Chapter 1: The Rare Volume

The drawing room had settled into its usual rhythm of tedium. Philipa's mother occupied the settee across from her, embroidery hoop in hand, while Aunt Margaret pretended to read a novel and actually monitored every word exchanged between Philipa and their guest. The tea had gone cold twenty minutes ago. No one had thought to ring for more.

Anthony sat in the chair opposite Philipa, close enough that his knee nearly brushed hers whenever he leaned forward. He had been speaking for some time about his estate in Derbyshire, though Philipa had lost track of the specifics somewhere between the sheep count and the drainage improvements. His voice was pleasant enough, low and steady, but the words themselves mattered less than the way he looked at her while saying them. As though they shared something the others in the room could not see.

"—and then there's the matter of the library," he said, shifting topics without warning. Philipa blinked. "My grandfather was quite the collector. I've been sorting through his acquisitions these past months."

"An admirable undertaking," Aunt Margaret murmured from behind her book.

Anthony smiled at Philipa. Not at her aunt. At her. The warmth of it spread through her chest like spilled tea across a tablecloth. "I came across something rather unusual this week. A volume of poetry, French, from the last century. The illustrations alone are remarkable. I thought you might appreciate it."

Philipa's mother looked up from her embroidery. "That sounds like a generous offer, Mr. Ashford, but I'm not certain—"

"It's in my library here," Anthony said, rising before she could finish. "I brought it from Derbyshire specifically. I noticed Miss Philipa's interest in poetry during our last conversation."

Had she expressed interest in poetry? Philipa couldn't recall saying anything of the sort. She had mentioned enjoying a novel once, perhaps, or commented on a verse someone had quoted at dinner. It hardly constituted expertise. But Anthony was already extending his hand toward her, and his expression suggested he had no doubt she would take it.

"I wouldn't want to impose on your hospitality by bringing it here," he continued, "but if you'd allow me to show her the library itself, it's just down the corridor. We won't be but a few minutes."

Aunt Margaret's book lowered an inch. "The library?"

"I've been cataloguing it," Anthony said. "A shame to let such a collection gather dust without someone to appreciate it properly."

Philipa's mother exchanged a look with Aunt Margaret that lasted precisely long enough to communicate something unspoken and entirely disapproving. But Anthony was a gentleman of considerable standing. His suit alone had cost more than Philipa's entire wardrobe. Refusing such a small request would have been rude.

"Very well," her mother said finally. "But don't dawdle, Philipa. We have calls to make this afternoon."

Philipa rose from her chair, smoothing the front of her skirt though it needed no smoothing. Anthony's hand found the small of her back as she passed him, a light touch that lasted only a second before he withdrew it. She felt it anyway. A warmth that lingered against her spine like a fingerprint pressed into wax.

The corridor stretched longer than she remembered. Pale afternoon light filtered through tall windows along one wall, and their footsteps echoed against the marble floor in a rhythm that made her conscious of every step she took away from safety.

"You look nervous," Anthony observed.

"Not at all." A lie so obvious that even she didn't believe it.

"It's only a book." He glanced at her sideways, and there was something in his expression she couldn't read. Amusement, perhaps. Or patience. "Unless you're afraid I'll bore you with details about paper quality and binding techniques."

"I'm not afraid of anything."

The words came out more defiant than she intended, and Anthony laughed softly before stopping before a large oak door at the corridor's end.

"Good," he said, and pushed it open.

The library smelled of leather and old paper, scents that would ordinarily have delighted her. Shelves lined two walls from floor to ceiling, so tall that a rolling ladder stood anchored to a brass rail near the fireplace. A window at the far end let in light that fell across a reading desk and two chairs upholstered in dark velvet. No fire burned in the grate, and the room held a chill that suggested it was not often used.

Anthony gestured for her to enter first. Philipa stepped past him into the room and heard the door click shut behind them.

She turned quickly enough to see him turn the key.

"For privacy," he said before she could ask. "The servants are prone to wandering in without knocking."

It made sense. Of course it made sense. Servants wandered, and private conversations required privacy, and there was nothing at all strange about a gentleman locking his library door during an innocent call on a neighbor.

Nothing strange at all.

Anthony crossed to one of the shelves without further explanation and ran his fingers along the spines with familiarity that suggested he spent more time here than anywhere else in his house. He pulled down a slim volume bound in dark leather and held it toward her as she approached.

"Here," he said. "Tell me what you think."

Their fingers brushed in the exchange. His skin was warm against hers despite how cold he claimed his library to be. Up close like this, with no tea table between them and no aunt pretending to read nearby, she noticed things she hadn't allowed herself to notice before. The slight roughness of his thumb against the paper as he held the volume open for her. The clean line of his jaw where it met his neck. The way his gaze stayed fixed on her face rather than dropping to the pages between them.

The book was French, as promised, filled with engravings of figures tangled together in ways Philipa's education had never quite prepared her to name. Her eyes widened before she could stop them.

"Not what you expected?" Anthony asked.

"I—it's very—"

"Ornate?"

"Yes." Her voice came out higher than usual. "Ornate."

She forced herself to look at the words instead of the images, but concentration slipped away like water through cupped hands. She was acutely aware of how close he stood beside her now. His arm brushed hers when she turned a page, and neither of them moved away after that first contact.

Then his hands settled on her hips.

Philipa went still entirely.

He stepped up behind her while she stared down at the book still open in her hands. The heat from his body radiated through both layers of their clothing until she couldn't tell where it belonged anymore—to him or to her or hanging somewhere impossibly between them like breath fogging glass.

His grip firmed slightly as he pulled her back against him until his chest pressed flat along her spine from shoulder blades down toward somewhere much less proper below them both —until there was no daylight left between their bodies at all anymore—and Philipa gripped both edges of that French volume hard enough that its spine creaked beneath tight fingers because otherwise what else might those hands decide to do?

His hips moved against her with a slow, deliberate rhythm that pushed her weight forward onto her toes. Philipa's mind offered up a litany of objections, all of them sensible, all of them forgotten within seconds. The book remained open in her hands because she had no idea what else to do with them. Her fingers had gone white at the knuckles.

Anthony's mouth found the side of her neck. He kissed her there the way one might greet an old acquaintance, unhurried, as though they had all the time in the world and no one waiting for them in the drawing room. The brush of his lips made her shiver, and the shiver made her press back into him without meaning to.

"There," he murmured against her skin. "That's better."

She should have asked what he meant. She should have stepped away, made some excuse about her mother expecting her, walked out of that locked library and never come back. Instead she stood frozen with a French book in her hands while a gentleman she had known for all of six weeks ground himself against her from behind like a dog against a leg.

The comparison was unflattering to them both, and she still didn't move.

His teeth grazed the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and a small sound escaped her throat before she could swallow it back. Her grip on the book tightened further. The leather cover creaked in protest.

"You're going to damage that," Anthony said. His hands left her hips and closed around hers. "Here. Let me."

He peeled the volume from her fingers with gentle insistence, then reached past her shoulder to slide it back into its place on the shelf. The gap where it had been left a small dark rectangle in the row of spines. Philipa stared at it as though it might offer guidance.

Anthony turned her by the shoulders. His face was close enough now that she could see the flecks of lighter brown in his eyes, the slight part of his lips, the faint sheen of perspiration at his temples. He looked like a man who had been running.

"Philipa," he said, and kissed her mouth.

She had been kissed before. Once, by a boy at a country assembly who had misjudged the distance and caught the corner of her lip instead of the center. It had been brief and wet and she had spent the rest of the evening pretending it hadn't happened.

This was not that.

Anthony kissed her the way he did everything else—with the assumption that she would keep up. His mouth moved against hers, insistent and warm, and when she failed to respond immediately he tilted his head and tried again with more patience. His hand came up to cup her jaw. His thumb pressed gently at the hinge where her lips met, and she opened for him without thinking, and then his tongue was there and she made another sound, louder this time, muffled by his mouth on hers.

He walked her backward. She didn't realize it until her shoulders hit the shelf behind her and a row of books rattled in their places. Anthony pressed against her, one hand braced on the shelf above her head, the other still holding her jaw as though he feared she might turn away.

She wasn't going to turn away. That was the trouble.

His hand left her jaw and traveled down her side, over the curve of her hip, and then lower still until he found the fabric of her skirt. He gathered a fistful of it and pulled upward, and the hem rose from the floor by slow degrees. Philipa's breath caught. His mouth left hers to trail along her jaw, and she tilted her head back against the bookshelf and stared at the ceiling while her skirt climbed higher.

"Anthony," she said. It came out as something close to a question.

"Hm." He kissed the hollow beneath her ear.

"What are you—"

"Showing you something else from my collection." His voice had gone rough at the edges. The skirt had reached her knee now. His fingers brushed the bare skin above her stocking, and her leg jerked as though he had touched a live wire. "Don't be frightened."

"I'm not frightened."

"You're trembling."

"That's not—" She stopped because his hand had slid higher, past her knee, past the ribbon garter that held her stocking in place, and she had no idea what she was trying to say anymore.

His palm flattened against the inside of her thigh. The fabric of her shift and petticoat bunched around his wrist, and his fingers continued their careful exploration upward until they reached the place where her legs met.

Philipa clutched at his shoulders. Her nails dug into the wool of his coat, and he made a low sound against her throat that might have been approval.

"Hold on to me," he said.

She was already holding on. Her grip tightened further as his fingers moved, sliding through the dampness that had gathered between her legs without her permission or awareness. When had that happened? How long had she been standing here letting him do this while her body prepared itself for more? The thought was mortifying. The feeling was not.

His fingers found a place that made her whole body jolt against him. She bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out, and the pain grounded her somewhat, enough that she could remember they were in a house full of people with only a locked door between her and ruin.

"Quiet," Anthony said, though he didn't sound particularly concerned about it himself. His breath was warm and uneven against her neck. "You can be quiet, can't you?"

She nodded. She could be quiet. She had been quiet her entire life. It was the one thing she knew how to do.

His fingers began to move in a rhythm that had no name she knew, circling and pressing and sliding, and each pass made her clutch at his coat more desperately. His other arm wrapped around her waist and held her in place against the shelf while her hips developed a mind of their own, pushing forward to meet his hand.

"That's it," he said. "There you are."

His fingers settled into a steady rhythm, each stroke sliding through the wetness she had produced without knowing she could. Philipa's hips jerked against his hand of their own accord, a puppet responding to strings she couldn't see. She pressed her face into his shoulder to muffle the sounds escaping her throat, sounds she had never made before, sounds that belonged to someone else entirely. The wool of his coat scratched her cheek. She breathed in the scent of him—something clean and faintly spiced, like cedar and citrus peel.

"Don't fight it," Anthony said near her ear. His voice had gone low and uneven, matching the rhythm of his hand. "Just let it happen."

Let what happen? She wanted to ask, but she couldn't form words anymore. His fingers curled inside her in a way that made her vision go white at the edges, and then they slid back out and circled that place again, that small and terrible place that sent sparks up her spine and down to her toes. Over and over. The bookshelf creaked behind her with each thrust of her hips.

She was climbing toward something. Some precipice she couldn't see but could feel approaching with every stroke of his hand. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps against his shoulder. Her fingers had cramped into claws, gripping his coat with a desperation that would have embarrassed her if she'd had any capacity left for embarrassment.

"I can't—" she managed.

"You can." His thumb pressed down on that place and rubbed tight circles there, and that was the end of her ability to speak.

The precipice arrived. Philipa's body went rigid against him, every muscle locking at once as something enormous and unbearable crested inside her. She bit down on his coat to keep from screaming. Her hips stuttered against his hand, and a wave of heat rolled through her from somewhere deep and hidden, spreading outward until her fingertips tingled and her scalp prickled and she forgot, for several seconds, that she had a name or a mother or a reputation to protect.

When it finally receded, she sagged against the shelf. Her legs had turned to something with the consistency of warm pudding. She would have slid to the floor if Anthony hadn't still been holding her up with the arm around her waist.

She had expected him to stop. That was what one did after the thing was finished, surely. Whatever the thing was.

He didn't stop.

His fingers kept moving between her legs, gentler now but still persistent. Her body, oversensitive and trembling, jerked at every touch. She made a small, bewildered sound against his shoulder.

"Anthony—"

"Not yet." His voice was strained in a way she hadn't heard before, tight and breathless at once. He shifted his weight, and she became aware that his hips were moving against her thigh in a rhythm of their own, faster and less controlled than before. The hard line of him pressed against her leg through his trousers, and she understood with some distant part of her mind what he was doing.

She should have been shocked. Perhaps she was, somewhere beneath the fog of everything else. But mostly she was too wrung out to feel anything but the warm weight of his body against hers, the friction of his movements, the way his breath had gone ragged and hot against her neck.

He pressed his forehead to the shelf above her shoulder. His hand stilled between her legs but his hips continued their work, grinding against her thigh with increasing urgency. Low sounds escaped him, grunts that vibrated through his chest into hers. She held on to his shoulders and let him use her, because she had no idea what else to do and because some small, reckless part of her wanted to see what would happen when he finished.

It didn't take long. His rhythm stuttered, broke, and he crushed her against the bookshelf with one final, shuddering thrust. A warmth spread across the inside of her petticoat, damp and unfamiliar. He held himself there for several heartbeats, breathing hard into the curve of her shoulder.

Then his weight lifted slightly, though he didn't step away.

Philipa opened her eyes.

Over Anthony's shoulder, through the gap between the door and its frame—the door that hadn't closed properly, she realized now, despite the click of the key—she could see the corridor beyond. Polished floorboards. The edge of a hallway table. And in the middle of it all, a footman in dark livery, standing at attention, his gaze fixed straight ahead at the opposite wall.

He hadn't moved. He hadn't looked in. He stood there like a piece of furniture, like something placed in that exact spot for that exact purpose.

The realization arrived slowly, then all at once. The locked door that hadn't quite latched. The footman who should have been somewhere else. The way Anthony had known exactly which book to pull from the shelf, as though he had planned their path through this room long before he'd led her here.

Anthony straightened and looked down at her. His expression had already smoothed back toward something resembling composure, though his breathing hadn't fully steadied yet. He caught her gaze and held it, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all.

Then he reached down and began to straighten her skirt, gathering the fabric with careful hands and smoothing it back into place as though nothing had happened. As though he were simply tidying an untucked hem.

"There," he said quietly. "Now you've seen the library."