Poetic Justice (35 page)

"That's right," Jessica said eagerly. "It means nothing. It could have been any of the actors in that company. So you can just leave it there on the table, and no one will care in the least."

Wiley seemed to give this some consideration, tilting his head to the side and studying her, then the book. Then he shook his head. "No. Others might be more gullible, don't you think? Best to relieve them of the temptation to leap to the wrong conclusion. Meeker."

The clerk had been lounging against the table, staring down at the box lid as if it were the treasure and not just its container. But at this he snapped to attention. "What do you want, guv'nor?"

"Is that lamp still in the vault? Go fetch it, if you please." With one hand, Wiley replaced the book in the box and closed it up; with the other, he kept the gun steady.

John waited, every muscle tensed and ready, until the clerk was inside the vault. Then he hissed, "Go!" to Jessica and hurled across the table towards Wiley, his only intention to interpose himself between her and the pistol.

He took him by surprise, enough so that Wiley had only time to raise the gun towards John's head. He hadn't the instant needed to aim the gun and get off a shot. Fortunately, the old blunderbuss of a pistol didn't go off even when the collision with John's forehead sent it spinning across the floor. Unfortunately, Meeker heard the commotion and emerged from the vault, lamp in hand, just in time to hook the skidding gun with his foot.

Even worse, instead of running towards the door, Jessica, insubordinate to the last, ducked under the table, evaded the falling bodies, and grabbed up the pasteboard box. Dazed from his collision with Wiley's gun, John pushed away from the table, only to see her dash past Meeker and into the vault.

At least she managed to get the door slammed before Meeker set down the lamp and, holding the gun gingerly, came up to help Wiley to his feet. "Here you go, Mr. Wiley," he said imperturbably. "Gun. Lamp. I'll go get the girl."

John started after him, but the blood pouring from the cut on his forehead blinded him momentarily. By the time he blotted the blood with his handkerchief, Wiley had recovered, bringing the gun up and declaring, "I've got it aimed at your back, Dryden. Meeker, man, just open the door and pull her out!"

The clerk grunted and applied his meager shoulder to the oak and iron door without effect. He straightened up and peered through the little slit. "I can't, guv'nor. She's got something wedged in there. And I can't see nothing either."

"Jessie," John said, in some despair, envisioning her standing there in the dark, clutching the pasteboard box, without any chance of escape.

Wiley raised his voice. "It must be gloomy in there, Miss Seton, and stuffy too. You can't escape, and soon the air will grow close, and you will start to feel faint. You will have to come out eventually, so please don't make us wait." When his only response was a stubborn silence, he gentled his tone. "I do so deplore violence, my dear. Please don't make me use it against your new husband. What a terrible birthday gift his dead body would be!"

The door opened, and Jessica emerged, defeat written in the bend of her golden head and the slump of her slender body. Without looking up, she held out the box. Meeker grabbed it, and said brightly, "You want me to burn it, guv'nor?"

"What a likely lad you are, Meeker. Yes. Get the wastebasket there, from under the table."

As Meeker bent to comply, Jessica came, head bowed, to John's side, and silently passed him a lacy handkerchief. He blotted up the blood from his forehead, wishing she would have stayed back out of the range of the gun. But at least now he could take her hand and try to squeeze some sympathy into it. As bad as he felt, she must feel worse, for this was her mother's treasure that Meeker was holding over the open lamp and setting afire.

When the box was ablaze, Meeker let it drop into the wastebasket. The thump of its weight against the metal echoed in John's mind, and involuntarily he reached out his hand towards it. But Wiley turned the gun towards Jessica, and John let his arm drop back to his side, holding his breath so that he did not breathe in the smoke of his dying dream.

They all watched in silence as the flames shot up above the top of the wastebasket. When they subsided again, and finally went out, Meeker kicked at the basket. A last wisp of smoke curled up and dissipated in the uncaring air. "Naught but ashes left, guv'nor."

"Good. Here." Wiley brought a purse from his pocket and tossed it to Meeker. As he caught it, the clink of coin on coin grated in the silence. "Go on now, get out. And not a word of this to anyone, or there will be no more commissions for you."

The clerk stuffed the purse into his shirtfront and, wrenching the chair out from under the doorknob, called out a merry farewell and departed. The smoky air followed him, curling out the door like an insubstantial snake.

Wiley sighed and shook his head. "A most accomplished accomplice, don't you think? Oh, Miss Seton," he added, smiling at her, "I forgot to bid you a happy birthday. I mean, Lady Dryden. I am sorry that we will not be working together here in the library. But it is not be." He drew a sealed page out of his pocket and it on the table. "My letter of resignation."

Finally he turned to Dryden. "I know you will not neglect to read my monograph. It will be in the next Journal of the Royal Society, I have no doubt. You will find it most ingenious. No one will ever regard Francis Bacon in quite the same light, once my evidence is revealed."

On top of the letter, he laid his pistol. At the door, he stopped and looked back. "I told you I deplored violence. It is true. I could never have shot you, Lady Dryden." He paused, his hand on the door. "I do not think I could, at any rate. How fortunate for us all, that I didn't have to test my resolve."

John released Jessica's hand and walked to the table to check the pistol. It was primed and loaded. He listened to Wiley's footsteps on the staircase and hefted the pistol in the palm of his hand. Then he placed it back on the table. Vengeance was not worth a human life, any more than honor was.

Next to the gun, he set the wastebasket. "Naught but ashes left," he repeated, running his bloody fingers through the debris. There were still coals enough to burn him, but he didn't care. He held up his hands so Jessica could see his ash-coated fingers.

But instead of weeping, as he certainly would do if he weren't a man, she was smiling. "Get the lamp," she whispered, and gave him a shove towards the table.

Uncomprehending, he did as she bade. She took his lamenting hand and drew him into the vault, closing the door behind him and wedging a piece of wooden crating in the bolthole. Then she sat cross-legged on the floor, tucking her skirt under her. She patted the place beside her as if inviting him to join her at a picnic. "Come sit with me, John. I have a surprise for you."

He set the lamp down and dropped down beside suddenly weary in every muscle. "Tell me. Quickly."

Jessica tugged the gold chain of her reticule off her shoulder and passed the bag to him. "Open it."

He took a deep breath of the hot air and brushed his hands off on his breeches. Then he withdrew the book from the reticule. It was folio-sized, wrapped in cheap parchment apparently torn from an even older book. Across the front of the wrapper was written in spidery, faded ink, "
The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore.
"

With shaking hands he unwrapped the book and opened it on his lap. He glanced at the first pages only long enough to see ink slashes across a few passages, presumably by the same man who also inscribed some comments in the margin. Later John might go back and read those, but now, he sucked the blood and ash off his index finger and, taking care not to tear the fragile paper, paged through the first couple scenes. Finally, on the eighth folio, he saw it. "There."

Jessica, still smiling her secret smile, bent to read where his finger stabbed, and murmured her appreciation. In a voice that sounded reverent even in his own ears, John explained, "He was younger when he wrote this, and stronger than when he made his will. But do you see? Look at the end flourishes on the 'e.'"

"It is very like. The final 'h' too—that is very familiar to me."

He wanted to stop and assemble all those swimming, slithering letters into words that combined to form some meaning. But he could only stare at the open page and then at Jessica's radiant face. There was a smudge of ash on her cheek; he made it even worse trying to rub it off. "Jessie, love, how did you do it?"

"I substituted another folio."

He looked around him at the shelves that lined the vault, at the treasures they hadn't had time to discover.

"Not one of the First Folios? No—no, it's all right. There are other First Folios."

"Not one of the First Folios. It was dark as pitch in here, John! I couldn't have laid my hands on it even had I no ready substitute." She picked up her reticule and opened it, showing him that, except for a comb and a tiny coin purse, it was empty.

"Your book. The one you brought in case you were bored."

"Yes. It was the Hannah More-Aphra Behn hybrid my mother had built. I took it to Dorset with me, to remind me of that night in the library. It was a folio also, and much the same weight."

"You came out with your head down, looking as if you were walking to the gallows! I thought—"

"What you were supposed to think. That my heart was breaking. And I was shaking like a leaf inside, afraid that in the dark I hadn't gotten the lid back on right, or that Wiley would feel a difference in the weight. But he never even touched it. I think he feared he would lose his courage, did he take it into his hands again."

There was a crash outside on the stairwell, a faint voice calling "Jessica!" But they were too busy to respond, alternating between kisses and reverent glimpses at the distinctive crabbed script on the three pages. Finally, when the lamp started smoking, John wrapped the book back up and returned it to Jessica's reticule, which he laid in her lap. He rose and held out his hand to help her up.

"You know," he admitted, pulling her close to nuzzle at her dusty ear, "you have more potential for derring-do than I would have imagined. That was brilliant." He released her so that he could pull out the wedge of wood and open the vault door. Cooler air rushed in and snuffed out the lamp. "In fact," he said, taking her hand to lead her out into the open, "I think you were splendid."

"Do you?"

Her bright face turned up to him like a flower in the sunlight. He sighed and bent to kiss her again. At this rate, they would never make it out of the library. "I can't wait to take you to Rome. There's a man I want you to meet, a Monsignor Alavieri."

"The curator for the Vatican? The one who wrote the essay on ethical behavior in book collecting?"

"That's the one. He's a thousand stories to tell, and a thousand volumes to show us. He has a collection of forgeries I have been meaning to visit. It will add immeasurably to your education, I think. We can spend all winter there, and come back in the spring."

Still holding hands, they left the storeroom. Their brief interlude was over. Lord Parham, halfway up the stairs, called out, "There you are, Jessica! Don't you worry, sweet! We caught Wiley and his henchman, trying to slip out the door." In his haste to reach her, he tripped over a pile of books left on the step and regained his balance only by grabbing the railing with both hands. But his beaming face was evidence that he wasn't hurt. "Now that I've located you safe and sound—well, not sound, in fact, you both look the very devil—I'll just go back and make certain he hasn't persuaded the solicitors to release him."

"That's good, uncle." Jessica sat down on the top step, watching him thread his way through the stacks of books. John saw a sigh lift and lower her bosom, as she surveyed her new domain. It looked even worse for wear after Parham's search through the shelves. "Oh, John," she said, "don't you think we'd best postpone this wedding trip? In six months or so, we might bring some order to this chaos."

John sat down beside her and put an imperative hand under her chin, turning her gaze away from the mess. He looked into her eyes, watching the glow start up in their depths and radiate out to him. Then, gently, firmly, he said, "No, Jessie, it's waited twenty years, it can wait another few months. I'll have a colleague come in and see to tidying it up. We can put Sir Thomas in the vault in the Bank of England so we won't worry about it as we disport ourselves in Rome." We can sail on the Coronale, he thought; Jessica will appreciate her beauty. "Wait till you see the Vatican library! The Salone Sistina is the most extraordinary display room. The frescoes are as lovely as the artifacts."

He added a few more kisses, on the theory that a distracted woman was less likely to be obstinate. At least it quieted her objections. She subsided into his arms, and he leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes, wondering if they could walk as far as Jessica's bedroom without collapsing. Best not to try.

Jessica murmured something indistinct, and he roused himself enough to ask her to repeat it. More clearly she said, "I have always wanted to see Rome. And the Vatican Library. Papa used to marvel at its holdings, especially the Borgia collection. And you say Monsignor Alavieri is a friend of yours?"

"Something like that." With his eyes still closed, John envisioned Alavieri as he had seen him last, generous, warmhearted, tragic. "Just one thing you must remember when you meet him, sweetheart. He might be a bit distrait if he hears about this latest discovery of ours. In fact," he added, in a tone that offered no judgment, "I'd be very surprised if he didn't decide to kill me."

Jessica lifted her head from his chest. "Really?"

"It is his way, you see."

She drew herself up, resolve mixed with ashes on her face, and said coolly, "Just let him try."

He traced the outline of her stubborn mouth with a gentle, dirty finger, marveling at the intensity of his desire for her—for all of her. "Ah, Jessie, my very own, the Borgias themselves would quail before us. What a team we will make, the two of us!"