The moment this thought crossed my mind, I shook my head. That sounded exactly like something James would say. As rain continued to batter the glass windows of the library, I willed myself to ignore this voice of reason—the same one that had told me to rip up my Cambridge application and encouraged me to take a job at the family farm. Instead, I asked myself what the old Caroline would do—the Caroline of a decade ago, the zealous student not yet dazzled by a diamond on her finger.

I stepped toward the staircase where a group of wide-eyed tourists milled about, a brochure spread wide in front of them and umbrella bags scattered at their feet. Near the staircase was a desk with a young female attendant; I approached her, relieved when she showed no dismay at my wet, unkempt clothes.

I told her that I needed to speak with Gaynor, but the attendant chuckled. “We have more than a thousand employees,” she said. “Do you know which department she works in?”

“Maps,” I said, at once feeling slightly more legitimate than I did a moment ago. The attendant checked her computer, nodded her head and confirmed that a Gaynor Baymont worked at the Enquiry Desk, Maps Reading Room, Third Floor. She pointed me to the elevators.

A few minutes later, I stood at the Enquiry Desk in the Maps Room, watching as an attractive thirtysomething woman with wavy auburn hair leaned over a black-and-white map with a magnifying glass in one hand and a pencil in the other, her brow twisted in deep concentration. After a minute or two, she stood to stretch her back, startling when she saw me.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I whispered in the near-silent room. “I’m looking for Gaynor?”

Her eyes met mine and she smiled. “You came to the right place. I’m Gaynor.” She set down the magnifying glass and brushed aside a loose hair. “How can I help you?”

Now that I stood in front of her, my request seemed ridiculous. Clearly, the map in front of her—a haphazard mess of tangled lines and minuscule labels—was an important point of research for her at the moment. “I can come back,” I offered, halfway hoping she would seize the idea, send me off and thereby force me to do something more productive with this day.

“Oh, don’t be silly. This map is a hundred and fifty years old. Nothing’s going to change in the next five minutes.”

I reached into my pocket, drawing a confused look from Gaynor: she was probably more accustomed to students hauling in long tubes of parchment rather than rain-soaked women reaching for small objects in their pocket. “I found this a bit ago at the river. I was mudlarking with a group—led by someone named Alf—and he told me to come see you. Do you know him?”

Gaynor grinned widely. “He’s my dad, actually.”