Chapter Five

I climbed down the remaining steps, my heart in my mouth, and approached the body. What was the prison sentence for murdering someone with a book? Did it have a name? Libercide, I supposed, my brain happily supplying the Latin when it should probably be more focused on how best to flee the scene of the crime. Just as I was kneeling beside him, readying myself to feel for a pulse, the man groaned and propped himself up on one elbow. His eyes blinked owlishly into mine, his expression one of dazed bewilderment.

"Oh, thank good—" I began shakily.

"What just…" The eyes narrowed, his brows dropped into a thunderous frown, and he pushed himself up to his feet, towering over me. "You! Did you just throw a book at me? What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" the man yelled.

I don't know which of us was more surprised when I burst into tears.

I so rarely cried that I wasn't sure what to do with myself, but really at this point I thought no one could blame me. Men! Why must they be so relentlessly awful?

Curled in on myself, still on the floor, the tears streamed hot from my eyes, and my upper body shook from the sudden, unexpected onslaught of emotion.

"Oh, God," the stranger groaned. "Just … get up off the floor, you little fool." With that, he wrapped his fingers around mine and tugged me unceremoniously to my feet.

Come on, Mari, I told myself sternly. You nearly killed him – you could at least apologize.

I took several shuddering breaths, wiped my eyes, then forced myself to look up at the person in front of me.

Any progress I had made on catching my breath was lost in an instant.

Because that's what he was: breathtaking.

It sounds foolish, I know, to be winded by a man's perfect face. It was a phenomenon I had previously thought was confined to Daisy's favourite novels. But this man was a romance writer's fantasy come to life. A handful of years older than me, quite a few inches taller, and lean but with shoulders broad enough to fill out his coat very nicely. He had curling, artfully dishevelled midnight-dark hair, and warm golden skin the colour of sand. His face was made of hard, uncompromising edges, which contrasted wildly with his full, sensual mouth. His eyes were dark and flashing, his brows heavy.

These perfect features were arranged in a furious scowl as he glared down at me. The scowl did nothing to detract from his handsomeness. He looked like one of those terrible anti-heroes, all brooding and stuffed full of dark secrets, the kind of man the heroine longed to reform, or die trying. (In the books, I knew they usually took the second option. And they typically died from something easily avoidable like catching a fever after walking in the rain, because none of them had a crumb of common sense or thought to carry an umbrella.)

A long and awful silence hung in the air as I gawped hopelessly at him, before the man with the face of a fallen angel broke it. "I don't know what you're crying about. You're not the one having projectiles flung at your head."

I sniffled. Blinked hard. A few more tears slipped out.

"Stop that at once!" The man's eyes widened. "Just. Stop. Crying." He reached into his pocket and thrust a handkerchief in my direction.

He looked so aghast that I couldn't help it: I laughed. It was a strange, watery gasp of a laugh, but it loosened something in me. I felt, thankfully, as though I were back in control of my own body, and the tears stopped, my breathing eased.

"Thank you," I croaked, accepting the crisp white handkerchief and dabbing my eyes. "I'm sorry for dropping the book on you. You startled me. And as for the tears, I'm afraid that there, too, you were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't usually cry."

"Hmmm." The man made a noise to indicate that he was dubious about the veracity of this statement.

I held the damp handkerchief out to him, and he accepted it with obvious distaste, using only the tips of his fingers. It was a nice handkerchief. Good quality. The initials OL were embroidered in the corner in black thread.

"I really don't," I told him, having composed myself at last. "It's been a terrible day, and I suppose when you fell down and then shouted at me it was the final straw. Not that I blame you, of course."

"Oh, that's big of you," he said sulkily. "Assaulting me was the last straw, was it? And what, pray tell, were these other straws weighing down on you? How have you spent your morning? Accosting old ladies? Kicking dogs? Knocking down small children, perhaps?"

That drew another gurgle of laughter from me, though he didn't really look like he was joking.

"Well," I found myself saying, "first of all, my fiancé broke off our engagement because he thinks I'm not ladylike enough and he's marrying someone else instead, and then his father, his awful father – who happens to own the building I live and work in – propositioned me in the street. When I refuse to become his mistress, I should think he'll happily destroy my business and evict my entire family."

Once again, I had surprised us both. I hadn't been planning to say any of that. The words had simply come out. And saying them made the whole thing real.

The impressive frown on the man's face had deepened. "You're not going to cry again, are you?" he asked gruffly.

I shook my head. "No. But I am worried." I was, I finally admitted to myself, out of my depth and afraid. "I don't know what to do, you see … and I always know what to do."

There was another pause, and it suddenly struck me how awkward the situation was. Funny that it hadn't done so before.

"Anyway," I said, reaching down to collect my book from where it lay on the floor. I winced because it really was a generous tome – seemed there was a lot to be said about landscaping. "I apologize again about the book. And for crying on you. I'll leave you to your browsing."

"Wait." The man held up his hand as I walked past him. His voice was a clipped command. I turned and he was reaching inside the pocket of his dark coat. He pulled out a pen and card, flipped it over before I could read it and then wrote something on the back.

"Here." He held it out. "They can help you."

I took it and looked down. On thick, white card, embossed with uncompromising black ink was a name and address:

The Aviary

Mrs Finch

Proprietress

1 St Andrew's Road

London

"Why are you—" I began, but the man was already pushing past me, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his long strides eating up the ground.

"Just go," he growled over his shoulder. "And give them that card." With that, he stalked out of view, his coat flaring out dramatically behind him and I stood alone once more between the stacks, dazed.

"What on earth?" I murmured to myself as I turned the card over in my hands. There, in a scrawling hand, was another message.

Oliver Lockhart sends his regards.