Adventures with Jane and her Legacy 01 Jane Austen Ruined My Life (13 page)

"Why would I have an angle?"

He laughed. "Nice try, Emma. What do you really want from me?"

Well, so much for trickery, even my mild version of it. Maybe it was a good thing that I couldn't lie very well. On the other hand, maybe if I had been more adept at deceit, I would have picked up on Edward's betrayal much earlier than I did.

"I need to get my hands on some books at the British Library, but I don't have time for the niceties."

He shrugged. "Sure. I can help you with that."

I smiled. "And I actually do want to see the rare-manuscript exhibit."

"It may still take some time to get the books."

I paused. "Well, actually ..."

"Yes?"

"You do a lot of research there. I was thinking, since they know you, they might, well, expedite things a bit."

Now he was grinning broadly. "So, you don't just want me to get the books for you. You want me to call in some favors and get them ASAP."

"Um, yeah."

He laughed. "Okay, but only because you're so cute when you're trying to be underhanded."

I started to laugh too, and then I froze. I looked at Adam across the scrubbed pine table, and he was looking back at me. And for a moment, I felt the jolt of connection, that combination of shock and awareness that signaled mutual attraction. I jerked and my hand knocked over my coffee cup, spilling hot liquid across my lap.

"Ow!" I leaped up from the table and went running for the sink. I grabbed a tea towel from the countertop and dabbed at my legs.

"Are you okay?" Suddenly Adam was right beside me. I could feel his breath against my cheek. "Did you burn yourself?"

"I'm okay. Really. I'm fine." I sort of hopped to the side to put some much needed distance between us. He smelled like coffee and spicy aftershave. I kept patting the towel against
my legs long after it had soaked up the worst of the spill. "So, would you have time to go today?"

Adam gave me a funny look and stepped back toward the table. "You have a bit of an obsession, huh?" And then he shot me a speculative look. "What exactly do you need to research?"

"Just a little tidbit about Jane Austen. Nothing that important."

"Yeah, it's so unimportant that you can't go register for your own pass and wait like a normal person for the books."

Shoot. So much for not setting off his curiosity. "I just need to verify a footnote for a paper I'm finishing up." Yes, I was lying through my teeth, but it was for a worthy cause.

Adam's expression, the lines around his mouth, and the darkening of his eyes clearly communicated that he didn't believe me. "Look, Em, you don't have to give me a full report or tell me anything that would make you uncomfortable."

"But? I can hear that 'but' coming."

"But I need to stay on good terms with the people there. I need to know that whatever you're doing is on the up-and-up."

"Up-and-up?" A shot of cold skated down my spine. "Why would you think--" And then I stopped. "Oh, right. My academic misdeeds."

It shouldn't have hurt so much that Adam might have doubts about my innocence, but it did hurt, tremendously.

"I'm doing legitimate research for a legitimate purpose,"
I said, and it was true, even though I had the childish urge to cross my fingers behind my back.

"All right. I'll help you."

"Really?"

"Really."

Relief, warm and fluid, sped through my veins. "I'll go do an online catalog search and let you know what I need."

With any luck, I could uncover some mention, some corroborating evidence that Jack Smith had actually existed. I stepped toward Adam, the sudden impulse to hug him prompting me before my better judgment brought me to a halt.

"Thanks, Adam. I really appreciate it."

"Sure." But he still looked a little dubious. "I'll have to go with you, you know. But if I can turn on the old charm and get you into the reading room, you'll be in business."

"Thank you." The sincerity in my tone must have convinced him that I wasn't using him for nefarious purposes.

I glanced at my watch. "Give me half an hour to figure out which books I need."

"I'll call them when you have your list," Adam said. "I know who to ask."

"You're a peach." This time I did step toward him and reach out to squeeze his arm. Since he had his arms crossed in front of him, I ended up with my hand on his bicep. A very firm bicep, I had to acknowledge. Especially for an English professor.

Later that morning, we made our way to the British Library, a straight shot into town on the Northern Line of the Underground. Adam was as good as his word, somehow convincing the powers that be to allow me into the reading room and bringing me the books I'd requested. I spent hours poring through them--out-of-print biographies and critical commentaries on Austen--hoping against hope to find just one mention of a Jack Smith, but my quest proved futile.

By mid-afternoon, I was bleary-eyed, exhausted, and convinced that Mrs. Parrot really was sending me on a wild-goose chase. Adam sat beside me the whole time, reading. I thought he would look over the top of his book and try to see what I was about, but he kept his eyes glued to the page.

"It's no use," I said, as weary and discouraged now as I'd been upbeat that morning. "I can't find what I'm looking for."

"Maybe another day." Adam tried to sound encouraging, which I appreciated, but I also knew that I was looking for a needle in a haystack. A needle with the disappointingly common name of Jack Smith.

"I'm not sure that what I'm looking for exists," I said, despondent. Had I wasted a precious day for nothing?

Adam returned the books, and we left the reading room together. As we made our way toward the exhibit area for the rare manuscripts, I tried to suppress my frustration. The secret I was pursuing was so potentially volatile that I couldn't ask anyone for help in uncovering it, but, paradoxically, I wasn't likely to uncover it if I couldn't ask for help.

"I didn't realize it would be so dim in here," I said as we entered the gallery that housed the rarest treasures of the British Library.

It was as dim and quiet as an ancient cathedral inside. Glass-fronted cases lined the walls and also formed large islands throughout the L-shaped space. The exhibit wasn't large-- maybe the size of several college classrooms joined together-- but as I made my way into the area, I realized why it was so quiet, despite the number of visitors. For most people, it contained what amounted to the holiest of relics.

"These are the literary manuscripts," Adam said, guiding me to the left.

I stopped at the first display. The case showed the birth of modern English literature--Beowulf, Sidney, Milton, Dryden. I'd seen my share of rare manuscripts, but somehow, these particular pieces lined up side by side, a breathtaking record of the language and literature I loved, caused my throat to tighten. Small descriptions beside each manuscript gave the briefest of background information.

I moved from one to the next, barely aware of Adam beside me. It was one thing to study the great writers of the English language but another to stand there, looking at their actual work, their handwriting, their literary footprints preserved on the original page.

And then there, at the bottom of the case, sat an antique writing desk--more of a wooden box, really--whose lid could
be lifted to use as a writing surface, while paper, ink, nibs, blotters, and other essentials were stored inside.

"That's hers," I said in a whisper. Beside me, I could feel Adam grin.

"Do you feel the need to genuflect?"

I made a face at him. "Until the late nineteen nineties, it was stored in some relative's closet, in a suitcase."

He looked at me in surprise. "You're kidding."

"No. There's no telling what kind of Austen-related items might turn up in the coming years. I'm guessing that the descendants of her nieces and nephews have all sorts of stuff tucked away." Not to mention the stash in the Formidables' possession.

I turned back to the case and studied the items intently. Her writing desk was open, a letter lying across it. A pen and a pair of spectacles rested on top of it, but I could still see the letter quite clearly, and it looked achingly familiar, even compared to the photocopies Mrs. Parrot had given me. If the older lady was deceiving me, then she had the services of a top-rate forger in her arsenal.

"There's a manuscript page there, too," Adam said, pointing to a copy of the
Juvenilia
.

I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn't cry. I didn't want to look like a total sap. After all, I was a serious scholar, not a fan, but at the moment, I sure felt like one.

"Who else is here?" I asked, aching to move away, like a worshipper who has stepped too close to the divine.

I couldn't stand there looking at the writing desk any longer. We moved on down the glass-fronted case, and I continued to bask in the glow of such amazing treasures.

"Here's Charlotte Bronte," Adam said, pointing to a handwritten book opened to reveal the last chapter of
Jane Eyre
.

Reader, I married him
.

Those haunting words that induced tears in the most hardened heart didn't have to work very hard to reduce me to tears. Adam looked at me oddly, then reached in his pocket and produced yet another handkerchief.

"Thank you." I smiled as I dabbed at my eyes and wiped my cheeks.

"It's overwhelming, isn't it?" Adam said. "Maybe we should go to the cafe, have a cup of tea."

"That's very British of you." I smiled through my tears. You had to like a guy who was that big an advocate of the British cure-all of a cuppa.

When we had settled in at a table in the modernist cafe just outside the gallery, Adam wrapped his hands around his paper cup and looked me straight in the eye.

"So, what exactly are you looking for, Emma? Why all the secrecy?"

I had to look away while I struggled for an answer that was neither the truth nor a lie.

"If you're going to ask me for my help, maybe you should trust me, just a little."

I turned back to him and knew that my expression must
have been as bleak as my heart at the moment. "Trust is not my strong suit right now."

Adam winced. "Point taken."

"After Edward--"

Adam held up his hand. "Enough said. But, still, you seem pretty determined to find something. How about this? What if you let me help you, but you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to?"

"I really do need to verify a fact for some research I'm doing," I said, aware that I was starting to repeat myself. Not the best way to enhance one's credibility.

"Seems like a lot of trouble for one fact."

"It's pivotal."

"
Hmm
." He took a drink of his tea. "So, if you couldn't verify it here, what are you going to do next?"

I could hardly tell him that I planned to head for Bath to meet with an elderly woman who was harboring a goodly portion of Jane Austen's missing letters as part of larger conspiracy of silence. So, instead, I shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"Emma ..." I could hear the disappointment in his voice. "Do you really think I'm going to fall for that?"

"Fall for what?"

"That helpless female routine. I don't buy it."

"I'm not trying to be some damsel in distress."

"That's obvious."

"It is?" Strangely, his accusation made me feel better instead of worse.

"Well, look at it from my point of view," he said. "You had the good sense to dump Edward, and in spite of some academic ...
er
... difficulties, shall we say, you're here, pursuing research that's important to you. I'd say you're pretty resilient."

Oddly, I hadn't thought of it that way before, but hearing the words come out of Adam's mouth, I started to see my situation in a slightly different light.

"Actually, I do need your help with one more thing today," I said, feeling braver. I wasn't sure whether it was the tea, the sight of Jane Austen's writing desk, or Adam's encouragement. Perhaps it was all three.

"I don't think I can pull any more strings for you here," he said, holding up his hands as if to ward me off. "Even my charm isn't that powerful."

I laughed. "This isn't research. It's more of a ... commercial transaction."

"I'm afraid to ask what that means."

I reached into my purse and pulled out the small velvet bag I'd stowed there earlier that morning. With trembling fingers, I opened the drawstring and poured the contents into the palm of my hand. My diamond solitaire and the accompanying band of smaller stones sparkled under the light from the modern pendant lamp above our heads.

"Your wedding rings?" Adam said, puzzled.

"I need to pawn them, only I have no idea how that works over here."

Adam looked up, his gaze capturing mine. "Emma--"

"I don't want to discuss it, Adam. I just want to get rid of them. And get as much money for them as I can."

He paused, and I could tell he was considering his words carefully.

"Emma, I can loan you the money. Take some time to think this over."

"I made this decision the day I walked into my kitchen and found--" I stopped myself just in time, shook my head. "I need to get rid of these, Adam. Will you help me? And then I promise to leave you alone."