Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) by Pearl Darling Page A

random, ignoring the other customers that paid him startled glances as he brushed roughly passed them. He had a copy of everything in the military section, everything in the strategy section and he wasn’t interested in anything else. 
    “Earl Harding, sir?” The elderly gentleman at the counter bobbed him a quick bow as Hades paused by the door.
    “Yes, Harry?”
    “We have that order you made last week, De Re Militari by Vegetius. Would you like to take it now?”
    “Oh, yes of course.” Abashed, Hades walked back into the shop to the long mahogany counter . Melissa was fuddling his brain. He’d been waiting for De Re Militari for weeks. He leaned on the polished wood with his elbows and stared at the humorous bookend the counter clerk had enterprisingly displayed. ‘I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.’ Hades snorted and rubbed at his face with his arm.
    “Very popular that’s been.” The clerk tapped the bookend. “The book it’s from less so. It’s by a woman. I think her name is Austen.”  He shook his head and stepped down into the backroom behind the counter.
    “Harry?” Hades lifted his voice slightly.
    “Yes, sir?” The clerk bustled back with a book wrapped in brown paper.
    “You don’t happen to have anything else new in in the back there? Anything to do with military? Strategy?”
    The clerk shook his head. “I keep everything new for you my lord. But this week, what you see in the stacks is all we have. And I believe you already have a copy of most of them.”
    Hades hesitated. “Have you anything on flora?”
    “Flora, sir?”
    Hades shuffled his feet. “Yes. Flowers and such like.”
    “I don’t know. I’ll just take a moment to look in the back. It’s not really our normal fayre.” The clerk ducked back into the room behind the counter. “Is this a new theme of reading for you, my lord?” His voice filtered softly out of the back room, the sound deadened by the many books in the shop.
    Hades took a furtive look around the shop. Strangely, most of the customers seemed to have made their way to the ends of their shelves and loitered shamelessly, one eye on the books, and an ear pointing in the direction of the counter.
    He turned back as the clerk staggered back into the main part of the shop and dropped the pile of books on the counter.
    “I’ve got a bit of everything here, my lord, but they all go together so I don’t really want to split them up.”
    Hades shook his head. “I’ll take them all. Put the flowery ones in a separate parcel. It’ll make it easier to carry.”
    “Of course sir. And might I say that is a mighty fine Dianthus Carrolus.”
    “What?” Hades started. “What did you say?”
    The clerk took a step back from the counter, his face paling. “Your carnation, sir. I thought it was your newfound passion for flowers that—” His voice trembled to a stop as Hades looked down at the carnation that Carter had pushed in his button hole and frowned.
    It was red. It always was at the moment.
    “Dianthus Carrolus.” He rolled the words quietly in his mouth.  “Yes. You are right. I have found I’ve gained a somewhat dangerous passion for flowers recently.”
    “D…d…dangerous, sir?” the clerk stuttered.
    Hades gripped at the ledge of the counter. Dangerous for whom? “It distracts me from my other activities.” He shut his mouth with a snap.
    The clerk sighed with relief. “Yes, books can do that, can’t they? I remember one time when I had a first edition of…”
    Hades rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “The books please, Bob.”
    “Oh yes, of course.” Laboriously the clerk wrapped the books in brown paper and then carefully drew string around the two parcels and tied them with a neat bow at the top.
    “Do you need anyone to help you, sir?” The clerk lifted the books and stared at him as Hades gazed into space.
    Help? Gods, that was exactly what he needed. Melissa