Chapter 3

G lain’s voice came, somehow, steady.

Under ordinary circumstances that would not be an abnormal feat.

She’d perfected the art of cool, clipped, refined speech. One she’d mastered as a girl then refined as a young woman who’d been declared a Diamond by the queen and suddenly found herself sought after by marriage-minded men.

This, however, was certainly not an ordinary circumstance.

Just as this was not a prim, polished, proper gentleman, the kind she’d become all too adept at repelling.

None of those men had dared stare so baldly, so unapologetically.

And certainly, none of them had looked like him .

At least four or so inches taller than her almost six feet, he was a broad, powerful man, heavily muscled, as if he’d been cut from a swath of stone and then stuffed into mildly respectable black wool garments.

Her gaze crept up to his face. He possessed an iron jaw and a slightly bent, hawkish nose. Hooked as it was, it hinted at a man who’d had the appendage broken—mayhap several times.

Her brother pushed an elbow into her side. “It’s rude to stare,” he scolded in an outrageously loud whisper that sent the stranger’s lips tipping up and heat exploding to her cheeks.

“Hush,” she mouthed.

Alas, there was to be no mercy this day, for Flint did what he was being groomed by his tutors to do—he dug in, determined to have his words acknowledged. “What? You are, and it’s rude.”

“They always do this,” Opal explained matter-of-factly to their audience of one.

“Ah,” the man murmured, lifting his head in acknowledgement. The queue at the nape of his muscular neck slid over his shoulder.

Glain found her footing with him. “I asked you a question,” she said. Taking a step closer, she gripped her sister lightly by the wrist and pulled her away.

Or attempted to. Opal dug in.

“What are you doing with my sister?” Glain demanded.

“Two,” he said, suddenly, unexpectedly, and she tipped her head in confusion.

He lifted two fingers. “You asked two questions: Who am I and what am I doing with your sister?”

At that less than subtle shade of mockery, Glain drew back. The heat in her cheeks blazed several degrees warmer.

“You have to forgive her,” Opal said. “She’s not used to people challenging her.”

The man flicked a stare up and down her person. “That I can believe.” The look he gave Glain was one that indicated he found her wanting.

Fury and annoyance tightened in her belly at being called out, and yet at the same time, dismissed.

“I’ll not ask—”

“This is Mr. Grimoire,” Opal interrupted, and it didn’t escape Glain’s notice that her sister did so because Mr . Grimoire had no intention of supplying an answer to either of her questions. “He operates the circulating library.”

Glain recoiled for entirely different reasons. “ You are the librarian?” she asked incredulously.

This six foot-four-inch specimen of heavy muscle and chiseled features? With his coal-black hair, overly long and drawn haphazardly into a que at his nape, he’d more the look of one of those long-ago gladiators she’d read of than a keeper of books.

“Expect somethin’ else, darling?”

His speech contained of roughness to it, slightly over-emphasized enough to make her think he exaggerated the coarse edge.

Did he do so to scare her, shock her, or both? Either way, he did all three of those. But not because of his tone. Rather his blunt speech and the intensity of his gaze left Glain breathlessly aware of him as a man.

No one looked at her the way he did, direct, and without apology. In fact, no one met her eyes with theirs. People went out of their way to dip their stares deferentially when she passed.

She’d long hated it, yearning for someone to just see her. Only to have this man look squarely at her and find herself unnerved to the point of wishing him to move his focus to anything and anyone except her.

“Cats got your tongue, darling?” he drawled.

Her brother and sister giggled.

Glain glared in their direction.

Only Opal attempted to hide that hint of mirth behind her fingers.

As for Mr. Grimoire, he glanced at Glain’s siblings and winked.

There was something so gentle and warm in that flutter of his lashes. Something inside grated that he should respond so to her sister, while treating Glain like she was the dung upon his badly scuffed boot.

And here you had your heart all a’flutter for him.

“We are going,” she said tersely, grabbing each of her siblings by a hand. “Now.”

“Hey,” Opal cried out in protest, grinding them to a stop once more. “I’m not finished here.”

Glain cast a warning look her sister’s way. “You most certainly are,” she gritted out.

“You’ve got a problem with my circulating library?” That low growl better suited a primal beast than a man.

But then, mayhap that was what the unlikeliest of circulating library owners in fact, was.

“She does,” Opal answered for her.

“Opal,” she bit out.

“She does not like books,” Flint piped in, and at the look Glain shot his way, he lifted his shoulders in a half-shrug. “What? You don’t .”

She felt Mr. Grimoire’s stare upon her once more. “I like books just fine,” she said between her teeth, not sure why she felt the sudden need to defend herself to a man who clearly found her wanting.

“Oh?” he drawled. “Which ones?”

God, he was insolent and audacious and infuriating.

“Respectable ones,” she shot back, glancing pointedly at the stacks of books at the floor between them.

“Boring ones,” Opal added.

Their brother spoke in tones pitched high to mimic a lady. “Ones about manners and peers and how to conduct oneself.”

“And do not forget.” Opal wagged a finger at Flint. “All the skills a lady must master in order to catch herself a husband.” With that, brother and sister stepped into one another’s arms and proceeded to perform the scandalous steps of a waltz all the way down the narrow aisle. As the two imps danced about, they knocked into the piles of books and bumped into shelves.

Glain briefly closed her eyes.

Lord, give me patience.

Drat if she didn’t possess two outrageously disloyal siblings.

She caught Mr. Abaddon’s grin.

He looked at her siblings. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention circulating library etiquette.”

Opal and Flint immediately stopped waltzing. Why, they listened to this big stranger better than they’d ever listened to her.

“May I have a moment?” he asked the young pair, and the two hurried off.

The moment they’d gone, Glain gritted her teeth. “I don’t need you to go ordering my sister and brother about.”

“What?” he asked lazily. “You want that honor all for yourself?”

Glain gasped, a hand flying reflexively to her breast. “How…dare you!” she stammered—stammered when she never did so. “How—?”

“Dare I?” he supplied in cool, mocking tones.

She jabbed a finger at him, several times. “You…you…”

He inclined his head. “Mr. Grimoire is the name you are looking for.”

“Are crass and rude and boorish and mocking and perturbing and…and…”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “And?”

“Rude!” she repeated, because it really bore repeating.

“ I’m the boorish one.”—That slight emphasis sent heat from her neck up to her face, and by god, if this man wasn’t going to paint her red forever.—“This from the lady who entered my library, ordered my patron about, and—”

Dropping her hands to her hips, Glain swept closer. “She is my sister.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Your sister who is also my patron.”

“She is no such thing!” she shouted, her voice pitching to the rafters. “She is a young lady. A proper, respectable young lady.”

Her brother and sister ducked around the corner. They stared at Glain with wide, disbelieving eyes.

As they should.

Because Glain didn’t shout…she didn’t even raise her voice. She kept it careful and measured and modulated. What was it about this man that drove her to this show of temper?

Glain forced a serene smile she did not feel, and waved a hand, urging them to leave.

Thankfully, this time, they did as she bade, though knowing the imps as she did, they also no doubt hid behind the column and listened in on Glain’s exchange with the infuriating shop owner.

When she looked back at Mr. Grimoire, she drew in a slow, calming breath. “My sister is not patronizing your circulating library,” not taking her gaze from his unswerving one even as the piercing intensity of his gaze left her quavering inside, “and she will not be taking these books out.”

From somewhere over Mr. Grimoire’s shoulder, she caught her sister’s quiet cry and Flint’s shushing sounds.

Regret: it cleaved away at her breast, but Glain forced aside that weakening.

“This is for the best,” she said. For him? For Opal? Or herself? Mayhap it was really all three she sought to convince.

Giving her skirts a snap, she made to step around him.

“The best for whom?” he jeered, stopping her in her tracks with that echo of her very thoughts.

“All involved, Mr. Grimoire,” she said icily.

He chuckled, that low, rumble, devoid of real humor, and a perfect expression of mockery.

Do not ask. You don’t care. It doesn’t matter.

“What?” she asked impatiently, stunned even as that question tumbled unchecked from her always careful lips.

“It’s just I find it amusing, is all.” He leaned forward and then swept out a hand, nearly brushing her with his gloveless, ink-stained fingertips.

“I don’t see anything amusing about this. You are challenging your patrons.”

“You aren’t my patron,” he said coolly. “My patrons read real books. Not some lessons on how to catch yourself the most powerful husband, and how to mold yourself into a colorless, vapid, unfeeling, princess .”

Glain recoiled.

She didn’t know him beyond a handful of moments, and he knew her not at all, and yet…how very strange that his words—those specific ones, at that—should hurt so, that they should leave her hot with shame and regret and also fill her with the sudden, overwhelming urge to cry.

Colorless. Vapid. Unfeeling.

“What do you care what the girl reads? Are you afraid she’ll become different than you?”

All his words struck Glain in the chest, somewhere very near her heart, and overcome, she turned swiftly, and presented him with her back.

Opal was different, and in all the best ways. She’d retained the ability to smile freely, and think even more freely, and did so without any inclination of how precarious her existence was, at how quickly it could all just go…away.

Bloody fucking hell.

She was going to cry.

And he didn’t deal well with tears.

Hell, he didn’t deal with them at all.

In fairness, he hadn’t had to deal with them.

The people he’d grown up amongst hadn’t shed those drops, those marks of weakness, when a person living on the streets of London couldn’t afford to be anything but hard.

He’d only spoken the truth. That’s what had brought her—them—to this moment.

Strangely the thought didn’t make him feel any better.

He swiped a hand over his face. “Stop.”

She came to a sudden, jarring halt but remained with her back to him. Her narrow shoulders were proudly erect, her spine as straight as if a rod had been inserted within it.

“I was only speaking the truth,” he said tightly.

“Is that your idea of an apology, Mr. Grimoire?”

“I don’t apologize for telling the truth.”

If possible, her back came up even more. “Good day, Mr. Grimoire,” she said stiffly.

Despite himself, a slight smile twitched at his lips. That ice princess with her perfect manners.

“Darling—”

She whipped around. “I’m not your darling, and it’s rude to call a woman with whom you are not familiar— or for that matter, to call any woman ‘darling’.”

“I don’t have your name.”

For a moment he thought she intended not to give it.

“Lady Diamond—” She grimaced. “ Glain Carmichael.”

Glain.

Welsh-sounding and slightly lyrical for the way it lingered and then rolled from the tongue, it was far softer and slipped from her lips more smoothly than that first she’d shared.

“You called me vapid, Mr. Grimoire. And I’m not. Do you know what I am?”

He opened his mouth to tell her, but she beat him to it.

“I’m reliable. Calculable. I’m not someone given to flights of fancy.”

“Why?” he asked.

She drew back. Her golden eyebrows snapped together into a single, baffled line that accentuated the fascinating birthmark between her brows. “I don’t know what you are—?”

“Why are you so determined to crush the girl?”

This time he may as well have struck her for the way she blanched and hunched into herself. And damned if he didn’t feel like the worst of the bullies he himself had encountered in the streets of London.

Abaddon tried again. This time he gentled his tone.

“You really think flights of fancy are such a bad thing?”

The lady’s jaw worked, and for a moment, he thought she wouldn’t answer, that she’d back down. He should have known better and expected more from a bold princess.

“They are if one is determined to protect oneself from being hurt.”

She spoke of suffering? He scoffed. “What do you know about pain?”

The lady narrowed her eyes. “You mean, because I’m a lady?” Gathering her skirts, she swept over. “Because what could a lady born of the peerage possibly know about that real emotion, or anything ?” Hers was a rhetorical question, and damned if he didn’t feel small under her condescending stare and sharp words. “And tell me, Mr. Grimoire. Do you think you somehow know more about everything? Pain and how and why a woman should or does conduct herself all because you are born outside the peerage? That your world experience gives you an understanding about how everyone lives?”

A muscle ticked irritatingly at the corner of his eye. “You don’t know nothin’ about me,” he growled slipping into his roughed speech. The insolent princess.

“No, I don’t,” she said, instantly, too readily. “I know you have a slightly rough accent you worked at concealing and that you dress well enough, but not as fine as a nobleman.” She hurled those truths at him. “I didn’t presume to know anything about you because of it. You on the other hand felt more than comfortable sizing me up because of my birthright. Making assumptions that fit whatever narrow opinion you may have of people from my station. Now, I bid you good day, Mr. Grimoire.” She collected her skirts for a third time, spun on her heel, and made to take her leave.

Abaddon stared after her proud, retreating figure.

The lady wasn’t wrong. He had formed his own assumptions based on her icy veneer and intent to drag her sister off. After all, what other opinion could he have been expected to reach?

And yet, it also left him wondering at the words she’d spoken. And about the lady herself.

“It’s not because of your birthright, you know.”

She stopped again.

This time, he marched over, sliding himself in her path, lest she leave. For he knew, if she did, she’d be gone forever.

“I don’t have a problem with ladies,” he said. “Not all of them.”

She pursed her lips. “Just me, then. I am honored.”

He’d ruffled her feathers.

Abaddon flashed a half-smile, the one he’d used to disarm people through the years.

Lady Glain, however, proved unflappable—singularly unaffected, her features a smooth, frosty, detached mask.

“In fact, I respect the ones who come in my library. They aren’t the judgmental sort.” Like her . “They know what they like to read and aren’t afraid to borrow it, regardless of opinion.”

Pain flickered in her eyes. “Yes, well, not all ladies have that same luxury,” she said softly, and he sharpened his gaze upon her expressive face.

It wasn’t the first she’d spoken of pain or a harsher existence than the one he imagined she knew.

“You do know something of it, don’t you?” he murmured.

Her expression instantly shuttered. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said stiffly.

“I think you do. I think you’re pretending you don’t so you don’t have to reveal anything more than you already have.”

Her eyes grew wary, but she said nothing.

“Well, that’s fine, princess. I won’t press you for your secrets. I won’t ask you to share anything you don’t want to share with me.”

What accounted for his sudden yearning to know those details about this woman, ice on the exterior but with revealing eyes that glimmered with hurt.

“A-And why should I want to share anything with you?” She tipped her chin up. “I don’t know you. Nor do I intend to ever again step foot inside your library.”

Aye, he expected she believed that. But he also knew he didn’t intend to allow her to disappear as she wished. “It’s not all bad here,” he murmured. “In fact, you might discover your sister isn’t wrong about this place and the books you can find here.”

The lady flattened her mouth into a firm line. “I highly doubt that, Mr. Grimoire.”

She was a prickly one. That should be a great killer of desire for the hoity-toity woman. And yet her disdain and indifference had an altogether different effect on him. The lady posed a challenge.

Abaddon caressed a finger along the side of her tense lips, and that lush, slightly pouty flesh trembled slightly.

In desire? Horror? Perhaps a mix of both?

“Wh-what are you d-doing?” she whispered, not pulling away.

He’d bedded enough women of her station to know he could make even the loftiest lady cry out with passion when the wanted a bit of the rough. He also knew they equally were repelled by his station and thrilled at the prospect of slumming with him.

“Like satin you are,” he murmured. His hunger for her made him careless with the speech he’d long ago practiced and perfected with the man who’d adopted him. The lady’s plump pillow-like lips went soft and a whispery exhalation slipped past them.

He leaned nearer. “I’ve got a proposition for you, Glain.”

The lady froze. And then as if she’d been dunked in the icy Thames, she gasped loudly and jumped back a step. “How dare you?” she whispered furiously, slapping a hand to her breast, drawing his gaze briefly to the fabric pulled more tightly against her shapely form.

Abaddon flashed a lazy smile. “Not that kind of proposition.”

She stilled and a pretty pink blush filled her cheeks. “Oh.”

Did he imagine the disappointment there? He rather thought he didn’t. In fact, he’d wager his circulating library on it.

“W-Well, that is good,” she said. “But neither should you touch me or use my name.”

“Are those equal affronts in your world?”

“They are. A man does not just go about calling a woman by her given name or touching her. It bespeaks a level of intimacy that is scandalous and would see a lady ruined.”

“And that would be the last thing you’d want?” he jeered, not sure why her disdain should chafe. He was well accustomed to it, but something about this woman, and that sentiment coming from her, rankled. “Being ruined by a tough from the streets.”

“I’m not looking to be ruined by anyone, Mr. Grimoire,” she said coolly, with entirely too much ease for him to ever doubt her sincerity.

And yet…

“I expect if I had a fancy title attached to mine name, it’d be a different story, then.” He flashed another cold smile.

“There you’d be wrong. Again .”

Again . The audacity of this one.

Abaddon folded his arms at his chest. “You expect me to believe a lady who reads books on catching husbands wouldn’t be all warmth and smiles were it a duke or marquess taking such liberties?”

“I don’t read those books.”

“You said—”

“I said I read books befitting a lady, Mr. Grimoire,” she said impatiently. “My siblings were the one who assumed those books were about marriage.”

He caught his chin between his thumb and forefinger and made a show of studying her, doing so deliberately to pique her curiosity. “Hmm.”

“Hmm, what ?” She wrinkled a surprisingly lightly freckled nose, an appendage that had been dusted from its time in the sun, hinting she had a far freer spirit than he’d previously credited her with.

“It seems you and I have gotten off on the wrong foot. Both of us have made assumptions about one another.”

“I haven’t made any assumptions about you, Mr. Grimoire. That honor belongs entirely to you .”

“You’ve got a problem with my library, do you not?”

“I’m sure it’s fine enough—”

“But not fine enough for your sister.”

“Not safe enough for my sister,” she corrected.

“Because I’m here.”

“Because—” The lady stopped herself abruptly.

His ears perked up, and he waited for her to finish that thought and give him the reason she was so adamantly opposed to her sister shopping here. Once more, however, she remained tight-lipped.

“I’ll strike a deal with you, princess.”

A brighter color bloomed red on her cheeks. “My name is not ‘princess.’”

“Fine. Glain, then,” he said.

She gasped. “I most certainly was not suggesting—”

“You spend a week here. One week,” he went on, continuing over whatever unwanted lesson on propriety she intended to dole out. “An hour each day. You read my books. Different ones than whatever nonsense you’ve been occupying yourself with over the years. And if at the end of the week, you don’t find yourself head over toes for the new books you read—”

“ When I don’t.”

“And you still don’t want your sister here, I won’t interfere.”

The lady didn’t reject his proposal outright. He’d more than half expected she would.

He touched a hand to his heart. “You have my word, Glain.”

She chewed at her lower lip, studying him warily. “You expect me to trust your word, and yet, I do not know you at all,” she spoke haltingly, as though engaged in a battle with herself.

From the corner of his eye, he spied Lady Glain’s siblings as they ducked their heads from around a tall bookshelf.

With their eyes, elder sister and younger sister engaged in a silent exchange. The younger girl fairly pleaded with her gaze.

“Please,” Opal silently mouthed from across the way.

Lady Glain closed her eyes tightly, and when she opened them, she sighed. “Very well, Mr. Grimoire. You have one week. An hour each day, and not more than that. And at the end of our time together, I expect you will honor your promise and cease interfering in my relationship with my sister.”

From that nearby aisle, a happy squeal went up followed immediately by the boy shushing her to silence, muffling that tell-tale happiness with what Abaddon suspected was his hand.

His mouth twitched even as Glain firmed her lips. No wonder they existed in a perpetual pout. Not that he minded. They were perfectly plump and lush and put a man in mind of forbidden, wicked imaginings.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Grimoire.”

He touched the brim of his brow. “Glain,” he said, and this time, as she swept off, he made no attempt to stop her.

Suddenly, Abaddon smiled, very eager for tomorrow, and the challenge before him.