Never Too Late (11 page)

Lady Devin had rejoined them during her recounting and studied her face for a moment. “Were your parents Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Evans?”

“Yes.” She knew from the tone what was coming next.

“Your father was a grandson of the Earl of Eastwick?”

“Yes,” she responded quietly.

When Lord Devin finally found his voice, he said “You are a great-granddaughter of the Earl of Eastwick?”

“I am.” While such logic should go without saying, he seemed to have particular difficulty incorporating this information into his view of her.

“How is that possible?”

Lady Devin answered for her. “Your grandfather would have been the earl’s third son, correct? He had quite a colorful reputation, if I may say. And your father was his second son.”

“Yes, Lady Devin. A second son of a rather profligate third son. My uncle inherited a lesser title and little else. Fortunately, my father already had a vocation in mind, even if it was deemed beneath him.”

Yet another alcove housed a fascinating dance troupe made up of women costumed in scarves and tiny silver baubles that jingled as they swayed. Her initial shock at the amount of exposed skin she saw was subsumed by the graceful frenzy of the dancers. Translucent colors swirled in circles and snakelike arcs as their bodies undulated.

“They dance with such abandon. What must it be like to move so free of inhibitions?” she said, without thinking.

At her ear, Lord Devin whispered, “I do believe, Mrs. Duchamp, that you would be quite something if you dropped your inhibitions. I, for one, would pay to see your emotions run wild.”

She looked around askance but saw Lady Devin in another conversation out of earshot. “What if your mother heard you speak so?”

“Absent of context, she would most assuredly agree.” He grinned. The upstart had the nerve to grin, as if he’d won a game.

She continued watching the dancers and whispered back, “Don’t bet on it.”

When his mother rejoined them, Lord Devin asked about how Honoria came to run the bookshop.

“It wasn’t until after my mother’s death that my father and I moved to the quarters above the shop. My uncle had washed his hands of us, and there didn’t seem to be any point to keeping our country house. It was too expensive . . . and too painful.” She scanned the crowd, needing a moment to regain her composure. “In any case, through my father’s diligence and industriousness, the shop slowly became a solid enterprise. It has never grossed more than six thousand pounds per year, and those were years of feast. These days, it runs . . . somewhat . . . lower than that. But it’s stable and currently self-sustaining.”

“Why have you not hired staff to help you run the place?” Lord Devin asked. “Surely your messenger Erich is of an age when he could start to be of more use?”

“It is my responsibility,” she said simply.

He looked at her sharply but then nodded.

“You would not trust anyone else to protect it. And you would feel as if you were shirking your proper duties if you handed it off to someone else.” His eyes said he knew exactly what that felt like. She stared at him.

“Exactly. My father entrusted me with his legacy. He passed on everything he knew to me, and I cannot betray that trust.” After a pause, she added, “Erich and Minnie are my responsibility too. Their parents predeceased mine. My parents made a promise they would be taken care of. He is free to pursue whatever career he chooses. I would not yoke him to the shop.”

Despite young Lord Devin’s consistent attention to his companions, it was difficult to ignore the parade of fine young ladies who brightly acknowledged him. Young ladies in elegant silks and finely wrought lace, intricate brocades, and expensively modest jewelry. Young ladies who seemed more interested in Lord Devin than in the wonders of the world displayed around them. Some young ladies who went so far as to flout convention by greeting him themselves, even though they were escorted by their fathers, brothers, or some other male who was responsible for conveying acknowledgments. Goodness, even she knew that the male companion responds to greetings on behalf of the accompanying female. Only someone insensible, veritably blind and deaf, would miss the tacit message being conveyed—Lord Devin was highly prized marriage material, and the women he escorted were not part of that picture. Yet he acted immune to their fans and coy smiles and pretty curtsies, responding to each greeting with equal solicitude.

“What do you think your father would have thought of the Exhibition, Mrs. Duchamp?” he asked kindly.

“He would have adored it. I’m sure he would have seen this as walking through worlds of books come alive. He was always so curious. My mother too would have loved all this; I’m sure she would have written whole journals full of observations about the contraptions, the styles, the artwork, the cultures. She would have wanted to capture sight and sound. She would have been particularly fascinated by the photographic equipment, although I hear it can be as much a curse as a blessing. What of your father, the world traveler? I can only assume he would have felt quite at home here in the midst of all this multinational chaos.”

“Indeed.”

“Would you care to expand on that?”

“My father most certainly would have had an active hand in planning and executing this extravaganza.” He didn’t say it admiringly. His tone said, in no uncertain terms, that this was not an avenue open to travelers.

“Well, as astounding as this whole extravaganza seems to be,” Lady Devin interjected, “I would greatly appreciate a bit of fresh air.”

“Are you well, Lady Devin?” She took the other woman’s hand, noting her taut posture.

“It is nothing to speak of, Mrs. Duchamp.” Lady Devin lowered her voice. “This building. It gives me the sense of a birdcage. It may be a giant cage, but it is still a kind of prison.”

“This way, Mother.” Devin led the way with authority, dividing the crowd with his stature and purposeful stride. It was as if the world truly did bow to his whim.

When their little group returned to the dazzlingly massive Central Transept, however, a circus show was in full swing, drawing a wall of onlookers impenetrable even to the great Lord Devin. Colorful jugglers spun and crossed the floor in intricate patterns, attending only to the balls they tossed in the air. Dancers wove through their paths. And then, the main attraction drew all eyes toward the sky: a trio of tightrope walkers suspended high above the crowd made their way across an impossibly fine thread. Two of the walkers supported a bar between them, hooked in some way over their shoulders, while the third walker balanced above them on that bar. They stepped slowly but surely along the rope, which trembled from their movements.

“Can you persevere, Mother?”

“Of course, my dear.”

Still, Lady Devin’s pale skin had developed a fine misty sheen. Honoria gripped her hand, as if to transmit her own strength. She was distracted though by sharp gasps from the audience. She followed the eyes around her up to the tightrope, where one of the performers wobbled dangerously.

“What a foolhardy risk,” she said.

“That is the career they have chosen,” Lord Devin responded, his eyes likewise riveted above. “Presumably, they train regularly to maintain peak performance. They accept the risk.”

“I could never do something so dangerous.”

“Could you not? I wonder if you do not do so every day.”

She tore her eyes from the spectacle above to stare at him.

“Whatever could you mean by that? I don’t put myself at risk.”

He looked at her fully.

“You are a single woman, running your shop and living on your own. Your fortunes could change at any moment. Sales run dry. A careless fire could leave you with nothing.”
Damn it, woman, you spread truths people want to kill you for. Of course you put yourself at risk.

She replied as if she’d heard what he did not say. “One cannot live as a prisoner of fear. We do what we must because it is the right thing to do, because we could not conceive of living a life without it.”

“There are many things you could—”

Whatever he’d been about to say evaporated as danger sparked above. The audience gasped as one. The highest tightrope walker, the one being supported by the others, had slipped and now gripped the bar with one hand, dangling and jostling against the rope. The walker behind him tried to offer a hand but was too far out of reach, kept at a distance by the bar he shouldered. Unable to assist him, his partners focused on trying to stay balanced as the rope swayed and jiggled. The walker in peril tried to catch at the rope with his legs, but that caused them all to shake more violently. He tried to grasp the bar with both hands to pull himself up, but it wouldn’t work. If he could not stabilize himself, all three were at risk of plummeting. As he continued to struggle, the clouds that had been drifting randomly over the building all morning broke, releasing a wash of light that blinded the upturned audience. There was no way to see what was happening to the tightrope walker right then—no way to know whether he inched closer to safety. Only sound conveyed the truth: a woman’s high-pitched scream and an awful, dull thud revealed his fate.

The chaos afterward was horrible. The crowd scurried in contradictory directions with people colliding and stumbling, children crying. Someone barreled into Honoria, as she tried to make her way toward the fallen performer. The impact nearly knocked her down, but Lord Devin caught her awkwardly.

“Honoria, what are you doing? We must get out of this crush!”

“That man needs help!”

“I am sure his people are helping him!”

“More hands make light work,” she was fairly yelling now over the crowd.

“Do you have any medical experience? If not, you will only be in the way. You are endangering yourself, not helping. We must get to safety. And we need to get my mother out of here.” With that, he lifted her by the waist and carried her, struggling like a wild cat in a sack, along with the escaping crowd until he could veer into a quiet alcove. So many people had rushed into the hallway to see what the fuss was about, while the people already in the transept were stampeding out, that some exhibits were nearly empty.

The moment he let her down, she moved to return to the crowd, but he held her arm steadfastly.

“You don’t have the self-preservation instinct God gave a goose,” he said impatiently.

Abruptly, she turned on him and swung her reticule at him hard. But the weight in her hand felt terribly wrong.

“Oh, my God! Oh, God!” She began scanning the floor frantically. There was no sign of anything.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“My reticule! Look, it’s been cut! Everything is gone.”

He examined the purse. The bottom had been slashed from end to end, and now the purse gaped open, empty.

“What are you missing?” Lady Devin was at her side immediately.

He watched her mentally list her belongings, her head nodding as her fingers counted off items. Then her eyes opened wide and she said, “My keys! Oh, no, my keys to the shop are gone.” He watched in fascination as she talked herself calm. “The thief can’t possibly know where I live. I carried nothing today with my name or address on it. The fan and the mirror could fetch some coin, but the keys will be useless. Won’t they?”

Lord Devin stilled. Could this be more than a common pickpocket? Could this be the work of Withersby and his lot? Did Withersby have other crews on this job? If so, then someone was currently on his way to the shop with the keys and nefarious intent.

“Mrs. Duchamp, I have a presentiment that we should get back to Evans Books and see it secure. If you wish to see more of the Exhibition, I can gladly escort you another day, but I think it is best if we return you immediately.”

His words did not have a calming effect. She began looking around like a cornered animal seeking even the smallest avenue of escape. When she took his proffered arm, she ceded control and allowed him to part the crowd with his imposing presence and furious energy. He couldn’t have erased the scowl from his face if God himself ordered it. Once outside, Lady Devin came round and put an arm over her shoulders. “It will be all right, dear.”

He hoped his mother would be proven correct, but he had serious doubts.

Chapter Eight

Evans Principle 8: Sometimes dips in productivity can’t be avoided. Accept it. Dust yourself off. Start fresh with the new dawn.

I
t would most certainly not be all right. Not a chance. Any hope Lord Devin had that the loss of Honoria’s keys was random misfortune died a sharp and stabbing death as the coach pulled to a halt in front of the shop. As he disembarked, he gave directions for the coach to take his mother home and see her safe, and then for his driver to fetch the police. He handed Honoria out of the coach and stood with her for a moment, silently assessing what they could see from the pavement in the fading light of day.

The double doors hung open with only the first few feet of the interior visible. Through the large front windows, some panes of which had been smashed, he could see emptied shelves, battered fixtures, and shredded volumes. Walking into the store ahead of her, he attempted to shield her from the full impact of the destruction. The perpetrators had moved quickly. From the moment they (there must be more than one, considering the widespread devastation) took possession of her keys, they must have raced at top speed to the shop. More than half the shelves were emptied onto the floor, mixing with random torn pages and shredded pamphlets. An acrid odor wafted up from some damp areas, and he didn’t want to surmise the liquid source. The sales counter had been chopped up. He was impressed by Honoria’s composure; each new devastation showed on her face, but she continued on to survey the wreckage, without a tear or even a gasp.

The building was silent, a small blessing that suggested the culprits were gone. Unable to convince her to remain outside, he made sure Honoria stayed close behind him as they searched the premises, and he was the one to move first into the back room.