Chapter 13

S he’d stopped coming.

She’d sent around a polite enough note, thanking him for the time he’d spent elucidating her as to the nature of his establishment, and the enjoyable time she’d spent there—not with him, specifically—and had assured him that she’d seen all she’d needed to see.

And just like that, their time together was done. Sealed by nothing more than a respectful note of six sentences, and the swooping, elegant, inked letters that had made up her name.

Abaddon should have expected she would. From the first moment he’d met Lady Glain, he’d known their time together was limited, and that she was not the sort to enter this establishment. She’d been, in short, everything he’d expected of a pompous lady.

But in the weeks, they’d known one another, she’d proven so much more .

And mayhap that was what made her sudden disappearance from his life all the more agonizing.

It had been easier to think of her as a shallow, self-important lady who peered down her haughty nose at people outside of her station and books she deemed unworthy of her attention.

It was an entirely different thing to have discovered she’d only built and presented that masterful facade to the world, so that she could protect her younger siblings. That underneath the sheen of ice the whole world—himself, at first, included, saw—was a fiery, passionate woman, possessed of a keen wit and intellect. A woman who devoured books like a starving man did bread.

Seated at the front table she’d made her own for all those times she’d come here, Abaddon re-read a note he’d already committed to memory.

It was for the best.

As Strathearn had pointed out, Glain belonged to a whole different stratum, and it was absolutely a world Abaddon had no wish to be part of. He was more than content to run his circulating library, procuring nothing more than books for both commoners and those people who were Glain’s social equals. He didn’t want to attend fancy dinners with them—lord knew he’d hated the lessons Strathearn had provided before those events Abaddon was forced to drag himself to with the express intent of procuring greater funds and sponsors among that ruling elite.

And he certainly didn’t want to attend balls or any of it.

Abaddon traced a fingertip over the swoopy letters that made up her name.

The thing of it was, he would have done it; and he would have done it all gladly if it had meant she was in his life.

“ You look like hell.”

He glanced up.

At some point, Strathearn had entered the circulating library.

“Didn’t even hear the bell,” his friend drawled. “I believe that, is a first.”

Abaddon grunted. “Strathearn. I don’t—” Want company. Want to talk.

Alas, he didn’t waste any more breath. Strathearn was already looking about for a seat. As a duke, Strathearn wasn’t a man who’d ever been told.

The gentleman dragged the nearest seat closer to Abaddon. He flipped it around, and straddled either side of the spindly, oak chair entire too small for his height.

“What was that you were saying, old chap?” Strathearn winged an eyebrow up. “You ‘don’t’…?”

“Nothing,” Abaddon muttered. Ordering him gone so he might have the quiet he sought, would be futile. As a duke, Strathearn wasn’t a man to be told no.

Strathearn’s gaze fell to Glain’s note.

Belatedly, Abaddon picked up the small sheet, folded it, and then tucked the parchment inside his jacket.

“Hmm,” Strathearn mused. “Never thought I’d see you this way.”

“What way?” he asked surlily. But he couldn’t help it. He was angry and miserable and spoiling for a fight.

“Besotted by a woman.” His friend gave his head a wry shake. “At that, a woman like Lady Diamond.”

He slapped a palm on the table and the books Glain had left behind, jumped. The books he refused to move because then it would mean all of her and all of her time here was at an end.

“What do you know of it, Strathearn?” he hissed. “You see what the whole world sees, but sometimes there is more to a person.”

As Abaddon spoke, his voice grew more booming, filling with fury. “If Mr. Baughan had taken me for nothing more than a street thief, even now I’d be stealing, dead, or worse.” He paused; taking several deep breaths to rein in his temper. “And there was… is more to her.”

Surprise glinted in Strathearn’s eyes, and his friend sharpened a knowing look on Abaddon’s normally ascetic face.

The fight went out of Abaddon. “And her name is Glain,” he finished tiredly, running a hand over his brow. “Her name is Glain.”

His friend beat his hat against his thigh. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

And yet, the words came tumbling forth from Abaddon: about the time he’d spent with Glain, and how desperately and hopelessly and helplessly in love he’d fallen with her. He shared with him the time he’d spent talking with Glain about books and philosophers, and his hungering for more with her.

When he’d finished, Abaddon removed her note, and read it once more. “Who the hell thought I’d find myself this way?”

From the corner of his eye, he caught the twitch of his friend’s mouth. “Certainly not I.” He paused. “Have you…thought about…speaking with the lady? Telling her how you feel? If she is the woman you take her to be—”

“She is.”

“Then, she will want a future with you, Abaddon,” his friend quietly finished over that interruption.

The bell announced a new patron and his friend glanced over, and Abaddon followed the other man’s gaze.

His heart jumped, and he braced, waited with bated breath for the woman to follow in behind that familiar pair, a young girl and boy.

But Lady Opal and Lord Flint merely drew the door shut and headed over. He and Strathearn made to stand, but like a duke he’d one day be, the boy waved them back.

“No need for any of that,” Opal said, availing herself to a chair, and spinning it around, she straddled it the way the duke beside her did. She nudged her chin his way. “I’m disappointed in you.”

The duke touched a hand to his chest. “I daresay that’s the first I’ve—”

“Stuff it. I’m clearly speaking to him.”

“Sorry,” Flint silently mouthed to the other gentleman, but Strathearn merely waved his hand in a like manner the boy had done moments ago.

Opal took in that exchange, and eyed the duke warily, before looking to Abaddon. “Is he a friend?”

Abaddon inclined his head. “He is. The Duke of Strath—”

“I don’t need introductions,” she cut him off. “Furthermore,” Opal scraped a derisive stare over the duke. “I’m well-aware of who that one is.”

Strathearn’s lips twitched.

Opal dismissed the duke in favor of Abaddon. “I just want to be sure he’s not some bastard,”

Strathearn and Flint both choked.

“Who’s going to take exception if I call you out in front of him,” the little warrior said over their fit. “I don’t need him trying to shut down your library.”

“And…you intend to call me out?” Abaddon hazarded, feeling the first stirrings of anything other than misery these past days.

“I sure as hell do,” she snapped.

“ We sure as hell do,” Glain’s brother corrected.

“Hush!” the girl scolded like a governess.

She fixed her fury back on Abaddon. “You did not come.”

Abaddon stared at her.

She threw her hands up. “To see my sister.”

“Was she…expecting me?” His heart kicked up its beat.

Opal narrowed her eyes into thin, dangerous slits. “ I was expecting you.”

There was a rush of disappointment. “Expecting me to…”

“To offer for her.” Exasperation sent her voice climbing.

A patron at the opposite end of the library looked over and frowned.

Abaddon inclined his head in apologies, before returning his attention to Glain’s sister. “Has she…given some indication that she,” wanted, “expected that?” he ventured, with a calm he didn’t feel.

The girl actually growled.

Lord Flint caught her by the arm.

And then the anger seeped from her taut little features. “I expected it,” she said again, this time, softly, sadly. “Because she was so very happy every time, she came from seeing you, and she laughed and read books and her eyes were so bright that I could only believe she loved you and that you loved her in return.”

Every word was a dagger dragged over his heart because he wanted everything Glain’s sister spoke of to be true.

And yet…

“Your sister and I came together because of an arrangement,” he said carefully. “And that arrangement ended.”

Opal’s frown deepened, and she looked over to Strathearn.

The duke shrugged. “Don’t look here. I told him he should go to the lady.”

The girl grunted. “I don’t much like dukes, but I might make an exception for you.”

Strathearn inclined his head. “I’m honored—”

“Don’t make more of it than it is. I said I might make an exception. You’re still a duke.” Dismissing him, Opal looked to Abaddon. “My sister cannot come here,” she said, her voice earnest. “I overheard it from the housekeeper who overheard it from one of the maids who is sweet with one of the footmen, that my father told her that he would shut down your library and ruin you if she continued visiting.”

His chest tightened.

“What?” he whispered.

Flint nodded. “And she cried, Mr. Grim.”

“She cried ,” Glain’s sister repeated for good measure.

Oh. God. That was why she’d ceased coming around. Because her bastard of a father had intimidated her into doing so. Abaddon balled his hands into painful fists, wanting to throttle the man for hurting Glain as he had.

And me, I also hurt her. That realization threatened to split Abaddon in two.

“ And he took her books.” Fury burned bright in the little girl’s eyes. “Her books, Mr. Grim. Her books. He handed them over to another footman to burn but that footman gave them to another footman who gave them to his sweetheart who is friendly with Glain’s maid, who in turn gave them to Glain…” He sought to follow that lengthy chain of individuals. “And I have snuck into her room, when she is sleeping, and I find her with her books tucked under her pillow—”

A tortured groan escaped him, drowning out the rest of Opal’s words.

Abaddon surged to his feet.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“I…” It occurred to him he didn’t even know where Glain lived.

Strathearn cleared his throat. “If I may?” He provided the address.

Flint’s eyes clouded with confusion. “That’s where we live.”

For the first time since she’d stormed the library that day, Opal’s eyes brightened with something other than the deserved fury. “It is! He is going for her!” She looked happily to Abaddon. “You’re going for her!”

Abaddon clenched his jaw. He was going for her, and he’d be damned ten times to Sunday if he left without having her in his life.

Strathearn jumped to his feet. “My carriage awaits.”