Page 63 of Surrender Your Grace
Henry faced the back and bellowed, “If you want a sale, you’ve got one minute to get out here and make it before we leave.”
She looked up at her towering guard—who eclipsed Andrew in height by at least three inches. “Where did you say my husband found you?”
“I didn’t. But if you must know, His Grace hired me through a private enquiry firm in Bloomsbury. I’m former military—nowI mind wayward duchesses with a penchant for trouble.” He strode to the dusty curtain that doubled for a door behind the counter. “Now you’ve got thirty seconds,” he hollered.
Mary sidled closer, looking around in distaste. “This place is positively dreadful.”
“And dusty. Try not to breathe,” Cici murmured.
She tried to follow her own advice as she moved down the cramped aisles. The lack of organization was appalling, novels shelved with science texts, poetry buried among treatises on war and politics.
Still, she searched, since the owner seemed in no hurry, unlike Henry. Her gaze skimmed up and down the haphazard shelves. Near the back, at the very top, a red leather-bound volume gleamed faintly, its gilt lettering glinting in the gloom.
It was how the man at Hatchard’s had described what she came for. Curious, she rose onto her toes and reached for it.
Dust cascaded down, drawing out a sneeze—then another.
“I’m fine,” she called when Mary fussed. She blew across the cover and uncovered the title.A Compendium of Arendale: Folklore, Ruins, and Founding FamiliesThis was it. What a stroke of luck.
Delighted, she turned to the first page. The inscription was faded except for the date, 1789.
A creak behind her. A shadow flitted past the end of the aisle. The twitchy man again?
“Henry?” she called, unease prickling the back of her neck.
Another creak. Then a groan and splintering crack.
She looked up.
The bookshelf—an entire five-shelf unit—tipped forward. Books slid loose like tumbling bricks.
“Look out!” Mary cried.
Cici spun to flee. Her slipper slipped. Something heavy slammed against her shoulder and she stumbled—
Crash.
Pain shot up her leg like fire. She tugged and twisted to free herself, but her foot and ankle were trapped beneath splintered wood and heavy leather volumes.
Boots thundered over the warped floorboards.
“Bloody hell!” Henry said as he burst through, pulling off the debris. “Are you hurt?”
“Not overly—I don’t think. But I’m stuck,” she said through gritted teeth.
He lifted the shelving, freeing her. Books tumbled again with a deafening clatter.
The noise propelled the shopkeeper from the back. “What the hell have you done to my shop?” he demanded, glaring at Cici among the wreckage.
“You don’t think Her Grace did this,” Mary snapped. “Someone toppled that shelf.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know,” her champion replied, “But it didn’t fall on its own!”
Henry scanned the shop, jaw clenched. “The twitchy bastard is gone.”
“You noticed him too?” Cici asked as she crawled over books.
