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

here, and again, at the solicitor’s office. The library would never be for sale. Why would anyone else want this rambling old fortress?

After she decided he’d cooled his heels enough, Lydia did her best to don her Malcolm Librarian/duchess persona. She checked her hairpins, straightened her scarf, raised her chin high, and marched off to the medieval hall that served as the castle’s main drawing room.

Crowley had abandoned his tea and was prowling the ancient armament adorning the walls. He glanced up at Lydia’s entrance, then returned to studying a broadsword.

“These need oiling,” he complained. “They’ll rust.”

“And good morning to you, my lord.” She imagined herself as a stout gray-haired duchess filled with consequence. “I know you don’t understand, but I am a busy woman. I don’t have time for social calls.”

He scowled. “Women haven’t the mind for business. That’s why it takes you so much time to complete it. You should marry and have babies and let men who understand finance handle money. I made a perfectly good offer for this property. Even your solicitors agreed it was fair. You cannot maintain a property this size on your own, Miss Wystan. How do I convince you to let me take it off your hands?”

“I have been maintaining this property for years, my lord.” She quelled her righteous ire at his insult. “You surely didn’t think Mr. Cadwallader had time? It is quite impossible to sell—“

The floor rumbled. A loud ominous crack shuddered the rafters. Plaster dribbled from the overhead beams. Or perhaps it was just dust.

Trying not to panic, Lydia nodded curtly at her visitor. “I’m sorry, my lord. The answer is no, now and forever. Good day.”

She departed sedately, as if rumbling floors were perfectly normal. She didn’t run until she was in the corridor leading to the tower. A few more ominous rumbles followed. A crack zigzagged down the wall by the garden door.

Where was Max? Bakari? The servants? She ran outside, expecting the tower to tilt and collapse at any moment.

No one was in the yard. Did no one hear the crack but her? Had anxiety driven her mad?

She circled the outside of the tower until she reached the open door into the ancient byre.

Muddy and rumpled, Max leaned on a filthy shovel as if he hadn’t a care in the world, talking with the stable lad.

“What did you do?” she cried as she approached. “I thought the roof was caving in.”

Max straightened and the boy ran off, apparently on some errand. “Sorry. I hadn’t realized it would affect the hall.”

Lydia stopped to catch her breath and force her heart not to leap from her chest. “What did you do?” she repeated.

“Knocked a hole in the wall into the inner tower. Your plumbing isn’t just medieval, I think it’s prehistoric.”

“Prehistoric?” She could scarcely breathe for imagining the walls tumbling around her.

“I suppose the Romans aren’t pre-history. What are they called?” He pointed at an outcropping in the tower wall. “The original garderobes aren’t connected to a moat or stream but to a complex system of pipes and vaults that empty out in a drain field down the hill, providing natural fertilizer for the crops that must have once grown there. But as best as I am able to tell, that system was built with the original inner tower or before it. I’m not a historian, but my guess would be it was originally Roman.”

“Not prehistoric, but Dark Ages, certainly,” she murmured, trying to puzzle it out to prevent quivering in terror. “I know the Romans fortified this area back in the first and second centuries. We’re on one of the highest hills, so it’s possible there was a fortification here, but it should have been little more than a mud hut. Until now, the tower hasn’t tilted or shook. You aren’t working with Baron Crowley so I will be forced to sell, are you?”

“Why would I do that?” he narrowed his eyes at her change of topic. “Who is Crowley and why does he want you to sell your library?”

“He’s a neighbor. I think he owns mines and wants the land. The walls aren’t coming down? We’re safe?”

“Mines?” He frowned up at the sky as if looking for answers there, nodded, then studied the tower. “New mines might explain why the old system is failing. I’ll need to order a few loads of brick. Will the trust be able to pay for them? My liquid funds are mostly frozen. I can pay for my minor expenses but repairs of this size require a large outlay.”

She ought to shake him. She really should. Her life, was under that roof, and he talked about bricks?

“What on earth will you do with bricks? Look at this place.” Lydia gestured at the towering stone walls in exasperation. “Every inch is stone.”

“Except for the wood bits,” he replied with a grin that proved he really did not understand her panic. “Bricks are faster, cheaper, and it’s easier to find workmen who know how to build with them. They will be underground, so no one will notice.”

“What will be underground?” She clasped her elbows, trying not to tremble. The man was impossible! He stood there in all his Ives strength and glory, as solid as a mountain, fully confident he could produce miracles—literally out of clay—not giving one thought to what would happen should he be wrong.

“Your improved sewage system. It won’t be an easy task, mind you. It won’t be cheap either. But if you want to keep your tower and use your plumbing, it has to be done.”

Stricken, she could only stare. No plumbing?

“You can afford it, can’t you?” he asked again. “I come free but labor doesn’t.”

“How much?” she asked worriedly. “So far, I’ve only been given a budget for regular maintenance, and that’s been neglected for a year. The roof is starting to leak. . .”

Is this what Crowley meant when he said women had no head for business? Should she have been planning for major repairs?

Max watched her sympathetically.