The Collectors' Society 01 (14 page)

I’m the one to take the book from her.
Lovers’ Vows
, it says on front. It’s a playbook. There is nothing remarkable about it at all—just worn pages and words like any other well-read book.

“It is hard to believe that this is a catalyst.” Fanny Bertram’s voice is soft as she stares down at the object in my hands. “It’s hard to believe, if this were to be destroyed, so would we all.”

“What my sister is saying is that it is much consolation to know that we will no longer have anything to fear, at least when it comes to this,” another of the ladies says. I root around in the names so freshly given to find Susan Price. But it turns out she isn’t talking to me—no, her attention is still squarely on Finn. And she’s smiling a bit shyly, a demure blush stealing across her porcelain cheeks.

He nods politely, but doesn’t say anything in return. Doesn’t even look her directly in the face, which is blatantly rude of him and radically unlike the man I’ve known for the last two days. The poor girl blushes even harder as the conversation progresses, Finn chooses to ignore her even more, and it occurs to me that this, here—this woman and her blushing—very well may be the product of whatever speed dating may be. Eventually, she sidles up to him and refuses to leave for the remainder of our talk. It’s only when he spies children peeking around a corner is he able to shake her off.

Finn wanders over to where they are and extracts several objects out of his pockets. He’s brought them toys. Simple wooden ones that fit their time, but at the sight of the gifts, the children could not be more delighted. And I am reluctantly enchanted as I watch him squat down before them and explain how they work. One of the children, a little girl with brown ringlets, throws her arms around him and he allows it. There are cultured adults here and he’s spending his time instead making children happy.

Finn Van Brunt has manners. He’s kind to children.

I hate the tingling that spreads in the pit of my belly.

Once we’re upstairs, and I’m tucking the playbook in my bag I’ve brought, I attempt to dispel the warm feelings brought on by watching his generosity by teasing him. “One of the women down there seems to be quite taken with you. Have you two had a romantic entanglement in the past?”

He shuts my bedroom door, which is surprising as decorum insists unmarried men and ladies behind closed doors is a firm no-no. “One of the Janeites has made it her mission to make as many matches as she can because apparently she has nothing better to do. A Mrs. Emma Knightley. We met a year ago, and she was horrified and then delighted I’m single. That poor girl has probably been told I’m her perfect match.” Another attractive flush steals up his neck as he perches on the edge of my bed, picking at a loose thread on the waistcoat he’s borrowed from the Society’s archives.

I come to sit next to him. “I shudder to think what might happen once this Mrs. Knightley finds I’m unwed.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt about it. You’d be her latest obsession. I’m sure she’s got a long list of ‘quality husbands’ just waiting to be passed out.”

I laugh, and in turn, he smiles. There is an easiness between us that shouldn’t be there. One that hasn’t been earned yet. One I can’t afford to allow. One I don’t even know if I
want
to allow.

An hour later, we are all seated at a vast table in a room lit by dozens of candles. Finn and I are separated by nearly the entire length of the table—he, to sit in between Fanny and her infatuated sister Susan, I to sit in between the clergyman and his baronet brother. As the men next to me ask inane, polite questions, I spend more of my time absorbing the distinct discomfort that’s plaguing Finn. All of the amusement we shared in my room is lost, all of the joy he showed the children vanished without a trace, and in its place is annoyance he is clearly desperate to contain. Thankfully, he’s never rude to Susan, but the one time she touches him, he jerks away as if her fingers are filled with fire.

Honestly, I’m enthralled. I’ve only known him a short time, but so far, Finn Van Brunt has struck me as a confident man who can hold his own. So to see him so grossly uncomfortable leaves me wondering what the story here is.

I refocus on the men sitting by me. “Do you mind me inquiring if either of you knows a Mrs. Knightley?”

Both of the men surrounding me set their spoons down on their plates. The clergyman says, “If you are speaking of the Mrs. Knightley I think you are, a Mrs. Emma Knightley, she is a member of the Janeite council alongside Fanny.”

“She’s a bloody nuisance, it what she is,” the baronet mutters. His wife, seated farther on down the table, shoots a glance weighed heavily in disapproval. He, in turn, scowls even harder.

“I would have thought that you might know Mrs. Knightley,” the clergyman says. “Being that you are part of the Collectors’ Society and all.”

There is no good answer to that that would be pleasant conversation, so I merely lift a full spoonful of soup to my mouth.

“Mrs. Knightley is a busy body,” the baronet says loudly, clearly goading his wife. “Nothing pleases her more than the blasted act of matchmaking.”

Susan Price gasps and blushes. Finn goes stock still. So I was right. Speed dating has something to do with matchmaking.

“She is charming nearly to a fault,” the clergyman argues.

The baronet scowls but says nothing further.

At the end of dinner, the men are to retire to a separate room, with none so much relieved to do so than Finn. The ladies present invite me to join them in a card game, but the truth is, all I can think about is a soft bed and good sleep, especially considering I’d had very little sleep the night before. I think they’re disappointed in me leaving, but I’m realistic enough to know when I’d be poor company. I relent and allow Finn to escort me as far as the stairs, and when I stumble up the first few steps, he’s right there to catch me.

It’s an unbearably sweet gesture that has me fumbling to reinsert an arm’s distance. I jerk away from his touch more strongly than I ought to.

“Are you feeling okay?”

My eyes widen in confusion.

“I ask because you’re flushed.”

Well, now I am.

“If you don’t feel good, we should leave.” He’s on the step below me, and I still have to look up at him. “You can be in your own bed tonight and then sleep in as long as you like in the morning.”

Too many complicated emotions ping throughout my chest. There’s that concern again, and the easiness that ought not be there yet. I met this man two days ago. He’s a stranger. An attractive stranger, a kind one, but one all the same.

Besides, the bed he’s talking about doesn’t feel like mine. It feels like Sara’s, and I am a momentary interloper who is wearing her clothes, surrounded by her things, and working with her partner. My bed, my real bed, the one that holds the most meaning to me, is elsewhere.

Sadness threatens to crush me.

Somebody calls out Finn’s name, to let him know a card game is about to begin. And yet, rather than going like he ought, he waits for my answer. Part of me wants to tell this man yes, but all-too-familiar yet necessary defenses go up once more. “Don’t we have a meeting in the morning to attend?”

“Screw the meeting.”

His quiet vehemence makes me smile. “I’m going to need a modern-day vocabulary primer, aren’t I?”

There. He’s smiling once more. It’s not as wide as I’ve seen, but it’s a start.

It takes me several minutes to make it to my room in Mansfield Park, and once I do, I’m met with a surprise. A man I’ve never met is in my chamber, one whose photograph I examined early this morning. He’s of average height, with a neat blond beard and large holes rimmed in metal in his ears. He’s dressed entirely in black and wearing a tool belt, a black hat with a long bill covering what is undoubtedly slicked-back hair. But more importantly, he’s holding a book in his hands. A certain playbook.

Specifically, a catalyst.

We stare at each other for what feels like forever but in reality must be just a few seconds. And then he growls, “Fuck me.”

I shut and lock the door behind me, my eyes never leaving him. “I’d rather not.”

A soft, menacing giggle floats between us. “Be a good gel and step aside. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but if you force my hand, I won’t have a choice.”

“Funny,” I tell him calmly. “I was about to say something similar. Only I wish you’d set the playbook down first.”

The bastard slides the book into the band of his pants. And then, out of the tool belt, he slips out a pair of switchblades. Once he flips them open, he performs a bizarre, grandstanding performance of swirling them around, all the while grinning like an egotistical fool.

I have no time for such uselessness.

Confusion reigns in the room, because I dart toward the fireplace at the same moment he charges me. A poker is claimed just as one of the blades grazes the skin of my arm.

Muslin has been torn. A dress has been destroyed.

“This,” I tell him flatly, “was not my dress to ruin.”

His eyes widen as another malicious laugh escapes him. I happily wipe it straight off his face when the poker whips out and strikes him squarely across the arm he appears to favor. No howl sounds, though, just a grunt as he stumbles back.

It’s my turn to rip the dress, straight down from the hip right before he charges me once more. I let loose a roundhouse kick to his throat that sends him sprawling. Granted, it’s only momentarily, but it’s enough for me to jab the poker smartly into ribs once, twice. Blood is drawn.

I show him my teeth.

The blades in his hands sweep in swishing arcs as we begin our dance. Clang after clang, strike after strike, slash after poke, I eventually make headway and angle the would-be thief away from the door. He catches me off guard once, sweeping me with a leg until I fall onto my bottom, but I’ve always been quick on my feet.

When I knock off his hat, I tell him, “You’re boring me.”

“See,” he volleys back in what sounds vaguely like the bastard child of French and Cockney accents, “I was just thinkin’ what a delight you are.”

A kick sends one of his blades skittering out of his hand. “Polite gentlemen introduce themselves to ladies they find delightful.”

A vase nearby shatters; a table overturns in our dance. Part of me revels in this, as I’ve been removed from such pastimes for far too long. And I’m inordinately pleased when a simple yet solid kick planted against his ribs leaves him winded and wincing.

I spin as he stumbles back, gaining traction to slam the length of the poker across his nose just as he catches my shoulder with his blade. Blood spurts as he curses, and I use his momentary distraction to snatch the book right out of his pants.

He howls, “Bitch!” from between blackened yet bloody teeth when I shove the catalyst down the front of my dress.

Another well-placed kick sends him right where I want him, flat on his arse and without his second blade. “And here I was thinking I was delightful.”

He wheezes, his eyes nearly bulging in fury. “I’ll enjoy slitting your throat.”

It’s time to put this sorry fellow out of his misery. The dance is over. I punch him squarely in the face. Thankfully, his head crashes hard enough against the dresser behind to leave him finally languishing in unconsciousness. The mirror above falls and shatters in a deafening din. A bowl topples over, spilling water everywhere. Never one to trust one knock on the head to be enough, I straddle him and haul his newly bleeding skull back before slamming it as hard as I can into the dresser. Bits of wood splinter in his wake.

His body slumps to the ground like a wet noodle.

Amateur.

A quick dig through his pockets leaves me empty handed, but when I reclaim his fallen switchblades, I find what I’m looking for. Carved neatly into each blade is the following:
S Todd.

I lean down and pet his damp hair. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck next time, Mr. Todd.”

Shouting fills the hallway, and pounding sounds on the door. I stand up and smooth what is left of my tattered dress. “Be a good boy and stay where you are.”

But before I can open the door, it crashes open, halfway ripped off its hinges. Finn is right there, a gun in one of his hands, as the rest of the men and women of Mansfield Park huddle behind him, terrified.

“Alice! Are you—” He shoves the gun in a holster hidden beneath his coat I hadn’t noticed earlier. “Jesus! You’re bleeding!”

I glance down at my arms. Thin lines beading with red crisscross through destroyed muslin. I’ve seen worse, much worse, so these don’t even register as noteworthy. “It’s nothing. We ought to be more concerned with this fellow.” I hook a thumb behind me. “I caught him trying to remove the catalyst.”

Someone behind us screams. Scratch that—two or three somebodies scream. Well, wasn’t Finn mistaken? The vapors have arrived after all.

But Finn isn’t looking at our sleeping thief or even the hysterical women behind him. His attention is still on me, his worried eyes running up and down my ruined dress. There’s shock there, but hints of that genuine concern, too. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Honestly, Finn. If you only—”

He reaches out and gently tilts my head. “Did that asshole hit you in the face?!”

I try not to melt at his touch.
Stranger
, I tell myself.
Stranger. Finn Van Brunt is a stranger
.
You’re not allowed to feel this way.
“Bruises heal. Just have a look at our guest, would you?”

It’s reluctant, but he does as I ask. And then his eyes widen before they narrow as they take in my latest dance partner. I pass over one of the blades. “S. Todd. Sound familiar at all?”

He takes a deep breath before tugging me away from the body. “Is he alone?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t have a chance to ask him that one yet. I’m sure we can pour some water on his head and wake him up, though.”

Finn turns to our hosts—correction, host, as only the baronet is still present. He beckons us to the hallway with a trembling hand. “A word, please?”

Before he says whatever it is he wants to, Finn tells him, “I’m afraid we won’t be able to stay tonight. It’s best we get back to the Institute with the catalyst right away.”