Poetic Justice (4 page)

If
I inherit.

And she wouldn't, if her uncle remained unreasonable about her marriage.

And Alfred Wiley had to know that.

Absently she straightened out a shelf of sermon volumes, reorganizing her thoughts as she reorganized the titles. Alfred Wiley stood to gain only if she didn't marry before the deadline of her twenty-third birthday. He appeared to be a mild-mannered scholarly sort, but tenacious as he was about the Bacon holdings he considered his own, she couldn't imagine he would let them go without a struggle.

She located a white spot on her now-dusty handkerchief and applied it to the green leather cover of Dr. Donne's sermons. Staring unseeing at the gilt letters of the title, she recalled her uncle brandishing the poison-pen letter, only the latest of several he had received about her suitors. Uncle Emory hadn't let her read any of them. He persisted in thinking she was too innocent for such knowledge, and insisted on burning them. But she had caught glimpses of three of the notes, and knew enough from studying autograph manuscripts to make some suppositions. No two of the letters appeared to be written in the same hand. This last one about Damien, indeed, bore the spidery hand of a man of the previous century, while an earlier one had been a bold modern scrawl.

It was unlikely that four separate people would have reason to scotch her marriage chances, and just happen on the same way to do it. No, it would have to be someone who not only had a motive, but also knew enough about her uncle to manipulate his protective instincts. And it would have to be someone with access to different scribes—or the ability to write in different hands.

Suddenly she replaced the book on the shelf and used the last clean corner of the handkerchief to dust off her hands. Quietly she moved through the stacks of shelves to the staircase that led up to the second level. She stopped to pull off her shoes, hiding them behind a box of unbound papers. Then she crept up the steps, her hand braced lightly on the bannister. At the top she ducked down and peered through the iron railing, over the tops of bookshelves, methodically scanning the aisles. Mr. Wiley was nowhere to be seen in the sea of books.

Still hunched over, Jessica tiptoed along the landing to the storage room. She flattened herself against the wall and peeked in through the open door. The room was unoccupied. The vault along the back wall that held the most valuable items was, as always, locked up tight. Only the solicitors had the keys to that door, a fact, she imagined, of constant annoyance to Mr. Wiley.

Retrieving her shoes, she went through the main room to the workroom along the side of the library. The door to Mr. Wiley's office was closed. Bolder now, she knocked, and when she received no response, she pushed open the door. A wave of hot air rushed out.

Resisting the urge to open the window, Jessica closed her mouth tight against the dusty air and steered a path through the piles of monographs that led to to the desk. She couldn't touch the papers on the desk, for it wouldn't do to leave any trace of her presence here. Fortunately, Mr. Wiley had left them scattered about in such a random fashion that she was able to get a variety of views of his handwriting.

Nowhere did she see a hand to match any on the poison pen letters.

She knew only a moment's disappointment, however. One sheet half-covered by the blotter bore the distinctively cramped signature. "William Shakespeare."

For an instant she imagined it was really the hand of the great bard. Then she called her pounding heart back into order. It was only a copy, surely, like those currently adorning the covers of some editions of his plays. Her fingers itched to touch it nonetheless, especially the odd little "h" with its short shaft and long furbelowed tail.

Instead she edged around the desk so she could bend down and view it straight on. As she stared at it, she fumbled in her reticule for her magnifying lens. With that aid, she could tell that it was not a printed copy, but written in ink on the same writing paper that littered Mr. Wiley's desk.

Curiosity kills the cat, Aunt Martha was fond of saying. Fortunately, Jessica told herself as she eased the page from the under the blotter, cats have nine lives.

She read rapidly, unbelievingly as the lines emerged. "Sir Francis Shakespeare" was the heading, in Mr. Wiley's clear flowing script. "The Signature above is that of an Illiterate man, a man who could not spell his own Name, who never attended School, nor owned a book. This cannot, therefore, be the Signature of the man who so Eloquently crafted the plays and sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare."

A distant door opened. She paused only long enough to read the next impossible line—"There is but one solution to this Puzzle. The works of 'Shakespeare' are actually the Works of Bacon"—before shoving the page back under the blotter. Then she shoved her magnifier back in to her reticule, picked up her skirt, and dashed out of the office into the relative safety of the shelves.

When Mr. Wiley found her, she was kneeling on the floor between two stacks, assiduously reading a volume in the faint light. She assembled an expression of dismay and scrambled to her feet. "Mr. Wiley! I was just looking for you. I wondered if I could borrow this book of Herbert's religious poems. Reading them might bring a bit of comfort to my aunt."

Mr. Wiley had never been one for open displays of dislike, even for the young woman he must regard as a rival. But Jessica had noticed that, as her father's deadline approached, the librarian was taking fewer pains to disguise his triumph. "I thought you understood, Miss Seton, that I do not allow books to leave the collection." He paused slightly, so that Jessica could feel the weight of his authority, then added, "As you know, that was your father's policy."

Jessica cared naught for the Herbert volume, but knew that Mr. Wiley would expect her to argue. She let her lip droop in a debutante's pout. "But sir, it is for my aunt. My father would certainly understand my borrowing it."

Mr. Wiley reached out an imperative hand and gripped the disputed book. Jessica put up a token resistance, then surrendered. With a sniff and a flounce, she pushed past him and out the door, secretly gleeful each time her reticule, with the stolen Moll Flanders, banged against her leg.

It was only later, in the privacy of her laboratory, that she allowed herself to consider the implications of what she had learned in Wiley's office. As she painstakingly applied the cleaning solution to the old stain, those few lines chased each other across her mind. Shakespeare the illiterate. Sir Francis Shakespeare.

And to feed this insanity, Alfred Wiley was using her beloved collection.

CHAPTER THREE

Knowing I loved my books,

he furnished me from my own library

with volumes that I prize above my dukedom
.

The Tempest, I, ii

Against the opulence of the blue-gray reception room, the Prince Regent's attire was unusually sober, a plain dark coat with a black mourning band around his arm. Recalling the death of Princess Charlotte half a year earlier, John made his belated condolences. The prince shook his head, raised his hand, murmured some dismissal. His somber eyes brightened only as they fixed on the parcel John carried.

Still the prince was ever a gentleman, and never put business before courtesy. "How good to see you, Captain. And how is my Cousin Tatiana? Well, I hope."

It was the Princess Tatiana who first introduced them, this art smuggler and the royal collector, and the prince's first question was always of her health and happiness. John was able to answer this, as her characteristically newsy seven-page letter had been awaiting him on his arrival in London. "She is well. Planning a great ball for one of her charities this summer."

"Ah, yes, the princess's charities. She will no doubt extort contributions from us both! But such a charming girl. I recall when she first came here to England, she told me that her cousin the tsar had no real claim to the throne. Sometimes I wish I might remind him of that, when he is at his most imperial. But I forget! You brought her here, didn't you?"

"On the Coronale, as a matter of fact." He glanced down at the leather portfolio he held, hiding a smile. "Devlyn, you'll recollect, was her escort."

"Yes, yes. Fine man, that Devlyn." He paused, frowned, shook his head. "She was supposed to marry one of my brothers, you know. Clarence? Cumberland? I can't recall. Wanted Devlyn instead."

"No accounting for taste, sir."

John's diplomacy wasn't necessary. The prince gave a bark of laughter. "Who can blame her, after all? Still, now it seems that it might have been better for us if she had taken one of them after all. Now that—"

He broke off. Princess Charlotte had been the king's only grandchild, the only legitimate one, at least. The other princes were in a frenzy of nuptials now, determined to get another heir birthed before the king and Prinny died. But the prince had ever been a romantic, fortunately for Devlyn, and now only smiled ruefully at what might have been. "You tell her, my cousin Tatiana, to come see me next she is in London. She can bring that reprobate husband of hers too."

John matched the prince's effort to restore the lightness of their converse. "Devlyn will be delighted to hear himself called a reprobate, sir. I used to call him the Archangel Michael, when we were boys."

"That's right, you were boys together, down there in Dorset, weren't you?"

The prince peered at him, waiting for some response.

But John only nodded and started to untie the split-end knot that secured the treasure.

After an awkward moment, Prinny added, "Was this voyage on that Coronale also? A pretty little vessel, I hear. You had a pleasant passage, I hope." The regent was unfailing in his courtesy, making the necessary pleasantries, calling to the footman to bring brandy, though he never took his eyes off the package John was opening. He even left unspoken the accusation that John's arrival was three weeks later than he had promised.

"Yes, sir. I stopped off in France, to pursue another manuscript, but it came to naught." With an effort, he forced the regret from his voice. "So I have only this to show you."

This
was the Jerusalem. John opened the leather portfolio and withdrew the manuscript, the gold gilt pattern of the cover cool and smooth under his fingers. He placed it into the prince's hands, then crossed to a table to bring a lamp closer. During the long voyage he'd had time to start its restoration, and as the regent reverently turned the leaves, the illuminations on the first six pages glowed bright as a Tintoretto painting.

"It's very lovely. Very lovely." The prince lightly traced the ancient letters on one page, reading the text under his breath. Most of his subjects credited this man with small intelligence, but John knew better. The archaic Greek posed the prince no great difficulty. "It is a prize. Tell me, did you have very much trouble securing it?"

This, in the prince's polite parlance, was a request for a purchase price. He would pay it, whatever it was; John knew from long experience that the regent could refuse no beautiful thing once he had held it in his hands. It was no great sport to take advantage of him, and John never had, and wasn't likely to start now.

"No. The Vatican was straight on my heels—Alavieri'd gotten wind of my search somehow—but too late. I had no competition in the bidding, so I am able to offer it to you for 400 pounds." This was sixfold the actual price, but he had to pay for the voyage and leave a bit of room for profit.

Even so, the prince laughed with delight. "What a rogue you are. 400 pounds. You must have stolen it."

"I did my best not to," John replied dryly. "The sellers were not the worldly sort."

"Well, their naivete is my gain, I suppose. And you beat Alavieri, did you? Oh, this is a great find, Captain Dryden. And a great day! You have brightened my spirits." Then his mouth tightened, and he set the book on the marble table, keeping one hand gently on the gilt-laced cover. "I recall that there is something of—of a balance owing."

A thousand pounds, or thereabouts. There was an opulent Titian nude, and a sheaf of letters from Henry V to his bride Katherine, rescued from Napoleon's library after the first abdication. And a few other acquisitions, large and small, John had done on credit, without even his expenses covered.

The prince had never spoken of his troubles with Parliament, except an occasional muttering about the Commons' philistinism. "They know nothing of art," he might say, "of the nation's interest in preserving it." John was an art dealer, not a politician, so he naturally agreed that acquiring a twelfth-century Bible was more important than outfitting some regiment for battle or purchasing new coaches for the Royal Mail. Anyway, Parliament usually paid Prinny's shot eventually, after making the largest possible fuss in the newspapers and stirring up radical sentiments among the populace. But lately it had all been getting ugly, with rumors that the Regent had gone as mad as his father and was bent on bankrupting the treasury on frivolous furbelows like paintings and old books.

John crossed to the window. One wasn't supposed to turn a back on the sovereign, so he stood sideways, looking out at the carriages maneuvering through the crowded Mall. The prince had always been a good customer, generous in his gratitude, profligate with his recommendations. His ministers had doubtlessly informed him of John's background, and counseled against doing business with such a one. The foreign secretary, until recently John's occasional if secret employer, would have been vigorous in his warnings against converse, though he needn't have worried. John was nothing if not careful to keep his several professions separate.

Despite these warnings, the prince, however, always greeted him with that easy charm that took no note of class or position or past. He had the regal manner, certainly, but not the regal disdain so common in John's royal customers. The Bourbons, for example, were as haughty as if a revolution, executions, exile, and twenty years of war had only proved their divine right to treat the rest of the world as serfs. But not the prince.