Page 11 of Tempting the Reclusive Duke
He turned to look at her, surprised. "What makes you say that?"
She gestured at the general disorder surrounding them. "Books stacked horizontally on top of vertical ones, volumes on the floor, dust patterns suggesting nothing has been moved in months, possibly years. This isn't a library, Your Grace… it's a book cemetery where good literature has come to die."
"That's rather harsh."
"That's rather accurate. I can see at least three different editions of the same Virgil from here, none of them shelved together. There's what appears to be a first edition Marlowe being used as a bookend. And unless I'm very much mistaken, that's a medieval manuscript serving as a coaster on that side table."
He followed her gaze to the side table in question, where indeed an illuminated manuscript was bearing the ring-stains of multiple tea cups. "Ah. Yes. That's... probably valuable."
"Probably?" She stood without thinking, moving to the manuscript with the kind of horror usually reserved for witnessing atrocities. "This is thirteenth century, possibly earlier. The illumination work alone..." She stopped, realizing she was handling his property without permission. "Forgive me, I shouldn't..."
"No, continue." He moved closer, close enough that she could smell that same cologne from the bookshop, something expensive and subtle that made her pulse do inappropriate things. "What can you tell me about it?"
She bent over the manuscript, her earlier nervousness temporarily forgotten in the face of scholarly interest. "The Latin is ecclesiastical, obviously, but with variations suggesting a monastery. The marginalia here..." she pointed to tiny notations in the margins, "...that's a different hand, added later, probably fifteenth century. Someone was using this for reference, making notes about... theological interpretations, it looks like."
"You can read the marginalia?"
"It's abbreviated Latin with some Greek notation. Monks were terrible about mixing languages when they got excited about theology." She turned a page carefully. "Oh, and here; this is interesting. Someone's added a personal note. 'Brother Thomas is a fool and his interpretation of Matthew is heresy.' Apparently theological debates got quite heated in monasteries."
"Apparently they still do in London bookshops."
She looked up to find him watching her with an expression she couldn't interpret. They were standing rather closer than propriety suggested, both bent over the manuscript like conspirators sharing secrets.
"Your Grace," she began, stepping back carefully.
"You're hired."
She blinked. "I... what?"
"You're hired. Anyone who can read medieval marginalia and gets personally offended by books being mistreated is exactly what this library needs."
"But... you haven't examined my qualifications properly. You haven't tested my Greek or my French or..."
"Miss Whitcombe," he interrupted, "you've just correctly identified a thirteenth-century Scottish manuscript, read Latin marginalia that most scholars couldn't decipher with a magnifying glass and a dictionary, and you nearly wept at the sight of tea stains on vellum. I think your qualifications are sufficient."
"I did not nearly weep."
"Your eyes got distinctly misty."
"That was horror, not tears."
"A distinction without a difference." He returned to his desk, pulling out a sheet of paper. "The position pays forty pounds per annum..."
"Forty pounds?" She couldn't help her shock. It was a fortune for a cataloguing position.
"Too little? I could make it fifty, I suppose."
"No! That's—that's more than generous."
"Good. You'll work Monday through Friday, nine to four, with an hour for luncheon. I'll rarely be here as I find London tedious and prefer my estate in Derbyshire, so you'll have the run of the library. Graves will provide you with whatever supplies you need, though he'll probably look disapproving while doing so."
"He looks disapproving while breathing."
"True. It's his particular talent." He wrote something on the paper with quick, decisive strokes. "You can start Monday if that suits you."
"Your Grace," she said carefully, "are you certain about this? I did deceive you with my application even though I was not quite successful at that."
"Did you? Your qualifications were genuine, your references legitimate. The only deception was my assumption that E. Whitcombe would be male, which is rather my own fault for narrow thinking. But it was for a little while because as soon as I read the references I realised it was a woman’s name."
