed classes. Her diction had finishing school crispness about the consonants, and her attire was not only made from excellent cloth, but up to the moment in style.

  Other features contradicted the hypothesis of a lady fallen on hard times or doing a charitable bit at a lending library.

  Her clothing, while stylish and well made, was plain to a fault. No ruffles called attention to her curves, no fanciful embroidery flattered her blue-gray eyes. Her bearing was a conundrum as well: Somebody had taught her perfect posture, but they had neglected to teach her perfect confidence in the face of loutish behavior.

  “Are patrons like Mr. Paxton common here?” Max asked. And where was Lucifer?

  “I would not know,” Miss Antonia replied. “I am new to my position, but the records indicate Mr. Paxton is a frequent borrower and occasionally tardy about his returns.”

  “Then you must never give quarter where he is concerned. Do not back down, do not blink when he stares at your—your person. Regard him as you would an unruly child much in need of a stint on the dunce stool, for that’s exactly what he is.”

  “I have no experience with unruly children.” Miss Antonia regarded the book in Max’s hands. “Would you like to check out that volume?”

  “I have little interest in the illegal brewing of beer and ale,” Max said, holding tome out to her.

  “Is that what—? Oh, I see.” She took the book. “Is that what Mr. Paxton is about?”

  “I cannot say for a certainty. He has no estate that I know of, he dwells in a rooming house that I very much doubt has facilities for home-brewing, and his last commercial venture—crossing the Channel by balloon—failed spectacularly.”

  Paxton was not a scientist. He was one of the many opportunists looking to science for personal gain rather than for the betterment of humanity. Richardson’s treatise, which purported to teach the use of the saccharometer for establishing consistent results when making beer, had been a basic text among brewmasters for decades.

  “People die flying hot air balloons,” Miss Antonia said. “From what I recall, one can sail by boat from Dover to Calais in a few hours. Are balloons really so much faster?”

  Had she been to France herself?

  “The issue is the return journey,” Max said. “When the winds oblige, the trip from Dover to Calais can be made speedily by boat, but Calais to Dover is often a much longer journey. Balloons can search at various altitudes for favorable winds, if the pilot is skillful. Then too, the views from several thousand feet in the air are splendid.”

  She studied him for a curious moment before marching off with Mr. Richardson’s treatise. “You have flown in hot air balloons?”

  “Frequently,” Max said, following in her wake. “People think of explosions as violent occurrences, but in truth, a balloon expanding or a loaf of bread dough rising are simply explosions that happen over a longer time. If we can harness the energy of an explosion—as we do every time a bullet is propelled down the barrel of a gun—we will have great power that has until now been supplied only by the sweat of our brows.”

  “What was it like?” Miss Antonia asked. “To be in that balloon?”

  “The preparation can last longer than the flight. One must first pump cold air into the balloon itself, then heated air to expand the volume of the cold air, and all without the flames doing any mischief. The launching must be timed to avoid anything but the slightest breeze, and—”

  “No,” she said, pausing at the bottom of the spiral steps. “I mean, what was it like, to fly so high, to see the world as only God and the birds have seen it previously?”

  I’ll show you. The words sprang to Max’s mind without any rational provocation other than the longing in Miss Antonia’s eyes. A woman who let Paxton’s blustering intimidate her would be terrified to see the world from two thousand feet up, but Miss Antonia apparently longed for that view.

  “The perspective is amazing,” Max said. “Full of odd contrasts. The world is at once small and enormous. Mighty forests look like squares on a quilt, France is right next door, not twenty miles away. Because the balloon is moved along by the wind itself, there’s an odd sense of stillness despite traveling at a good clip. One moment, all is quiet majesty, then next, the firebox is roaring and you’re trying to avoid a disobliging hillside.”

  “Women fly,” Miss Antonia said quietly. “A few women.”

  Women not only flew hot air balloons, they did so spectacularly. Max could not picture this tidy, prim librarian manning the firebox and delighting in the vagaries of the wind.

  “Would you like to fly, Miss Antonia?”

  She took off up the winding steps. “I am flying, Mr. Haddonfield. This library, full of flights of imagination and wisdom, is my sky and the books are my wings. I need not risk my neck on a lark involving silk, flame, and foolish fancies.”

  The spiral stairs were constructed of metal, and her half boots made quite the racket as she ascended. Max followed more quietly, wondering what disobliging male hillside had blighted Miss Antonia’s sense of adventure.

  His conjecture was hardly scientific, and yet, it had the ring of a solid hypothesis. “What will you do if Paxton makes trouble?”

  “Trouble, Mr. Haddonfield?”

  “If he returns for another round of attempted bullying or he complains to your superior?”

  She moved down a row of bound volumes and shoved Richardson back among his fellows, then remained gazing at worn book spines of brown, red, and black leather.

  A boring sky, by Max’s lights, though one meriting some study.

  “You need not be concerned, Mr. Haddonfield. I will have a word with Mr. Kessler when he drops by on Thursday. He has more than a dozen libraries under his management, and one rude patron won’t deserve much notice from such a busy man.”

  Max had four sisters whom he loved dearly. They had mothered him when his own mama had gone to her reward, interceded for him when his older brothers became too overbearing, and prevented his father from sending him to boarding school at a tender age when Max’s experiments had nearly set the stables ablaze.

  Women paid attention in ways men often did not, and yet women were often not afforded attention in ways they deserved, particularly when that attention was owed them by a busy man.

  “You complain first,” Max said. “You inform Kessler that his library has attracted a bad sort, one intent on exploiting the learning to be had here for criminal gain. You make it plain that Paxton’s rudeness to you and to the ladies at the reading table is a sorry disappointment to your feminine sensibilities and will not be tolerated.”

  Miss Antonia gave him another one of those considering looks. He could not read her gaze, but he sensed a prodigious intellect coming to careful conclusions.

  “I’m to be the offended lady?”

  “Aren’t you offended?”

  She folded her arms and faced him. “What if Mr. Paxton was to become personally troublesome?”

  Over the scents of old books, leather, and coal, Max detected a grassy fragrance laced with mint. Coming from her.

  “Troublesome, Miss Antonia?”

  She stared at a spot beyond Max’s shoulder as pink crept up her neck. “Troublesome, like a bachelor who has made one too many trips to the men’s punch bowl.”

  Interesting analogy for a librarian. “You mean his hand accidentally glides over your bum when you’re showing him where to find the brewing treatises? Or he passes too close to you, such that—”

  “Yes,” she said, a bit loudly. “Troublesome in that regard.”

  “Your knee,” Max said. “A fine weapon when deployed in the vicinity of a man’s falls. He’ll drop like wet laundry if you look into his eyes while you’re doing it.”

  Miss Antonia was bright
pink now, even to her ears. “And if he should grasp my arm?”

  Max circled her wrist with his fingers. “Get my smallest finger in a good grip and haul it smartly back and away from my hand. You can break my finger that way. Then jab your thumbs into my eyes while I’m whimpering in male outrage, and follow up with a heel stomped on my instep.”

  She looked down at his hand wrapped around her wrist. “Your smallest finger?”

  “I grew up with older brothers of the big and boisterous sort. They sometimes didn’t know when to stop teasing me, so my sisters taught me a few handy moves.”

  Miss Antonia smiled up at Max, her hand resting over his as he grasped her wrist. “Your sisters taught you how to fight?”

  “How to defend myself.” What lovely eyes Miss Antonia had, and how delightful that she was tall enough that Max didn’t feel like a plow horse when he stood next to her.

  “Like this?” She gave Max’s finger a tug that would not have awakened a napping kitten.

  “More firmly.” Did her perfume include a hint of lemon?

  She tugged again, still not very hard.

  “Have you ever waltzed?” Max asked.

  She looked down. “I have. I am considered too tall to be a suitable partner for most men.”

  “Madam, most men are too short to partner you effectively. When you dance with a partner who knows what he’s doing, does he dither and hesitate or does he move decisively?”

  “Most of them dither and hesitate while they stare—they mince about. There is an earl, though. Or there was. He’s on the tall side, and I did enjoy dancing with him very much.”

  Had this earl been her disobliging hillside? Max’s older brother Nicholas was an earl who was very tall, also very married. Though how did a librarian end up dancing with any earl at all?

  “Be like that fellow when you yank on my finger. Know what you’re about.”

  She looked up at Max, and he braced himself for another kitten-tug.

  “’Zounds!” She’d nearly ripped his finger off. “Well done.” He shook his hand, considering the hurt worth the reward, for Miss Antonia was beaming at him.