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

your dislike of Edinburgh,” Miss Trivedi said, not eating the soup.

Lydia whispered to a young footman and had him take the lady’s bowl, leaving Max to try to answer. As if he could explain the impossible and not sound vain while he did so.

“Do you know anything about magnetism?” he asked.

“Lodestone and iron and such? Not a lot,” Miss Trivedi admitted.

“They are working on forms of electromagnetism now,” Morgan said. “It’s a fascinating science with a great deal of potential.”

“There is research that shows the earth itself is magnetic, which is why compasses point north,” Max added. “I don’t think I contain lodestone or electricity, but I seem to possess a form of paramagnetism that, let us say, is extremely uncomfortable in crowds.”

The footman returned with a plate of mixed greens and set it before Miss Trivedi. The lady sent Lydia a grateful look and dug in with what appeared to be pleasure at eating weeds. Max glanced at his perceptive hostess. She knew a lot about people, simply from reading.

And listening—she had been paying attention even as she directed the servants. She looked up from her soup now. “Paramagnetism? You did not use that word earlier. Is this a scientific concept?”

“Scientists have discovered a number of elements can become magnetized if placed in a magnetic field,” Morgan explained. “But once that field is removed, the magnetism disappears.”

Lydia turned her huge indigo eyes to Max, and he twitched uncomfortably.

“You are the magnetic field?” she asked. “Ladies are the elements? And if they are removed from your presence, they forget your existence?”

“Possibly.” He applied his attention to his soup rather than the uncomfortable conversation.

“Ladies are drawn to you?” Miss Trivedi asked in amusement. “And this is a problem?”

Max gritted his teeth, but once the footman removed his bowl, he had to reply. “If I may sketch a mental picture. . . Have you been inside my mother’s School of Malcolms?” When she nodded, he continued. “Imagine if you will what happens if a magnetic field that attracts females enters those doors.”

Miss Trivedi’s fork hovered over her plate as she considered this. “I am not a particularly imaginative person, but I can recall what happens when one man has too many wives. It is sometimes very ugly.”

“In that case, at least, the wives know why they’re jealous of each other. In my case, there is no logic to the catfights. Do not ask me to repeat the experience, please. Women aren’t as docile as they are portrayed in literature.” Max sat back so the footman could set a nicely browned pheasant with accouterments in front of him. Grateful for the distraction, he said, “Marta is brilliant. Does she always cook like this?”

Lydia studied her plate with interest. “Most generally, we eat from a buffet and it’s nothing more than soup or stew. I didn’t know she had this in her.” She gave him a mischievous look. “Maybe she’s fallen under the spell of your magnetism and wishes to keep you here.”

“Go ahead, laugh, but it’s a good thing courtrooms are run by men. If I’m to sue my relations, we have to keep women from the courtroom audience. And I need to avoid my mother’s house, preferably by not letting her know I’m here. I might manage a courtroom, nothing more.” Disgruntled, Max hacked at his dinner.

Miss Trivedi tucked into the potatoes and other vegetables she’d been served.

Morgan hummed in appreciation, apparently of both Max’s decision and the bird. “We might manage a closed courtroom. But we’ll need to pry the books from your uncle’s hands to prove his guilt first. I can’t do that. You must.”

Max grimaced and conceded. “Fine. I will give you my power of attorney. You may tell my mother that I am on my way home. I’ll give you a letter asking her to sign a power of attorney to you as well. Take it as far as you are able without me.”

“What about Bakari?” Lydia asked. “Will you be sending him to school?”

“Not yet.” Mentally saying farewell to his Burma job, Max stabbed a potato. “I’ll stay here and study your tower and try to figure out what he’s good at. Maybe if he starts school with some talent that gives him confidence, he’ll feel better. And we’ll know by then if he has cousins to help him.”

“He needs to meet them first,” Lydia warned.

“Which means meeting their mothers,” Miss Trivedi added, obviously enjoying his predicament.

Because meeting young ladies had worked so well the last time he’d been here, Max thought gloomily. But he’d been only eighteen then. Running away had been the only solution he’d known. Although he’d spent most of these past years in sparsely populated areas, he’d learned a few tactics. He simply despised the necessity of hiding.

He glanced at Lydia, who was studiously picking apart her dinner without looking at him. If he had to go out in civilized society, he needed a shield of respectability. How could he go wrong with a woman who looked like a queen and kissed like an angel?

All he had to do was persuade her to leave her tower of books.

Ten

After dinner, Lydia left Max working with Mr. Morgan and Miss Trivedi on plans to pry financial information from his uncle and cousin. She had a funeral to plan, guests to prepare for, and a stack of books calling to her.

The staff knew what to do. They simply needed to be reassured about the change in circumstances and that Lydia approved of their work. She was a vicar’s daughter, accustomed to church social gatherings, not aristocratic assemblies. Anything the servants suggested was fine with her.

With that task accomplished, she returned to the library, swept up a few tomes from the pile she’d found for Max, and retreated to the hidden study inside the stacks. She didn’t want Max catching her by surprise. She didn’t want to be kissed again—much. She just wanted to be left alone to explore whether or not she might be able to fulfill