The Librarian's Spell Page 7

  While Marta suggested the older couple might have retired to their cottage or gone to relations, Mary sulked. The other two maids kept glancing at the stairs, as if expecting the arrival of good King Wenceslaus.

  Or Max.

  Surely not. He was a guest. He shouldn’t have been down here at all. That was her fault. But these were good girls. They weren’t the kind of women who hung about mining camps, looking for trouble.

  But just in case, she wiped Bakari’s chin when he finished his milk and led him upstairs herself.

  She found Max pacing in his room.

  “I didn’t know you’d have servants!” he practically shouted. “I’ll have to leave now.”

  That caused Lydia a pain too great to analyze. Not that she wasted time analyzing anyway.

  “Mr. Cadwallader said I would have privacy—” Max halted as he realized what he’d said. “You promised to follow his orders for privacy.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about you when I hired them back. I just knew how much their families need the money. And I wanted Mr. C to have a proper service. I hadn’t realized servants bothered you.” She helped Bakari out of his suit jacket.

  He was a beautiful little boy with a thick mop of dark hair like his father’s and lovely bronze coloring, presumably like his mother’s. He would grow up to be a heartbreaker.

  “Civilization bothers me,” Max said grumpily. “I don’t fit in here. I’m not much of a father either. I didn’t even think he’d be hungry.”

  “You have no practice at raising children and I do. I’ve been told growing boys are always hungry. You should know that better than I, though. My siblings were girls.” Lydia helped the boy between the covers. The child’s lids were so heavy, he could barely keep them open. “We should step outside and let him sleep.”

  “Thank you for helping with him. I know I’ve been a curmudgeon.” Visibly disgruntled, Max held open the door.

  Lydia had to brush past him to reach the corridor. She tried not to notice his male aroma of horses and shaving soap and something more. . . primal. . . but it appealed to her senses.

  “Experience has taught me my limitations,” he said with a male growl that tingled her down to her toes as he closed the door.

  What on earth was wrong with her? She never noticed men, but this one felt as if he were inside her skin. “You’ll need to stay with your son so he doesn’t wake up alone,” she warned.

  Max was standing much too close, but they were whispering, and she couldn’t back away. His chest looked so broad and sturdy— She tucked her hands behind her back.

  “I’ll lock the door and hide in my room until we go,” he muttered. “I really wanted to take another look at the tower before I left. I could swear I saw Mr. Cadwallader down there last night. He walked straight through a stone wall.”

  “Mr. C? That’s impossible! He couldn’t walk—” Lydia swallowed hard. She wasn’t good at deception. Did she tell him he’d never spoken to Mr. C? “A ghost?” she asked weakly. “You saw a ghost—in our cellar?”

  “He couldn’t walk where?” Max demanded.

  Of course he’d notice that misstep, drat him. If she told him the truth, he’d think she was just another woman tricking him into staying. But she was so bad at lying! “Very well, he couldn’t walk well. Do you really think you saw a ghost?”

  “I don’t normally believe in ghosts, but last night, after lecturing me, he walked through a stone wall! What do you mean, he didn’t walk well? When he accompanied me through the cellar, he walked as well as you walk—” His voice trailed off, and he studied her with suspicion. “The ghost was shorter than you. The Mr. Cadwallader I spoke with was as tall as you and walked like you. How ill was he?”

  “Very,” she said with a sigh, giving up. Max was much better at figuring out puzzles than she ever would be. “He couldn’t talk. He lost most of the use of his hands. And one leg was paralyzed. He refused to see anyone, and most of the time, he just slept. I’m hoping he’s in a happier place now. He was a very good man. If his ghost talked to you, you heard more than I have in a long time. What did he say?”

  “He said you were more valuable than you know. I can’t believe I’m saying ghosts give warnings.” Max pressed the base of his palm to his forehead, as if forcing himself to focus. “You’re the one who has been nagging me to see my mother, not Mr. Cadwallader.” It wasn’t a question. “And you’re the one who told me to trust you with my journal. That’s not fair, you know.” He didn’t sound angry, just tired. Or maybe resigned.

  Mr. C had said she was valuable? Or Max’s odd hallucination had said it. She found that a bit hard to accept.

  “I only said what Mr. C would have told you, if he could,” she said defensively. “You cannot let your mother lose her home and school.”

  “If we’re to believe the phantasm, he was corresponding with my mother,” Max said, anger apparently building. “So I telegraphed a friend while I was in Calder today. He has the head for business I don’t. I have no idea what he can do, but I asked. I had hoped to stay here until he replied, but if you’re bringing in servants, that will be a disaster. Do you have a remote cottage, by any chance?”

  She didn’t think Max was a lunatic or making up his fear of women. The problem apparently seemed very real in his mind. She supposed she was so large that he thought of her as a man and wasn’t afraid of her, which made her feel ugly, but that was nothing new.

  What mattered was that he seemed to sincerely believe the maids would sneak into his bed like the loose women he’d known, and he was angry and unhappy. She needed to placate him if she meant to have him stabilize the tower. If it needed stabilizing.

  “I’m not aware of the extent of the estate’s property,” she admitted honestly. “I believe Mr. C leased land to farmers, but his bankers and so forth handled all that. I only manage the household.”

  Max frowned. She could almost feel him packing his bags and running into the village. Or to a train and a ship and. . .

  She glanced at the tower stairs just down the corridor. “This is the oldest part of the house. I put guests in your room because it’s convenient to the public part of the library, where most of our guests spend their time.” She nodded at the book-lined chamber directly across from his—the one he’d never set foot in to her knowledge. “But there are small cubicles with cots inside the tower, and the downstairs tower door locks.”

  His expressive face lit up with curiosity. She’d finally caught his interest. He strode toward the tower entrance. “I could lock the whole tower and not be disturbed?”

  “Mr. C has been removed to the chapel, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” she said sadly. “I’m not sure what to do about Lloyd, though. His room is up there. Once he cleans out Mr. C’s effects, perhaps I could ask him to stay as a footman.”

  Max snorted as he examined the ancient wooden door at the foot of the tower. “Lloyd’s not tall and good-looking. Isn’t that how footmen are chosen?”

  He started up the stairs, apparently in search of the cubicles.

  Lydia ran after him. “The rooms are very small. I don’t think there is space for both you and your son. And they’re farther from the bath. Shouldn’t you at least wait to see if anyone disturbs you?”

  “Is there anything else at the top besides that chamber I saw last night?” he asked, glancing into the first cubicle and moving on.

  “It’s all Mr. C’s suite. I’ve never seen more than the front parlor where he made his bed this past year. Lloyd tends it. You can’t stay there!” She rushed after him.

  “We should at least take a look. It might hold clues to the tower’s listing.” He continued up, taking the narrow, winding steps two at a time. The late afternoon sunlight illuminated only the west-facing stairs, throwing a pattern of dark and shadow.

  Flustered, Lydia ran after him. “Your son can’t climb all these steps!”

  “Have you ever watched small boys? They never sit. They run up and down stairs a
nd hills and will climb anything within reach. He’ll love this. That doesn’t mean we should occupy the suite. I simply want to take a look.”

  She hoped he knew what he was talking about. He hadn’t known much about feeding small boys.

  She really wanted to hear from the solicitors before being so presumptuous as to enter Mr. C’s chambers. She hadn’t even read his private thoughts in the journal except those last pages with her name on them. She preferred to move cautiously.

  Maxwell Ives on the other hand, preferred flipping his world upside-down. He didn’t even seem to be aware that he was doing it. He had this amazing confidence that everything he did was right. Or if he did it wrong, that he could fix it. Maybe that was the key.

  She didn’t have that sort of confidence. She hadn’t once fixed anything. At best, she held things together to prevent them from falling apart. Which was what she was trying to do now—keep the tower from falling apart.

  * * *

  The arrow slits did not provide sufficient light for a good examination of the walls. Max vowed to come back later with lamps and look for damage. He was just excited at studying a different part of the tower. The idea of an eyrie above the household, accessible only to him, and the boy, of course, was an equal enticement.

  Lydia was right, dammit. His son wasn’t ready for school.

  He’d telegraphed his investor friend, Hugh Morgan. He’d ask Hugh about schools. Right now, the tower had his complete interest.

  Not true, he realized a moment later when Lydia’s lavender fragrance joined him on the top landing. Every nerve tingled with awareness as she unlocked the door with her chatelaine of keys.

  “We never lock the bottom door,” she said pragmatically. “But this one works well.”

  “Let’s take a look at this place. It was too dark last night to see anything.” Except Lydia, weeping, but Max didn’t mention that.

  Lloyd or Marta or both had apparently straightened the sick room he remembered. The cot was gone. The stacks of ancient tomes had disappeared. An old horsehair settee was centered on one wall. Wing chairs flanked the fireplace. A piecrust tea table held knickknacks. The room looked fussy and unused.

  Lydia gasped in shock. So, she hadn’t ordered the removal of her employer’s effects.

  “If the servants are allowed to move things, then we should be allowed to investigate the suite,” Max announced. He had a feeling Lydia would simply have turned the room into a shrine.

  If she was the new librarian, this suite should probably be hers.

  “Where is your room?” Max asked when she didn’t respond. He paced, studying the high-ceilinged chamber.

  The windows overlooked a rolling hillside. A tapestry covered the wall that should be the inner tower. He wanted to see the confounded inner walls. He crossed to the door he assumed led to a proper bedchamber.

  “We passed my room on the way up,” Lydia replied, sadly touching the settee. “I needed to be near Mr. C and the study.”

  “You live in one of those cubbyholes?” He stopped to stare at her in disbelief. “Where do you put your wardrobe?”

  She glanced down at her shapeless gown. “I hang my gowns on hooks, as I’ve always done. It’s not as if I need evening gowns or walking dresses and whatnot.” She chuckled at the notion.

  She was even more gorgeous when she smiled. Max replied without thinking. “You would look spectacular in an evening gown. If I were on speaking terms with my mother, I’d curse her for sending you to this remote outpost with only a hermit for company. You should be adorning ballrooms and dinner tables.”

  If she reacted to his insane declaration, Max couldn’t tell. He was really bad at this flirtation business.

  He opened the door and stepped up—into another damn library. How many libraries could the place have?

  The Malcolm librarian lived here. Of course the castle spilled over with books. . .

  As well as several globes, a telescope, a ship’s compass, a celestial mobile. . . Max drank it all in. If he had a home, this would be it.

  Lydia touched the map globe as if fearful she’d burn her finger. “I’ve never seen anything like this. How do you find anything?”

  Happy to have an excuse to stand close, Max leaned over her shoulder and spun the sphere until he found the British Isles. “This is where we are, in the upper half. Your school didn’t have a globe? How did you learn geography?”

  He longed to kiss that long neck or nibble her ear. She’d probably plant a noser on him if he tried, and he rather enjoyed the notion. She was a challenge like no other woman he’d ever encountered.

  “I didn’t,” she said, shrugging. “My father was my teacher. He knew Latin and Greek and how to write sermons, among other literary things, but nothing scientific. I lived with his books. I didn’t fit in well at school. After I memorized all the school’s textbooks, the teacher didn’t know what to do with me. And when I outgrew everyone else. . . I learned more at home.”

  Max wanted to fling all those idiots out windows. Instead, he squeezed her shoulder and leaned over to show her Burma, on the southern hemisphere. “That’s where my next job is.”

  “It’s on the other side of the world! How do you not fall off?” She tilted the globe up and down to measure the distance.

  “There are millions of people there, and as far as I’m aware, none have flown off. Here’s where Bakari lived.” He pointed out Egypt. “We sail through this sea here, out to the ocean, and straight up the coast to home.”

  “It almost looks easy,” she said with uncertainty, edging away from him.

  By all the gods, he wanted her. Max wanted her with a desperation he could scarcely control and certainly didn’t understand. He had so little experience with wooing, that his limitations were frustrating. Unlike every other woman in his life, Lydia barely acknowledged his existence.

  She drifted away to examine the telescope and compass.

  Shelves of books hid the inner wall in this room—and they were square like all the other walls. How did that work? The outer walls were obviously curved with lots of windows. He could practically see Edinburgh. With the telescope, he might see the ocean.

  “The journey is not easy. From Egypt, it takes months, even with a steamship.” Max crossed the Turkish carpet to the next door—another step up, odd, as if the suite was a spiral staircase. If the roof covered both towers, then this suite could very well reflect what was under its floors.

  He threw open the next door— a small valet’s chamber. He crossed the closet of a room, took the steps, and opened the next door— a bath similar to the one downstairs. “Is there a cistern on the roof?”

  She looked more comfortable with this topic. “There is, and a well in the cellar on the castle side, near the kitchen. I believe there is also a cistern on the roof of the main block, but it’s a warren of closed-off rooms.”

  He glanced up. The timbered ceiling continued through here, but it wasn’t as high as in the parlor. He knocked on the windowless inner wall. It sounded solid, but then, there was probably five feet of stone behind there. “This has to be an Ives castle. I don’t understand how it became a Malcolm library.”

  “The families intermarried way back when,” Lydia reminded him. “And there’s no reason someone couldn’t have simply hired an Ives to make improvements.”

  “I know the history. I live it. Malcolms married Ives for their fortunes and titles. I’m reasonably certain that’s why my mother married my father. They were in no way alike, but her father was a bankrupt earl, so she brought connections.” Stepping up to the next door and glancing in, Max blocked the entrance to the librarian’s private chamber.

  “Your maternal grandfather owned property that he rented out,” she argued. “The earl wasn’t bankrupt. I saw the journals. He left Lady Phoebe’s mother an entire tenement when he died. His brother inherited a considerable rural estate.”

  “And my mother and her sister inherited those crumbling medieval townhouses, I know. T
he old earl never improved what he owned or invested in anything new. My maternal uncle, the current earl, doesn’t either. That’s why my mother married an Ives, a progressive who understood that time marches on.”

  “Are his brother and your cousin like your father?”

  “Uncle David is only my father’s stepbrother and not an Ives, but as far as I’m aware, he and my cousin George were on their way to owning half Edinburgh when I left. So, yes, I’d say peas in a pod.”

  Max finally stood aside so she could see inside the librarian’s bedchamber. “Apparently the elves have not only carried off Mr. Cadwallader, but magicked his chamber, Miss Librarian.”

  Inside this final room, gold and blue hangings adorned the enormous tester bed. Lavender scented the air, as if Lydia had been living here all along. A delicate blue and gold teapot, still steaming, waited with a set of cups on a tea table before a grate already set for burning.

  Slippers and a robe waited on the bed, along with a lacy frilly nightgown that gave Max way more ideas than he needed.

  Eight

  At sight of the chamber made up for her, Lydia covered her mouth to prevent a cry. Shoving past Max, she ran back through the suite to Mr. C’s room. His journal was gone. She hadn’t moved it.

  They’d erased all signs of Mr. C. Fighting tears, she tried to compose herself while waiting for Max to follow. He did so slowly, studying the tower’s architecture.

  Should she show him the library? Mr. C had never told her that the inner tower was a secret. There just hadn’t been any reason to tell anyone else about it. And well. . . concealed doors seemed secretive to her.

  Lloyd knew the inner stairs were there. That’s how he and Marta had performed miracles without anyone noticing. They’d moved her into Mr. C’s room—as if they expected her to be the new librarian!

  For any hope of that, she needed Max to stay and verify the tower wouldn’t tumble. Or prevent it from tumbling. That was imperative, far more imperative than the servants she’d promised to hire back. She should have been more conscious of his fear of his weird gift or magnetism and not invited them to return yet. But they were so happy. . .