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

hand. “You haven’t shrunk and you still dress like a coachman, Dwarf.”

The mention of the ridiculous nickname swiveled a few heads in their direction.

“You came in on the Glasgow train?” Max asked. “Have you breakfasted? Or are you just waiting on those other well-fed idiots to finish bragging about their steeds?”

More of the braggarts pivoted to study him.

“A bite wouldn’t be amiss,” Percy admitted. “I was trying to determine if any of the braggarts might be you.”

Max chortled and held out his hand to another almost-familiar stranger who dared approach. “And I suppose you’re all here to see how I managed to persuade any woman to marry me?”

“We’re more interested in how you managed not to get yourself killed.” One of the horsemen joined in. “I can still take you in the ring if you’re as obnoxious as I remember.”

“Dingo! Did no one ever teach you not to antagonize your host? And I thought I was uncivilized!” Max shook hands all around, desperately attempting to place faces with names while retorting to insults. Dingo wasn’t the man’s name, of course, but as schoolboys, they’d lived by irrational sobriquets.

“I’m more interested in the castle than why you’re alive or need us,” Percy said diffidently. “My students will want to hear all about it. That tower is a perfect example of medieval architecture at its best, even if it has been mutilated for modern use.”

Opportunity knocked. Vowing to make Percy godfather to his next-born, Max swung his arm to indicate everyone join him on the gravel drive back to the untended lawns. A few gardeners had arrived these past weeks to clip and mend, but it was much too late to return the landscaping to any former glory.

Max pretended he didn’t see his uncle and cousin conversing with more officious gentlemen on the far end of the buffet. He helped himself to ale and regaled his guests with castle history and lies while they worked their way through the generous repast the kitchen had provided.

Decked out in newly acquired suits, his sons worked the crowd, directing the gentlemen to the stable, to a tour of the “Roman cellar,” to the guest door and library. Mrs. Folkston—also garbed in new finery—discreetly guided female guests to the main entrance and accommodations.

A man nearly as broad and dark as Max stepped up to introduce himself. “I’m Simon Blair, Drew’s cousin. My wife and your bride are acquainted. I’ve built mines. How filthy will I get if I poke around a bit below the tower? Olivia won’t appreciate mud.”

“Maxwell Ives, pleasure, sir. I’ve heard about you. The front section of the tower should be safe, but once you wander deeper, I make no promises. Maybe after the ceremony? I’d love to have an expert opinion.”

Blair slapped him on the back and moved on, bringing Max face-to-face with his uncle.

Max waited to see if his uncle might acknowledge that Max really was his nephew. From the look on his uncle’s face, Max assumed hell would have ski slopes and ice-skating rinks before that happened.

Refusing to allow ugliness to mar his wedding day, Max regaled the rest of his audience with the growing fiction of a wealthy Roman engineer building the first tower with plumbing and baths and the proceeds of a silver mine.

By this time, the Pascoe twins had wandered out, thwarted in their efforts to woo nubile young ladies. They contributed their version complete with Roman ghost and buried treasure.

Even the baron listened—which nicely kept him from bothering Lydia. A keg of ale was emptied and a second arrived. The tour through the cellar gained more interest as more guests trickled in and heard exaggerated tales of silver mines. People would believe any story told by a person of authority, poor fools.

Apparently satisfied with his perusal of Lydia’s grounds, Lord Crowley took advantage of a pause in the storytelling to introduce himself.

“Henry, Baron Crawley, your bride’s neighbor.” He held out his plump hand.

Instead of shaking it, Max shoved a mug of ale in it. “I don’t believe Lydia invited you.”

“I had guests who were invited,” the baron said offhandedly. “And visitors from Miss Wystan’s trustees wished to have a word. Perhaps now is the time?” He gestured at the two suited strangers who’d arrived with him. “They’ve obtained the test the Librarian must pass before she can claim her full status.”

Lydia soothed herself with tea and toast and the journal that had called to her last night. She knew any moment her mother and sister would knock at her door, and the rest of the wedding party would follow. But for right now, for these few moments, she happily translated Latin and inscribed what she learned. This was her true calling.

The journal writer was a woman, naturally. As best as Lydia could tell, the book was written before the outer walls of the tower were completed. She read with fascination about life in the inner tower before it became a library. The woman was too busy to write as much as Lydia would have liked to read. But she spoke of the kitchen housed outside the old walls in a stone outbuilding that had been there as long as anyone remembered. The remains of the Roman encampment? She mentioned the cistern and the well and her gratitude that her husband’s family had such amenities.

She also mentioned a bathhouse, an armory, and a dungeon, which might also have been built from Roman ruins. So this had not necessarily been a Malcolm stronghold from the beginning.

Of course, it hadn’t. Malcolms married warriors and lords in those evil days when women who knew how to read and write or lived alone were called witches. Or they became nuns, which probably wasn’t a good option for half-pagan descendants of Druids.

Dungeon? The tower had a dungeon? Did Max need to know that? How did one fit a dungeon in with a cistern and well?

She had just begun reading about a village of craftsmen growing up outside the tower walls when