Tempted By the Night (11 page)

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Having just survived a very real life nightmare, Hermione managed a wan smile as she took the thick tome in her hands.
Monsters of Olde, A Complete Compendium.
She flipped it open, and the print on the page was of a horrible-looking creature entitled, “A Derga.” As she gazed at the monster before her, a shiver of suspicion worked its way down her spine.

Did Mary know about the earl’s nightly rambles?

Hermione opened her mouth to ask, but then clamped her lips shut. What was she thinking? And whatever would she say?

Mary, last night I made a scandalous wish that would enable me to follow your cousin about all night on his reckless rambles. As the sun set, I turned invisible and discovered that your cousin, the Earl of Rockhurst, is some…some sort of…

Oh, bother, she hadn’t a clue what Rockhurst was! And didn’t care in the least to discover why it was he felt compelled to dash about Seven Dials on some personal crusade.

Not a whit
, she told herself.

That is until she remembered his wild-eyed gaze as he’d raged at her.
Quit toying with me and either shoot that bastard or finish me off.

Hermione shivered and wondered how he could be so cavalier about his own life. Finish him off? Whatever had he been thinking?

The ring on her finger trembled beneath her glove, as if it knew, it understood, and she clasped her other hand over it and tried to ignore the wretched bit. “Haven’t you gotten me into enough trouble,” she whispered.

“Pardon?” Mary said, turning around from the shelves. “Did you say something?”

Hermione gulped. “Oh, just that you have so many books. I was wondering why you went to the trouble to keep them all.”

“I don’t think it is any trouble whatsoever,” Mary said in true bluestocking fashion, turning back to the volumes, her fingers moving quickly along the spines. “This one is extraordinary,” she said, handing another book to Hermione, who already found herself staggering beneath a stack with such illustrious titles as
Chronicles of the Invasions, Tarasque of Noves,
and
Transmigration between Realms both Ancient and Modern.

Hermione had to imagine she wouldn’t be feigning a megrim this evening if Mary thought she was truly going to read all these.

Besides, tonight I’ll be more careful,
she reasoned.

Tonight?
Hermione ground her teeth together. There wasn’t going to be any tonight.

Mary tugged one book down, shook her head, and reshelved it in another place. “Father! He is forever tucking his books away without any thought of keeping them in order.”

Hermione glanced at all the shelves and couldn’t think of how one kept them all in order, much less remembered what one had. But then she really started to look around, and for a moment she felt a tremor of hope.

What if there is a book here about what has happened to me?

She shook her head. She couldn’t ask such a thing without revealing her predicament. Pressing her lips together, she glanced around the room again. Well, if she couldn’t ask someone she knew, how about someone she didn’t? They might think her mad, but then again, she wouldn’t care.

But who? She hadn’t the least idea how to find that odd Quince. And Charlotte was off with Sebastian on her honeymoon, so whatever was she to do? Hermione glanced up at Mary and wondered how it was that she or Cordelia or Griffin went about finding the odd answers they sought?

Then she looked down at the stack of books in her arms. Perhaps a bookshop? Wasn’t Griffin always badgering
Maman
for extra money to pick up some book or another at Hatchard’s?

Well, Hatchard’s probably wouldn’t be the best place to start, Hermione reasoned, since it was entirely respectable, but there were other bookshops in London, weren’t there? She tipped open the book Mary had given her and spied a yellowed label inside.

Cricks, A Bookseller

No. 3 Ivy Row

Newmarket

Inspiration sent a thrill of delight down her spine. Perhaps this Cricks might have a book about how to end her wish.

And about the Paratus, as well,
a little voice urged her.

She snapped the book shut. The Paratus, indeed! Her infatuation with the earl was over. Hermione had no intention of tangling with him again. What she needed to do was end this wish and get on with her life.

Why even Lord Hustings was starting to look appealing.

If only she could get the image of the earl, stripped to his white shirt and breeches and wielding that sword out of her imagination. Ignore the way her knees wobbled and the silly way her heart tripped about and how her mouth went dry.

What she needed to do was remember that the man had threatened to kill her. Who knew what sort of foul plans he’d had in store for her when he’d been carting her about this morning.

At least he didn’t leave you down in the Dials,
that annoying little voice reminded her.

Bother that! He probably intended to add her to his attic harem as India had speculated.

No, what she needed to do was to go down to this Cricks’s bookshop and do a little bit of investigation.

She hugged the books she held to her chest and felt quite proud of herself. Why, it couldn’t be any more difficult than trying to find the right ribbons to match a bonnet…

A few hours later, Hermione wasn’t as convinced as she had been earlier that Mr. Cricks would be her salvation. Not when she found herself standing before his nondescript little shop on Ivy Row.

“Miss, if you don’t mind,” her maid Betty said. “I’ve a cousin who works just around the corner there on Newgate Street. The chandler shop.”

“Oh, yes,” Hermione told her, relieved to be rid of her companion. “Go on. I’ll be right along in no time.”

“Are you sure?” Betty asked, glancing at the darkened windows of the bookshop and the neighboring establishments, which, like most of Newgate market, were butcher shops and other less fashionable trades.

“Certainly,” Hermione assured her. “Mother would never have sent me on this errand if she didn’t think it was safe.” That had been the falsehood she’d told her maid to get her to come along.

Her mother, on the other hand, thought her shopping for a new gown for Lady Hurland’s ball.

Her head spun with all the lies she was telling, never mind the fact that she wasn’t very good at telling falsehoods to begin with.

“Very well,” Betty said, taking one more glance at the shop as if suddenly adding up the likelihood of Lady Walbrook having sent her daughter to such an establishment.

Hermione nudged her toward the corner and went boldly inside, looking far more brave than she felt. If this were a ribbon shop or a milliner’s, she’d be in her element. But books? This was more Cordelia’s domain or Griffin’s. Not hers.

Whatever bravado she’d worn in front of her maid failed her completely as she looked around the dimly lit space, with its narrow aisles and dark recesses.

She stumbled to a halt, for there were books everywhere. Stacked on the tables, crowded into the shelves, and overflowing onto the floor. Dust motes danced in the one narrow shaft of light that managed to slant through a clean spot in the otherwise filthy windows.

Wherever would she start when she couldn’t read half the titles before her? Latin, French. One in German, or so she thought it was German. Why it could be Hottentot for all she knew.

And the titles she could discern didn’t do much to raise her confidence.

The Witch Trials of 1444: Burning and Torture Cures.

Defense and Counterdefenses Against the Western Plight of Evil.

Ancient Myths of the Faeirie and Their Dark Realm.

Executions of the Enchanted.

Hermione flinched as she read the last title, the image of Rockhurst coming clearly into her imagination. Oh, dear no! She didn’t want to start thinking about
him
. Instead, she turned to see if she could find something more relevant.

Such as
Keeping One’s Wishes To Oneself,
she mused as she ran her finger along a row of spines, which only resulted in raising a cloud of dust.

Heavens, when was the last time this place was cleaned? she thought, as her nose twitched. She pinched it shut to stop the ensuing sneeze, but it was to no avail. She sneezed, breaking the unworldly calm in the shop.

“Who’s there?” barked a wheezy old voice.

Hermione jumped. Hardly the friendly sort. Accustomed as she was to shopping in Mayfair, where the
clerks rushed to help her, she wasn’t too sure what to do or say to such rudeness.

“Well, either you want something, or be gone!” the still-unseen man grumbled.

She had to imagine that the best plan of action was to ease into the subject.

Then ask him about the Paratus.
The ring thrummed happily on her finger.

Hermione flinched and shoved her hand inside her pocket. She was not here to find out about
him.
The only thing she wanted to discover was how to make a wishing ring go away.

“Well, do you want something or not?”

“Uh, yes, I believe you sold my friend this book,” she said, reaching into the bag she carried and pulling out one of the volumes Mary had given her. “Do you have anything else on the same subject?”

There was the creak of a chair as it slid back across the floor, then from the shadows in the back stirred a small, hunched figure. Slowly, the man came forward, his shuffled steps and the thump of his cane echoing through the still shop.

She hadn’t noticed it before, but the noise from the markets and traffic beyond were barely discernable inside Cricks’s odd shop, and there was an eerie calm about the place that defied even the ever-present din of London.

Hermione shivered and wrapped her pelisse tighter around her shoulders. Why, one would have thought it was January, not the last day of May, by the sudden chill surrounding her.

The old man stopped before her, pushed his spectacles back up from the tip of his nose, then flicked his watery glance toward the book, which apparently held more interest to the man than the sight of a Mayfair miss in his lonely shop.

“Mr. Cricks?” she asked, since there seemed to be no one else in the place.

“Oh, aye. I’m Cricks. What have we here?” He reached out and snatched the volume from her. His bleary gaze sharpened as he read the title. “Wherever did you get this?”

“A friend. She lent it to me,” Hermione said, tugging it back out of his grasp. For an old man, he had quite a grip, and it took a pull or two to retrieve it. “She suggested you might have some similar works.”

Now his gaze returned to sweep from the toes of her boots to the top of her bonnet, before he stared for a long moment into her eyes.

It was then that she realized he was waiting for her to ask the other question, the one she’d tamped down so fiercely at Mary’s house.

Ask him. Ask him about the Paratus.

Oh, heavens, she wasn’t going down that path. It was paved with trouble, as her mother was wont to say. She wanted only to end this curse and get on with her life.

Find a husband. Bear him an heir or two, and then spend her days in a happy and contented search for the perfect bonnet. Something primrose or maybe that new Sardinian blue she’d spotted the other day…

Hermione shook her head. Goodness, she needed to pay attention, or she’d never end this wish.

“You aren’t another one of those bluestocking poets?” Cricks was asking. He glanced at her again, then snorted and waved toward the door. “Bah! Get out. I’ve no time for your silly prattle and foolish—”

“A bluestocking
? Oh, heavens no,” she assured him, feeling the insult of his words all the way down to the heels of her very fashionable boots. “Do I look like a bluestocking? I’ll have you know this gown is in the first stare. No miss with her nose pressed in a book would have thought to use this shade of capucine silk with these ribbons. Why, the lace alone took me three weeks to find.” She held out her sleeve for him to examine. “Do you see what I mean?” She drew her arm back and readjusted her pelisse. “I can assure you I’ve no literary leanings.”

Mr. Cricks stared up at her in much the same way she’d gaped at Melaphor. “And
you
want a book on
monsters
?”

Hermione felt nudged from behind as she said, “And other things.”

Ask him. Ask him about the Paratus.

No. No. No.
She didn’t care a whit about the earl. He’d pointed a sword at her and threatened to kill her. Hardly a sporting or endearing trait in a gentleman.

You’d never catch Lord Hustings doing such a thing.

Then again, Lord Hustings didn’t make her insides twist into knots and her knees wobble.

Cricks glanced at her again. “Other things? Such as?”

Before she could stop the words from blurting out, she said, “I want to know if you have ever heard of or read about a man called the Paratus?”

At first, nothing seemed amiss when Rockhurst entered the bookshop, with Rowan at his heel. The usual shadows, dusty books, and narrow aisles surrounded him, as well as the sense of the calm that came with entering Cricks’s realm.

But that didn’t last for long.

“I am not mad,” came a voice from the back. “I have proof of what I’ve seen.”

Rockhurst glanced down at Rowan, and then back up at the shadowy nether regions of Cricks’s shop. The old codger had company?

“Proof? Bah!”

“Why, you should have seen what that alley did to my best pair of slippers! Ruined them, I tell you. Completely and utterly ruined them. An evil place
indeed, to do such a thing to an innocent pair of slippers.”

Female company? Rockhurst glanced around to make sure he was indeed at Cricks’s, for right this moment he was inclined to believe he’d wandered into Gunter’s or a modiste shop.

Ruined slippers?

He was about to turn and leave when the chit spoke again.

“And this horrid Melaphor, you say he isn’t like us?”

Melaphor?
Rockhurst froze in his tracks, a shiver running down his spine.

“Not at all,” Cricks warned her. “Why, I think you are the first person who’s ever seen him…and lived to tell of the experience.”

“Well, it isn’t an experience one would want to brag about. What with those horrid red eyes and his teeth.” She shuddered, and Rockhurst could almost see the shiver that went along with it. “How can such a horrible creature be?”

There was only one person who’d seen Melaphor and lived, other than himself.

His Shadow.

And now here she was in Cricks’s shop.

Rockhurst’s fist curled again into that now familiar shape. He closed his eyes, retracing the lines of the woman he’d found in the alley. He could almost see her, and now, as luck would have it, he’d found her.

So much for Mary’s theory that he had most likely sent the girl scurrying back home for good. For here she was, peppering Cricks with her questions.

His boot rose, for his first instinct was to go barging back there and corner this miss. But years of experience brought his foot ever so gently and quietly back down. He needed to catch her, yes. Yet rushing forth like a madman wouldn’t guarantee she’d be as forthright with him as she was being with Cricks. Let her natter on for a few more minutes and see what he could learn of her.

Besides, the only way of leaving was down this aisle.

Right through me,
he thought, planting himself with a wide, impassable stance.

And his plan seemed to be working, for even now, the aged bookseller was unwittingly aiding his cause.

“How can such a creature be? He just is,” Cricks said, as if she’d questioned the rise and fall of the sun. The man tapped his cane to the floor. “Some can’t see through his glamour. But if you can, ’tis better for you, for he’s the worst sort of fiend.” There was a shuffle of pages. “Here is the section that details how he killed the eighteenth Paratus. But I warn you, miss, it isn’t for the faint of heart.”

“Oh, heavens. I had hoped none of this was true. He wants to kill Lord Rockhurst just because he’s this Paratus?” A teacup rattled in its saucer. “Well, that hardly seems fair.”

Cricks was serving her tea? Like some long-lost relative? The same Cricks who liked to use his cane to hurry unwitting customers
out
of his shop?

Rockhurst gave the girl some credit. She could shoot a cross-bow
and
charm an old curmudgeon. And in that realization, he found himself similarly intrigued.

“Sssh,” the old man admonished. “You shouldn’t say such things aloud.”

“Whyever not? For it seems to me that if something were to happen to Lord Rock
—”

“Eh, eh, eh,” Cricks chastened.

A feminine huff was followed with, “Oh, really, I don’t see why I can’t…Well, if you insist. What I mean to ask is what would happen to all of us if the Paratus were to…perish?”

The last word came out in an ominous whisper.

“It would spell the end of all, for certain.”

“Truly?” she gasped. “And here I thought, well everyone does, that Lord Ro
—”
There was another fit of coughing, followed by another missish sigh. “If you insist then. Yes, I can see that you do. Very well. Everyone knows
his lordship
is the worst sort of a rake. He’s quite dissolute—why he has legions of mistresses and spends most nights in some debauchery or another.”

A true admirer,
Rockhurst mused, crossing his arms over his chest.

“All
Maman’s
friends claim he is beyond the pale, despite his wealth.”

Her
maman
? Rockhurst shuddered as he always did at the mention of society matrons. Then again, he wondered what her
maman
would think about her daughter’s nighttime rambles into Seven Dials.

“All the better to lend him the disdain of Society,” Cricks was telling her.

“Oh, yes, now I see how it is,” she said with an awestruck air of comprehension, her naive viewpoint tumbling to pieces.

Rockhurst held fast despite the growing urge to end this charade, for just her combination of youth and innocence was a dangerous mix in his world. No wonder she’d caught Melaphor’s eye.

Then she said the something that only proved his point further. “I’ve always thought him something of a romantic mystery.”

A romantic mystery?
Rockhurst nearly groaned aloud. Lord save him from some starry-eyed debutante.

Who can shoot a cross-bow.

“Now you know the truth,” the bookseller said.

“Yes, and now I fear for him, Mr. Cricks.”

Oh, no, no, no! He didn’t need some madcap, Byron-loving miss following him about.

Especially one who could do so unseen!

There was the telltale sound of tea being poured. “Aye, so do all of us who know him. Know of him.”

“It isn’t right that he should carry such a burden all alone. Don’t you think, Mr. Cricks?”

Alone? That was the only way it could be done, he opened his mouth to tell her.

“Been that way for nigh on a thousand years, miss.”

And the way it would stay.

“Truly?” she asked.

“Aye. It’s all here in this book,
The Legends of the Legion of the Paratus.
”

Rockhurst cringed. Not that wretched book by that idiot Podmore. A scholarly antiquarian whose curiosity into the realm of the Paratus had been his undoing. And here Cricks had promised him—quite faithfully—not
five years earlier that all the copies of the man’s book had been destroyed.

All save one, it seems.
Why that wily old codger. Worse than Mary when it came to collecting and keeping dangerous tracts.

Cricks heaved a wheezy sigh. “Best you stay out of his lordship’s way, miss. You seem a bit young for the likes of the Paratus. Besides, there’s the curse to consider.”

“The curse?” she gasped. “You mean he’s cursed as well?”

As if being the Paratus wasn’t bad enough for this foolish little miss.

“It’s all here in Chapter Four
—”

Now he
had
heard enough. It was time to put a stop to all this nonsense before Cricks completely filled her bird-witted head with myths and tales better forgotten.

He went forward, heedless of where he was stepping, only to plant his boot into a wayward stack of books. The dusty volumes scattered before him, and Rowan, who up until now had been silent, started barking.

Rockhurst turned to the hound. “Yes, thank you, that helps immensely.”

“Oooh,” he heard the young woman gasp.

There was the scrape of chairs, and before the earl could take another step, Cricks came blustering out of the shadows, brandishing his infamous cane.

“Who dares come in my shop?” the old man croaked out, before he came to a wheezing stop and had to catch hold of the counter to catch his breath. His watery gaze
blinked again. “Who goes—” The cane clattered to the floor. “My lord! Whatever are you…” He glanced over his shoulder at the room behind him.

Rockhurst said nothing. He didn’t need to. He raised one elegant brow and stared down at the old man.

After another nervous glance over his shoulder, Cricks managed to ask, “How can I help you, my lord?”

“Introduce me to your guest.”

“My wha-a-at?” Cricks might be a great scholar on all things ancient, but he was a terrible liar.

“Your guest. The lady you were serving tea…” Rockhurst nodded toward the back room.

Cricks managed a dusty old laugh. “A lady, my lord? I’m a bit on in my years for such—”

“Cricks!”

“There’s no one—”

Rockhurst was done listening to him. He pushed past the man and into the back of the shop.

The
empty
back of his shop, where Cricks’s chair sat at an odd angle, beside an overturned stool, a table with two cups and saucers, a teapot, and a plate of half-eaten biscuits atop it.

And beyond that, an open door leading into the alley, along with the last lingering trail of her perfume.

Of course Cricks would have more than one way out of his little shop of mysteries and monsters.

Rockhurst whistled to Rowan, and the pair of them were out the door in a flash. But to his dismay, the short alley was also empty, and not a sound revealed her whereabouts. Either she was very still or quite quick on her feet.

“Find her,” he ordered Rowan, who just sat and looked up at him with his large hound eyes. “Nothing?”

The dog lay down and put his head on his paws.
Nothing.

Then there was no choice but to continue after her. Rockhurst ran down toward Newgate Street, Rowan instantly springing up and loping beside him. But when they came to the corner, they were greeted by the chaos of the markets. Maids and housekeepers, footmen and servants of all sorts jostled their way through the streets as they sought out the best picks from Newgate’s grocers.

Even if he knew what she looked like, if he could even see her, how would he find her? The myriad of bonnets made it impossible to discern miss from matron.

He glanced down at Rowan to see if his hound was having a better time of it, but Rowan had already sat down and was looking up at him, awaiting their next move. A hound he might be, but wolfhounds hunted by sight, not scent.

Rockhurst ground his teeth together. There was nothing left to do but go back and see what Cricks knew of her. With Rowan at his heel, he marched back into the shop.

Cricks railed against him the moment he crossed the threshold. “You didn’t catch her?!” He thumped his cane to the floorboards sending up a cloud of dust. “She stole my only copy!”

A shiver ran down the earl’s spine. “Your only copy of what?”

Cricks’s jaw worked back and forth before he con
fessed, “Of Podmore.” But his contrite words were quickly replaced with angry ones. “That girl is a thief.”

“And you, sir, are a liar. You told me you had accounted for all the copies of that volume.”

“I had.”

“But apparently you forgot to destroy them all.”

“Harrumph! It was my copy. Never intended to see it go walking out the door.”

“It was never intended?” Rockhurst exploded. “Who are you to decide?”

Cricks backed up. “My lord, I am so sorry. It’s just that she was such a nice, pretty little bit.” But he wasn’t so contrite that he still didn’t mumble. “My only copy. It’s thievery it is.”

Rockhurst slanted a nod toward the table. “She thought enough to leave you payment.”

The man poked at the coins, making a
tsk, tsk
over the paltry amount.

But something else he’d said struck a nerve in Rockhurst. “What do you mean by saying that the girl was a ‘pretty little bit’?”

Cricks shrugged, and then colored a bit. “Well, you know, like a little lady. Don’t see many of them about my shop. With the exception of your cousin, that is. And Miss Kendell is well and fine, but this one, well she was pretty.”

Rockhurst nodded. “Pretty how?”

“I’ve never been one for those winsome types—too pallid and full of themselves. But this one, she had such fine eyes. Even an old man can fall prey to a pair of green eyes. Why they sparkled, they did!”

Rockhurst’s heart tilted slightly, but then he shook his head. Demmit, if he wasn’t careful, he’d be as befuddled as Cricks, for suddenly another realization struck him. “You could see her?”

The old man slanted a quick glance at him. “See her, my lord?”

“Yes, see her. See the color of her eyes, of her hair, her face?”

Cricks’s shoulders straightened. “I’m not so blind as all that.”

Rockhurst shook his head. “No. No. You misunderstand. I met the lady…last night. But the woman I encountered was unseen.”

“Unseen?”

“As in
invisible.
” The earl let that last word fall like an irresistible gem into Cricks’s steel-trap mind.

“Invisible?” he wheezed. “No!”

“Most decidedly,” Rockhurst assured him. “But you say you could see her.”

“Just as plain as I am looking at you.” A light of intrigue illuminated his gaze, and catching hold of his cane, he set off at a mad clip down the shop’s main aisle. “Oh, that’s a fine one. Unseen you say?” he asked again over his shoulder.

Rockhurst nodded.

“And completely corporeal during the day.
Hmmm.
That’s rare. Very rare.” Cane tapping, Cricks scanned his shop, then turned to the right and headed for an overcrowded shelf. “I do believe I have something on such cases. She’s either inherited this ability, or it is a spell of some sort.” Cricks paused. “Since you’ve come
here, that means Miss Kendell hasn’t anything certain in mind, am I right?” he asked, all too correct in assuming that the earl had already consulted Mary.

“My cousin is of the opinion that our mysterious friend has discovered Milton’s Ring.”

Cricks stilled. “Let’s hope that isn’t the case.”

“Why not?”

“For if she’s made a wish, the only way to end the spell is for her wish to come true.” Cricks’s bushy brows furrowed into a fat caterpillar of worry. “Or…”