Isaac King stormed out of the dining room and down the length of one of Holly Lodge’s ridiculously long corridors, cursing with such vehemence that the flames of the candles lining the way in their polished sconces shuddered violently close to extinction.
‘Don’t plunge us all into darkness, Isaac,’ his mistress, Lady Satine, called after him. ‘You can be upset with me, but it’s unkind to frighten the staff so early in the day.’
Isaac growled beneath his breath and flicked his finger at the nearest scone. The flame bowed to his will — it would never deny a fire elemental — and extinguished itself. He grunted, but still fumed.
The London morning had hardly broken, and he was in a rage. Lady Satine had just informed him he was to collect a Purebred from Islington and bring them to Holly Lodge. For what, she hadn’t said, and he did not care. Since when had Isaac gone from driving the elite of the supernatural world to ferrying about blasted humans? And for such a brief journey, too. Did this man have no legs? Could he not walk the three miles?
Now, let it be made clear, Isaac appreciated humankind had attributes; there were libraries full of testaments to their occasional genius, and he was not unopposed to bedding a man or three, but he was opposed to being made their servant.
‘Not even had a bite of toast and sip of tea and she’s sending me out like a I’m a common damned cabman.’ But he was foul-tempered most of all because he'd been robbed of time with his books. Not a single page turned. ‘I’m a coachman for the Order of the Golden Dawn, and I’ve far better things to do than drive a Purebred bastard about.’
‘Like what? Read your dreadful books?’ Lady Satine’s voice floated after him from where she sat in a distant room, merrily eating her butter-laden toast. ‘I swear, if you were given the chance to read all the books in the world, in a hundred years time we’d find you with your arse fused to an armchair and your eyes hanging from your head.’
‘Don’t want to read them all,’ he threw back. ‘Not all worth reading.’ He had moved well away from where his mistress ate her breakfast, but neither of them needed to shout. Yet another advantage they had over humans who would need to holler like fishmongers to be heard.
‘So you say, and yet you refuse to tell me which you love the most. I simply must know what captures my surly coachman and promotes such fierce protectiveness of all those pieces of pressed cotton.’
‘I gave you Robinson Crusoe fifty years ago, and all you did was get butter smears on the cover. Haven’t read a page.’
‘Because I know you only gave it to me because you did not care what happened to it. You did not love that book, Isaac.’
‘Just as well, with the mess you made of it.’ They’d known each other far too long for anything close to formality.
Lady Satine sighed; a sound like the rush of wind through the tall grasses. ‘I’ve sworn to you, I shall never again get a smear of butter on your precious books, but I’d love to learn which ones enrapture you so.’
Isaac grunted and shook his head. He’d follow any order the lady gave him; he’d done so for hundreds of years without fuss. But he abhorred her preference for reading at mealtimes; with all those oils and jams and the opportunity for spills. He’d never give her a chance to ruin one of his favourite tomes. ‘Madam, my tastes are likely nothing similar to yours, and you are not one for sitting still long enough for reading.’
Another sigh. ‘I suppose you are right.’
He knew he was. ‘I’ll be on my way, now. On this intolerable task you have set me.’
‘Oh Isaac, are you unhappy with me?’ She knew he was. ‘My dearest, most wondrous Isaac. You are the greatest coachman this world has ever known, you must be for me to have chosen you all those years ago. So who else would I trust with this task?’
He hissed through his teeth. This task was appallingly basic, far beneath the coachman of the powerful Lady Satine, leader of the great Order; protectors of the supernatural world.
The candle in the scone nearest him flared high and bright, feeding on his anger. Black soot rose from its tip like a rising snake. Reaching the back door at last, Isaac stepped out into the cool morning air, brisk enough to make him wish he’d added another layer beneath his cloak. It was a great irony that a fire elemental could manipulate fire, but could not keep himself warm without being near to the flames. That much he had in common with the dreadful Purebreds. Humankind was always moaning about the cold.
‘If he’s not ready when I arrive I’m not waiting,’ Isaac grumbled.
His quiet words reached his mistress. ‘He’ll be ready,’ she said, clearly speaking with a mouth full of toast and butter. ‘He’s very keen on the position I offered him. Now be sure you don’t scare him off on the ride home, sweet Isaac.’
Isaac had never been sweet a day in his long life. He tugged his thick black scarf over his mouth and nose, touched his pocket to ensure his book was there (gods forbid he forgot his reading material on this day so foul already) and slammed the door closed behind him.
The man Lady Satine had sent Isaac to retrieve was ready and waiting for him, standing outside a boarded-up shopfront whose sign was so weather-worn it was all but illegible. He rubbed his bare hands against the crispness of the morning, his feet set either side of a small chest of reddish wood with brass fixings. When Isaac drew the horses to a stop, the man’s face relaxed into the relieved look many held when they feared they had missed the carriage entirely. The flush of red on his cheeks and nose suggested he’d been out here for some time. Silly fool wore no gloves or hat.
He stepped forward with a worried frown. ‘Master King?’
Isaac grunted a reply, more concerned with steadying his horses.
‘Oh wonderful,’ the man exclaimed. ‘I was so worried I had gotten the meeting time confused.’
If this fellow expected an apology from Isaac for the coach being ten minutes late on account of an overturned apple cart, then he’d be waiting until all the supernatural creatures of the world held hands and wished each other well; which was to say, never.
Isaac glanced down at the man, then let his gaze flick to the side of the carriage. ‘The door’s there, best you use it. Won’t do for you to be late on your first day.’
He’d have gotten out of his seat and opened the door usually, but usually he wasn’t ferrying around humans. An elemental had to draw the line somewhere.
‘Well it’s not my first day, actually. This is just a trial, Her Ladyship said, to ensure I’m fit for the task. I understand you’ll be bringing me home this evening, which is very kind.’
Isaac exhaled, long and loud. Kind wasn’t normally a description used on Isaac, but one thing he did already know was that he was certainly not playing cabman to this fellow again tonight.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ the man said hurriedly. ‘I’m taking up your time telling you things you already know.’
‘Get in.’
‘Of course, of course.’ Dressed in a decent-enough long brown coat with brass buttons and a raised black collar, the man bent to pick up the chest at his boot-clad feet. The chest, though small, must have had some weight to it because he huffed with the effort. ‘I’ll be right there…certainly…just one more moment. So sorry to keep you waiting.’
‘Just hurry it up.’ The sooner they were done with this, the sooner Isaac could be back in his favoured armchair, Jane Ayre in hand; the pages now in real danger of detaching from the spine, so often had he thumbed through the novel. What delight Lady Satine would have in learning that of all the outstanding books in the world, it was those filled with romance that truly captured her coachman.
Isaac shrugged deeper into his black layers, scowling. Was that so grand a deal? He clucked his tongue at his own uncertainty. No one would dare tell him what to enjoy. He sat in his copious layers, wrapped entirely in black; knowing how much he looked like a thundercloud when he did so; his complexion only a shade above that of the material itself. With the right dullness of light, it gave off the frightening effect that a shadow drove the carriage. It was wonderful; a highlight of his day to see how much he spooked the passersby. If the humans must be so stupid as to judge a man by his skin, then let them judge him as hauntingly terrifying.
‘Master King?’
‘What now? Why aren’t you in my coach?’ Isaac snarled, delighting in the brief widening of the man’s eyes; the evident concern tightening his face. Not a terrible face to look at, though. It had to be said.
The man had left the throes of his youth well behind and looked the better for it. Purebreds didn’t always age well, and the humans made it worse for themselves by trying to hide behind makeup and wigs and clothing that hid their supposed faults behind tight, painful layers. This fellow, though, fought no fight with time. Silver threatened to overrun the lighter chestnut brown of his hair, and the wrinkles at his eyes and forehead made him handsome rather than pathetic. He was short, too. Not obscenely so, but decently shorter than Isaac himself, and far slighter, which the coachman had always found a stirring attribute; not in wishing to dominate his mate, but to imagine he could protect them bodily and entirely, sweep them more readily into his arms should danger present.
He cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. ‘I asked you a question.’
The carriage door clicked shut, the chest inside, but not the man. The fellow now stood by the step Isaac used to clamber up into the driver’s seat. ‘Master King, I dare say you won’t like the answer.’
‘Now listen here…’ Isaac hesitated. Damned if he knew this time-waster’s name. ‘What do they call you?’
‘I’m Emrys, sir. Emrys Buxton. But I really must —’
‘Get in the carriage, Mr Buxton. I’ve better things to do than move you about.’ Isaac lifted the reins, whistling at the geldings. Their ears pricked, their harnesses jingled, and their hooves stomped the cobblestones.
‘Wait!’ Buxton grabbed at the step. ‘I can’t ride in your carriage.’
Isaac glared down at the man whose face had paled around the chill-flushed redness of his cheeks. ‘Listen here —’
‘It makes me sick…riding inside like that. And I’m so nervous as it is, I doubt I’d keep my dinner down…didn’t have breakfast you see, but I’d be horrified if I made a mess of her Ladyship’s beautiful brougham, or rather your beautiful carriage. I didn’t have the heart, or the guts, to tell your mistress that I’m a terrible traveller. And now I’ve seen how wonderful your carriage is… I’ve never seen one so polished. So marvellous I can see my reflection. Good as any mirror I’ve known.’
Isaac stared down at the man, who had taken leave of his senses; babbling like a fool. ‘No one rides with me. Get in the carriage. Now.’ Taking some theatrical liberties, Isaac urged the fledgling flames in the carriage lanterns right to shift from barely perceptible to bright and flaring in a heartbeat.
The man gasped, but did not step back as Isaac had hoped; certainly, did not look as frightened as Isaac would have liked. ‘Gracious, look at how clean the glass is! How clearly that flame is apparent. My word, you must be so proud of this carriage, sir.’
Isaac was immensely proud of this, and of all his carriages, as he was of his black horses. And it was bloody decent of the chap to take such notice, but flattery would not earn the man a place next to him. ‘Get in the carriage, or I leave without you.’
His tone, sinister as Isaac could manage, had the desired effect.
Buxton clambered into the carriage with the smallest whimper of despair.
Isaac should have listened to the man. Especially the tenth time he called out. Barely a mile down the road the carriage door flew open, and Emrys Buxton launched out of the cabin. Lucky for him, they had slowed behind a milk cart just pulling out from its latest stop, its single Welsh Cob mare straining against her harness.
‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing,’ Isaac bellowed, pulling up the horses sharply, throwing apologies towards his geldings for the rude stop. ‘You utter fool!’
He leapt down from the driver’s seat, a move he’d done a thousand times before, but his rush saw his coat catch on the step, yanking him backwards as he landed. With a ripe curse, Isaac fought with his layers until he was free, and hurried to where the man rose shakily to his feet, fumbling at his pockets, and keeping his face slightly averted from Isaac’s line of sight.
‘Had to, I’m afraid.’ He pressed a clean white kerchief at his mouth. ‘The leather on those seats is exquisite, you’d skin me alive if I stained them, and rightly so.’ He turned now, revealing damp stains on his coat front. The kerchief he used was sodden. ‘I did ask you to stop.’
He had indeed; polite, tentative calls that had grown more fervent. But Isaac had been determined to deliver his passenger and be done.
‘You didn’t make a mess did you?’ Isaac glanced in through the open door. The chest rested on the floor; no smears there, or on the seats, so far as he could tell.
‘Just on myself. I’m terribly sorry.’ Buxton offered a weak smile. ‘Lucky for us, I only had a cup of weak tea this morning.’
First, there was no us in this scenario; second, Emrys Buxton looked far too fine with a smile on his face. Even one this ghostly, and damp from misfortune.
Isaac ground his teeth, furious at his own stupid train of thought. He turned his ire on the gawkers who’d stopped on the sidewalk to see what the fuss was about.
‘Get on with you,’ he glowered. ‘Nothing better to do than stare?’
Apparently they had plenty else to do, scurrying away at once; eyes wide with indignation and delightful traces of fear.
Emrys Buxton laughed. Half-heartedly, but laughter just the same.
‘Something amusing?’ Isaac hissed, mostly at that silly smile and the charming shock of wrinkles it pushed into the man’s cheeks. Hardly fair to look more handsome, the more wrinkled one became.
‘Well,’ Emrys said. ‘I was just thinking how wonderful it would be to have you in my store, on days when no one is paying but everyone is happily reading. They’d think twice after a word from you, Master King.’
Isaac’s ears pricked. ‘Reading? What do you —’
‘Oh good gracious!’ Buxton no longer laughed or smiled. Distress widened his eyes, which were fixed low to the ground, beyond where Isaac stood. ‘ Who would do that? They ought to be whipped.’
He rushed past Isaac, practically shouldering his way.
‘What the blazes has gotten into you,’ Isaac scowled.
Buxton dropped to his knees, leaning over the curb, reaching into the shallow gutter just ahead of where the carriage wheel rocked gently with the restlessness of the horses. ‘This is outrageous.’
‘Get out of there, you blundering idiot.’
Isaac took one large step and swept his arm around the man’s middle, dragging him off his knees, and clear of the carriage. They staggered in that strange pose, Buxton’s back against Isaac’s front, the slighter, shorter man fitting nicely into the space. His hair smelled faintly of lemons; one of Isaac’s favourite fragrances.
He released Buxton and spun him about. ‘You’ll get your damn arm chopped off doing that. I doubt Her Ladyship will have much use for you then.’
‘It would be worth it,’ Buxton declared, raising what he held. A book. But not just any book.
‘Master King, this novel is none other than Jane Eyre.’ The man’s brown eyes caught the firelight that glowed steadily from the carriage lantern. ‘Some imbecile has cast this masterpiece into the gutter. I despair of London if such heathens exist.’
Now it was not his smile that made Emrys Buxton pleasant to look upon, but the passionate way he spoke. And over a book, no less. Isaac swallowed, feeling very odd.
‘What do you care about Jane Ayre?’
Buxton’s mouth dropped open, his breath against Isaac’s chin as he exhaled abruptly. ‘What do I care? What. Do. I. Care? Good God, man. You don’t seem an ignorant fellow, but I see your mistress’s passion for her library has not rubbed off on you.’ Isaac frowned. What was this fool on about? The lady had not stepped foot in the manor’s library in at least a dozen years; far too restless a spirit for reading. Music moved her, not words. ‘Lady Satine would understand the horror of this moment, I assure you.’
Isaac narrowed his eyes and stepped back. ‘Would she now? And how horrid is this moment exactly?’
‘Let us just say I’ve not felt this sick since reading about the Ashburnham House fire of seventeen thirty-one.’
It was Isaac’s turn to round his mouth in astonishment. He grew gooseflesh recalling the dreadful calamity that had destroyed untold medieval manuscripts at Ashburnham House last century. He’d had nightmares for months afterwards, torturing himself with how different the outcome might have been, should he have been there to command those flames to cease their ferocity at once.
‘It was a terrible day, indeed,’ he muttered. ‘Appalling to see all those charred remains of irreplaceable works. The scent of such talent burned to ash will never leave me.’
Buxton clicked his tongue. ‘Do you mock me, Master King?’
Isaac snapped from his recollections. ‘What?’
‘You speak so theatrically, as though you were there, even though I know it could not be true.’
‘Of course I wasn’t there, you daft man.’ True in some regard. He’d only visited the site a few weeks after the blaze. ‘Do I look like I’m over a hundred years old?’
‘Certainly not. You are dealing with the march of time most beautifully, if you must know. A fine looking man indeed.’ He promptly went a shade of deep pink and glanced away, clutching at the book as a child would a doll.
‘Fine looking man, you say?’ Isaac knew himself far from ugly, but he rarely received a compliment like that unless something was needed from him: a carriage ride, mostly, the occasional buttering up when someone in Holly Village wanted their fire stoked. And no one looked so horrified about it as this fellow did; the sort of horror that came with believing too much had been revealed about oneself.
‘I meant nothing untoward about it,’ said the furiously blushing Purebred. ‘If I’ve made you uncomfortable I most heartily apologise and assure you that — ’
‘Nothing to worry about here, Mr Buxton. I don’t give a toss about the rules your kind bandy about.’
He despised himself for the pain that flickered in the man’s gaze; brought on by Isaac’s own poor choice of words. ‘Not like that….I don’t mean your kind, in that way…don’t be letting your bottom lip quiver on my account.’
That had Emrys straightening; insult pushing away injury. ‘I’m made of sterner things than that, Master King. What kind do you refer to? Pray tell.’ Isaac waved off the question with a huff. He was hardly about to say humankind, but the gentleman was surprisingly pernickety. ‘Go on. I shan’t dissolve into tears, or have a fainting spell I promise you, but I’m very curious because my kind are never allowed to make the rules. Only to be bound by them.’
Isaac shook his head, whilst also admiring, again, the passionate nature of Emrys Buxton. ‘Just get on, will you.’
‘Fine, but I shall take my chest, thank you.’ Buxton stepped up to the door.
‘Don’t be a daft idiot.’ Isaac shoved him aside, closing the door so quickly Buxton had to leap out of the way. ‘Get on.’
The man blinked, his face still a delightful shade of aggrieved pink. 'On what?’
‘The bloody carriage.’ Isaac pointed up at the driver’s seat.
‘Up there?’ Buxton spluttered. ‘With you?’
‘With me. And don’t let my book fall in any more gutters.’
He enjoyed the small whimper of surprise that came from Buxton.‘This book is yours?’
‘Must have slipped from my coat when I stepped down to see you throw your guts up.’
‘You are reading Jane Eyre?’
‘Don’t sound so surprised, it’s insulting.’
‘Pardon me, I mean no insult I assure you. I adore this novel. You cannot imagine how many times I’ve read it.’
‘Not half as many as I have, I’d wager.’ Why Isaac felt the need to impress this red-faced buffoon, he had no idea.
Buxton gaped like a landed fish. ‘You truly like it?’
‘No, I like to torture myself. Of course I like it. Get on the bloody carriage.’
The man scurried aboard, well-versed in mounting carriages, it seemed. ‘What a talented woman Miss Bronte was. And her sisters. Wuthering Heights? The Tenant of Wildfell Hall?’
‘Both masterworks, for certain.’ So far as Purebreds went, the Bronte sisters were immensely talented, Isaac would not deny. But he grunted disapproval as he took his seat. ‘Still, those tales as dark as mine pits, and show the unkindness of this world and its people too well.’ Just because he knew the world was rotten did not mean he needed to be reminded of it with every flick of a page. ‘I had to return to Radcliffe to shake off the bleakness.’ Isaac pressed his lips. He’d not spoken so plainly about his preferences with anyone, save for one particularly drunken evening on a journey to Cornwall, with a fellow who’d been too deaf and inebriated to take in a word.
‘Oh my, yes, Radcliffe.’ Buxton hummed thoughtfully. ‘I suppose that is the The Mysteries of Udolpho you refer to?’
‘No, it is the The Romance of the Forest that settles me.’
Buxton let out a whoop: startling a woman on the sidewalk, the horses, and Isaac as well. ‘A man after my own heart, Master King. You have exceptional taste. I say, this shall be the most marvellous ride, don’t you think?’
His mood lifted so bright it was hard not to feel a little cheered, too.
Isaac cast him a side glance. ‘What is it exactly that you do, Mr Buxton.?’
‘Emrys, please. I own the bookstore where you collected me. Did your mistress not say?’
‘If she did, I wouldn’t have asked.’
‘Right you are, Master King. Well, I shall fill you in then. I had the pleasure of meeting your lady a few weeks ago, she was looking for a gift for a friend of hers. A book to add to her own library, to surprise them when they next visited. She said they spend an awful lot of time in the library whenever they come to call, and she was eager to ensure they would be impressed. We had the most wonderful couple of hours in the store, I showed her all the rarest books I had, all the first editions, but she simply couldn’t decide. In the end, she proposed I come along and see the library for myself, and tell her what books the library simply must have! Can you imagine such an engagement?’ Buxton clutched at his heart as though it pained him; or filled to bursting with happiness. One of the two. ‘But from what I know of the collection already, I think it shall be Lady Satine who educates me in impeccable taste. Her library sounds divine.’
‘Oh it does, does it?’ Isaac stared hard at the road ahead, beginning to see much more clearly the meddling of his mistress in this affair. Lady Satine hardly knew where the damned library was, let alone what was in it. That room was Isaac’s domain. His sanctuary.
‘You are fortunate to have such an employer. She was a lovely lady. ’
Isaac grunted dismissively. ‘When she wants to be.’
Lady Satine was far more than lovely, and certainly not a lady. He’d not yet discovered exactly what his mistress was, despite all their time together. He knew Satine as almighty, frighteningly powerful and holding secrets older than the world itself, but aside from that, he knew little else about the creature beneath the human facade. Today, though, he learned something at least.
The esteemed Lady Satine thought herself a matchmaker.
‘Have you seen the library, Master King?’
Isaac scowled at his passenger, who did not notice, for he was too busy peering out at the world as though it were the first time he’d seen it so clearly. Buxton’s face was flushed with a happiness that was disturbingly contagious.
‘Course I’ve seen it.’ He’d chosen every book on every shelf.
Buxton sighed as though his lover had just finished pleasuring him. Isaac bit his tongue, and flicked the reins sternly, for no reason at all.
‘I am jealous of you, Master King. But so nervous, I must say. Hence why I could not eat my breakfast.’ ’
‘A good thing that,’ Isaac muttered, and there was that laughter again.
‘But I must say, you have put me at my ease. To speak with another who shares the same tastes as me. In books, of course, is so very calming.’
And there again was the blush.
What a strange man, to find a surly, irascible coachman a comfort.
‘Isaac.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Name’s Isaac.’
‘And I may call you that?’
Isaac glanced at him, perplexed. ‘Would I have given it to you otherwise?’
Buxton smiled; his lace work of wrinkles far too fetching. ‘Sorry, of course not, Isaac.’ He suddenly gasped, staring down at the book lying in his lap; his hands resting over the cover protectively. ‘Goodness, your book is from that library, isn’t it?’
‘Perhaps.’
The silly man lifted the book to his chest, squeezing it tight. ‘Oh, what a wonderful household it must be at Holly Lodge, that all who work there can enjoy such literature.’
Isaac snorted. ‘Half can’t read, the other half wouldn’t dare touch a single bloody book.’
Holly Lodge’s main gates appeared further ahead; a hint of the grand manor peeking through towering sycamore trees.
‘So you are the only brave one among them, Master…Isaac?’
There was something in the way it was said, the wonderment in the tone, and the hint of awe in the man’s expression, that had Isaac acting in the most peculiar way. He sat up straight, pulling his shoulders back, and decided to speak the truth to this man who’d somehow managed to do what no one else had ever done.
Ride alongside him.
‘The library is mine.’
He basked in the gasp that came. ‘Truly?’
There was no derision in the question, just breathless anticipation.
‘Truly.’
‘Oh, my word...Isaac…that is too wonderful for words. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when Lady Satine entered my store…but I see now I was only halfway there. You are the luckiest man alive, I’m sure.’
‘Don’t know about that, but I’m more proud of that library than anything else I’ve done in my life.’
‘And though I don’t doubt your library is astonishing, I cannot believe a man like you has done nothing else of merit.’
Isaac tugged at the thick fold of his scarf; one he normally kept high around his cheeks and over his mouth. Hiding himself from the fuss and bother of the world as he drove his carriage through it. He drew it down to sit beneath his chin. The air was chilly, but his skin was warm.
‘You don’t know a thing about me.‘
Emrys looked up at Isaac from beneath his lashes. ‘Perhaps I’ll know you better…after today…a person’s taste in novels can say much about them.’
The look he cast at Isaac was tentative, and so achingly hopeful it was enough to make an ancient man’s heart clench. Isaac touched a gloved finger to the copy of Jane Ayre, resting again in Emrys’ lap. The sudden closeness sent a shiver run through them both. ‘We know a little of each other already then.’
‘I’d like to know more,’ Emrys whispered.
The lanterns on the carriage flared so brightly Isaac’s passenger gasped, turning in his seat to stare down at them. ‘Did you see that?’
‘Nope.’ Isaac used another fire to distract Emrys from the flames. ‘I can tell you now, you’ll be all the way in heaven when I show you the seal I retrieved from the Ashburnham House fire. It melted right off the Magna Carta.’
Emrys whipped around so fast he wobbled in his seat. ‘Good God.’
Isaac grabbed at him, fearing the man was about to topple off his carriage. ‘Best you don’t get yourself crushed beneath the wheel before then.’
‘Then best you don’t test this old man’s heart with such talk, Isaac.’
They shared a grin, one that went on a heartbeat longer than was civilised, before Emrys saved them both with talk of Pride and Prejudice. Whereby Isaac discovered there was another gentleman of advanced years that shared his taste for the hopelessly romantic; the longing glances and accidental touches.
By the time they travelled up the long drive and reached Holly Lodge, where Lady Satine waited for them at the top of the sweeping front stairs, they understood that of all the brilliant prose they had read, it was stories of hard-won love that stirred them most.
The lady greeted her bookstore owner as though he were a nobleman, and Isaac feared the poor man would pass away from happiness.
‘Come in, Mr Buxton, how lovely it is to see you again. I hope the journey was comfortable?’
Emrys glanced back to where Isaac stood caressing the damp neck of one of his horses. ‘The journey was truly delightful, Your Ladyship. I do hope that it is not at an end so soon?’
There was that hopefulness again.
Satine winked at Isaac over the man’s shoulder. ‘Will you join us, Mr King?
He would have cursed at her had he not feared Emrys might mistak the rudeness as meant for him.
‘I’ll tend to the horses first. Go on now. I’ll follow.’
Emrys Buxton nodded, grinning like the fool he likely was, before he disappeared into the grandeur of the Lodge, exclaiming at the decor with more of that passion he seemed unable to contain.
Lady Satine remained in the doorway. ‘He seems a decent fellow. You didn’t treat him too poorly, I hope?’
‘Course not.’ Isaac gave her a nasty look she only smiled at. ‘He’s decent enough, I suppose. But you should have asked me if I’d let someone in the library.’
‘You would have said no.’
He grunted, rubbing at the long face of the taller of the geldings. ‘Don’t like people near my books, and you know it.’
‘Yes, but there are the rare few you have allowed close. I felt this gentleman might come to be one of them. We’ve been together a long time time, Isaac. And I’ve seen you truly happy so rarely, I was just seeking to bring a smile to that scowling face. But I hope I’ve not overstepped? I can send him away. Just say the word. I’ll have someone else drive him home.’
Isaac curled his fists, turning to move towards the stables; the gelding needing no urging to follow. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
His mistress smiled, her jewelled earrings glinting in the brightening day. ‘Good. Very good. Now hurry, and don’t forget to wash your hands.’
‘Get on with you.’ He would have scowled. Satine was right in saying he did so often. But he didn’t feel the need for a foul mood just then. ‘Don’t you be taking him to the library. I’ll be the one to show Mr Buxton my books.’
In time, Isaac King would show Emrys Buxton much more than that. And the bookstore owner would do the same in return.
Neither man left Holly Lodge that evening, nor the one after. In fact, it would be nearly a week before they emerged from Isaac’s modest accommodation, a cottage set behind the stables, to find that it was they who now had a story to write.
The coachman and his passenger lived their own great romance.
A tale that began with a chance meeting. A sudden attraction. A deepening, unexpected bond that soon tied them up in the unfathomable knots of love.
The pages of their novel would be filled with happiness, heartache, despair, and delight.
And until the last page was written, their story never lost its heart.