The Librarian's Spell by Patricia Rice (ebook offline reader TXT) 📗

hell with journals and intriguing towers and an even more intriguing woman. He needed to make a living, and he couldn’t do it here.

But he had tonight to explore the tower just a little more. For the sake of his more educated relations, he’d like to know the library was safe.

Lighting a lantern, he easily found his way through the maze of rooms. He admired the builders who had made it almost impossible for invaders to access the stronghold of the upper floors from the ground floor entrance. They would even have difficulty bringing it down with fire since all the supports were stone, and the stone center was completely inaccessible and probably magicked somehow, if he believed his mother’s nonsense.

He found a long augur in the tool pile and carried it with him, looking for cracks, under the theory underlying mining excavations or streams may have caused the ground to shift.

Since the inner tower seemed to be the central support, he started there.

He had the augur almost all the way up to the hilt in the dirt floor without finding any sign of a shaft when he became aware he wasn’t alone. Strange. How could anyone walk back here without flashing a lantern like a warning signal?

Straightening, Max wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced around.

A white-bearded figure shrouded in gray watched from the shadows.

“Mr. Cadwallader? Did I disturb you?” Max asked, fearing Lydia had run straight to the librarian with her tale of insult.

Oddly, the old man wore the cloak over the front of him, with the hood hanging down his chest so Max could finally see his face. Letting his long white hair brush his collar, the librarian tilted his head as if he might be studying Max. “You have disturbed me in many ways, yes. You are not what I imagined. In other ways—you relieve me. The burden has been heavy, but I believe Lady Agnes’s surmise might be correct.”

All Max made out of that was that the librarian had been corresponding with his mother, not unusual. His mother had a teacher’s affinity for libraries. Her house contained an entire floor of books.

“And what did my mother surmise?” he tried to ask politely, and not with the exasperation he felt.

His mother’s all-female school of Malcolms was one of the many reasons he’d never go home.

“That you would return when you are needed. Take care of Miss Wystan, please. She is far more valuable than she understands.”

The gray-shrouded figure turned and walked away—straight through the sealed-up stone arch.

Lydia was in her office, unable to sleep. She’d written out every word she remembered Max saying, including the bit about analyzing his behavior.

She didn’t write about the offer of his bed.

The idea had so unsettled her that she couldn’t think straight. She had no experience in these matters except what she found in books. And she didn’t know what journals to look in for matters of carnal relations without asking Mr. C, and she wasn’t about to do that.

A man of the world like Maxwell Ives thought she was attractive? Or was that flummery he offered because he was bored, and he missed his mistress?

How was a woman supposed to know these things?

She couldn’t, which was why marriage had been invented. That settled it. No beds without marriage. He’d already proved his procreative ability and didn’t need her or more children. As entertained as she might be by the notion of a man finding a large lump like her attractive, she refused to be another notch on his bedpost.

Lloyd knocked on the doorframe, looking for permission to enter. Mr. C’s manservant didn’t entirely approve of women and seldom sought her out. She was instantly concerned.

“What is it? Do you need a hot toddy to settle him down?” she asked, knowing Marta had gone off to bed.

Lloyd shook his head, his basset-hound face even more mournful than usual. “He’s going, miss. I thought you might like to say your farewells.”

“Farewells?” Stunned, Lydia sat up straight. Was Lloyd saying what she thought he was saying? “What do you mean, going?”

“He still breathes, but he’s not there. I tried to wake him for his dinner, and I can’t. It’s only a matter of time.” He looked lost and sorrowful.

She’d had one too many shocks this evening and couldn’t absorb another. “But he was fine earlier.” Fearing some misinterpretation, she hastily rose. “Stay here. I’ll go up and see for myself.”

She took the concealed door and inner stairs up. Lloyd knew all Mr. C’s secrets, so she wasn’t revealing anything the servant didn’t know.

Carrying her lantern, holding her skirt, Lydia almost flew up the spiral staircase to Mr. C’s chambers. She’d never given the tower’s construction a single thought until Max had described it to her. He hadn’t seen the top floor, but the engineer had known it was there.

Mr. C’s suite sat on top of both towers. Mighty beams supported the roof. The walls of the different chambers on this level might be supports also, for all she knew. She had never seen more than the room where the stairs opened out. Mr. C used that room for his bed these days. After his stroke, he’d wanted to be closer to the library.

Lydia caught her breath as she entered and felt the emptiness. Mr. C’s energy had always consumed this space. It was gone. Setting the lamp down on a dresser, she approached the bed. A candle burned on the table, illuminating the gray bulge beneath the covers.

Lloyd was right. The librarian still breathed. Praying anxiously, she took his gnarled hand. It was cold. Lloyd had laid an old cloak over him for extra warmth. She checked the grate, but the fire burned steadily.

He breathed. She had to bring him back from wherever he’d gone.

Pulling up a chair, she sat beside the bed, holding Mr. C’s hand and offering muddled prayers to the universe and any gods who might be listening. She didn’t even know she was weeping until a