by E. Menozzi
“All right?” he asked. He stood only a few inches taller than me. Our eyes were nearly level and entirely too close for my comfort.
I took a step backward. “Do you know where they keep the cocoa?”
“I’ll make some for us. Go ahead and sit down. It’ll just take a few minutes.” He stepped around me and headed for the refrigerator.
I plopped down onto one of the benches at the farmhouse-style table and watched him pour milk from a glass jug into a pot. He pushed up the sleeves on his baggy, misshapen wool sweater before setting the pot on the stove to heat.
“So, what were you doing before you started working for my uncle?” I asked.
He shrugged. “This and that.” He lifted a tin of cocoa powder out of one of the cabinets and returned to the stove to stir the milk.
“Well, where’d you go to school, then?” I squinted at him. He looked too old to be a university student. I’d pegged him as late twenties, probably about my age, but maybe I’d misjudged. It was hard to tell with that day-old scruff on his chin and his hair constantly flopping down and obscuring his face. “If you’re working with my uncle, you must have graduated from some world-class university.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, lips twitching into a lopsided grin. “Not exactly. I didn’t graduate because I didn’t go.”
“And my uncle hired you?” I leaned forward and stared at him. This whole secretary thing was getting stranger by the minute.
“Of course.” He shrugged. “You don’t need to go to uni to learn history. All you need are books. I can read.” He lifted two mugs off their hooks and placed them on the counter next to the stove.
“You taught yourself enough history that my uncle hired you to be his secretary.” I shook my head. A much more likely scenario came to mind. Perhaps he’d heard about my uncle’s upcoming exhibit and decided to weasel his way into Lydbury and attempt to make off with some of the family treasures. “I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” boomed a voice from the kitchen door.
I jumped up and ran over to give Uncle Oscar a hug. “Uncle!” I stood on my tiptoes to throw my arms around his neck. He smelled like cedar and library books.
“I thought I heard talking in here.” Uncle Oscar slung his arm across my shoulders as he led me back to the table. “Didn’t expect you to be up at this hour, though.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Then I ran into Liam upstairs.” I glanced at Liam out of the corner of my eye. “Aunt Vivian didn’t tell me that you’d hired a secretary.”
“Ah! Well, I’m sure it just slipped her mind,” he said. “Liam’s been a great help.”
I nodded, forcing my face into a smile to hide my frustration and disappointment.
He gave my shoulder a squeeze before releasing me. “And how’s the job?” His bushy eyebrows climbed toward his hairline as he waited for my response.
“Fine.” Not that it mattered since I’d already turned in my resignation. The job I’d been secretly hoping for was helping him with his museum project. Instead, he’d already hired a potential thief with no credentials. “Actually, I’ve been doing some research on Edric and wanted to talk to you about the legend of the Faerie Queen.”
“Of course. But, perhaps we can talk in the morning.” He glanced across the table at Liam. “Unfortunately, I came to steal Liam. I need his help with something.”
Liam had been watching while he finished stirring the cocoa and then poured the mixture into the waiting mugs. He tilted his head like he wanted to ask me something, but I ignored him.
“I can help,” I offered, turning my back on Liam to focus on my uncle.
“No, no. It’s late. Get some rest. I’m sure you’re exhausted from your travels.” He kissed the top of my head. “Liam? Shall we?”
Liam nodded. “Of course, sir. I’ll be right there.”
Uncle Oscar turned to me. “Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.” He squeezed my hand before walking toward the door.
Liam handed me one of the mugs, now steaming and full of chocolaty goodness. “If you want—”
“It’s fine,” I said, interrupting him. I didn’t need pity from this interloper. Besides, now that I knew he had no credentials, I was even more convinced he had to go. “I’ll talk with my uncle in the morning.” I brought the mug to my lips.
“All right.” He slid his hands around his own mug. “Guess I’ll see you around, then.”
“Thanks for the cocoa.” I watched his back as he disappeared into the hallway and only felt a little bad that I’d be taking his place in a few days. He may have been able to charm my aunt and uncle, but I wasn’t about to let his scruffy good looks and sexy accent fool me.
He’d mentioned she was bright. He hadn’t said she was also beautiful. I bent over the files and tried to focus on my work, but I couldn’t stop thinking of Evelyn in her pajamas, scowling at me with her straight dark hair pulled up into a messy bun, trying to figure out how I could be smart and not have gone to university. I laughed.
“What’s that, Liam?” The professor’s voice cut through my thoughts, and I remembered I wasn’t alone.
“Nothing, sir.” I bit the inside of my cheek and turned my back to the old man so he wouldn’t catch me smiling. I had to snap out of it. I had work to do, and the last thing I needed was the added distraction of the professor’s lethally tempting niece. Besides, I was fairly certain he wouldn’t be terribly keen on me flirting with her.
“Liam, bring me the file on Sir William, will you?”
I reached for a file among the several scattered across the table and brought it over to the professor’s desk.
“Ah, yes,” he said, glancing up over the top of his reading glasses at the label on the folder. “That’s the one.” He set down the journal he’d been reviewing and lifted the file from my hands. I turned and started back across the room, but he called me back.
“Liam, my boy,” he said, “there’s a note here about an artifact? What’s this?” I turned back and found him holding up a scrap of paper by one corner.
“Yes, well, sorry, sir. I meant to tell you, I’ve started cataloging the artifacts in the attic room upstairs. I created an index and have been cross-referencing the index with notes in the relevant files.”
“Dead useful, that.”
“Yes, well, I thought it might help a bit.” I had my own reasons for creating the system, but he didn’t need to know about that.
Oscar shook his head and placed the paper back into the file. “With your help, we’ll be done with this in no time.”
“Well, sir, at the very least, I expect you’ll spend quite a bit less time banging your shins on crates while hunting about in the clutter upstairs.” Which was precisely what I’d been doing when Evelyn appeared. Not that it could be helped; nearly every room in the house was packed with artifacts covered in a thick layer of dust.
“Quite.” He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and bent his head over the file.
I started back toward the filing cabinet. Cute niece or no, I had a mountain of artifacts to sift through and less time than Oscar realized to complete it in. The museum exhibit was the least of my concerns.
“Liam,” he said.
I stopped walking. “Yes, sir?”
“About my niece…”
I sighed. Here it comes, I thought. The speech about keeping my hands off his precious, brilliant, and beautiful niece. I turned to face him and pasted an innocent look on my face, as though I hadn’t been imagining her tight body under that tank top and shorts.
“Yes, sir?” I asked.
“I know I’ve been keeping you busy these past months with all this cataloging.” He removed his reading glasses and tapped them against the file folder.
“Yes, sir.” I nodded and kept my face blank.
“And I do so value your help,” he said.
And
now the lecture.
“But I think I can spare you for a few days if you’d be so kind as to show my niece about town.”
I had just opened my mouth to reassure him that I’d keep my hands to myself. But, as my brain made sense of what he’d said, I quickly shut my mouth and raised my eyebrows. “Sir?”
“I’d like her to enjoy her holiday, and I’m fairly certain she’d enjoy spending time with someone closer to her own age. Vivian and I are too old to know what you young people do for fun these days. If she had to spend all her time with us, I’m sure she’d be bored, and Vivian is quite concerned that Evelyn enjoy her stay.”
“Oh. Well. I see.” This was certainly not what I had been expecting.
“I’m sure it won’t be much trouble.” He adjusted his reading glasses and looked back down at the file.
“Of course, sir. If you think she’d enjoy that.” I did my best not to sound too eager.
“I do.” The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t look up from the file.
I took a few tentative steps backward in case he decided he had more to add.
“That will be all for now, Liam. Best get some sleep.” He shooed me with his hand but didn’t look up again.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ll just tidy up the kitchen, then be off to bed.”
The professor didn’t respond, so I took that as agreement and collected my empty mug, which gave me a plausible excuse to return to the kitchen. My luck couldn’t possibly be so good as to find her still sitting there. My heart beat faster as I pushed the door open, but the kitchen was empty.
I set the mug in the sink and glanced out the window as I washed up. The gardens were barely visible in the moonlight. They contained the usual for an historic manor. Manicured hedges. Rosebushes. Gravel paths dividing patches of grass where Vivian’s chickens would be pecking about come morning. Not bad for a country estate. It didn’t hold a candle to Mum’s garden at home, but it wasn’t shabby.
Thinking of home made my heart ache and reminded me why I’d agreed to take this job in the first place. Evelyn was an ill-timed distraction from my mission. A delicious and potentially delightful distraction, but a distraction all the same. The professor thought he could spare me for a few days, but he didn’t really understand what was at stake. I clenched my fists. My cataloging project gave me an excuse to examine every piece of the collection up close. But if I were right, and what I’d been searching for was here, I couldn’t waste any time.
I only had a few more days before the solstice. Time was running out. I needed to speed up the work without breaking my promise to my family and blowing my cover. Now that the professor had asked, if I didn’t spend time with Evelyn, I might get sacked before I found the artifact I’d been sent to retrieve.
Sod it. I’d find a way to make it work. I wanted to spend more time with Evelyn. I’d find a way to do both. Without magic.
2
When I returned from my run the next morning, I found Aunt Vivian outside, bundled up and enjoying a cup of tea. She had given me a tour of the gardens as I cooled off, telling me about the improvements she’d been making. As we returned to the flagstone path that would lead us back to the mudroom, she decided it would be a good time to catch up on my love life.
“Your father said you broke up with that boyfriend of yours.”
“Connor,” I reminded her, scrubbing the post-run dried sweat off my face. “Months ago. But technically, we’re still friends.” I stepped closer to her and linked my arm through hers, hoping my running shirt didn’t smell. I didn’t want to talk about Connor. What I wanted was an opening to confess why I was really here. “Is that all Dad told you?”
“Why, is there something else I should know?” She gave my arm a squeeze.
I took a breath. Now was my chance. “I quit my job.” I’d begged my father to keep quiet, and I had to admit, I was a little surprised that he’d resisted the opportunity to complain to his sister and request she use her influence with me to convince me to change my mind.
“That bad?” She arched an eyebrow at me.
I sighed. She was taking this well, as I expected she would. “It was horrible.” I wasn’t ready to talk about how horrible it had been, and I knew she wouldn’t press me. “I think I might go back to school.”
“Is that why you wanted to spend Christmas with us this year?” she asked.
I nodded. “I needed to get away.”
“Your father’s not thrilled, I take it?” she asked.
“Definitely not thrilled.” I frowned, remembering the argument we’d had over the phone before I left for England. “He supports the graduate-school part but thinks I should have waited until just before school starts to quit.”
“Better to take some time off.” She patted my arm with her free hand. “What do you want to study?”
“History.” I bit my lip, nervous about her reaction. “It’s always been the part of my job I like the best. Who knows? Maybe I could be a professor like Uncle Oscar. Or go back to working in a museum, but as an historian instead of an admin assistant.”
She grinned. “He’ll be thrilled to hear that, you know.”
“Really? Do you think so? I’ve been nervous about saying anything. I’ve applied to a few programs and been accepted to Berkeley, but I haven’t heard back from Oxford yet.” Uncle Oscar taught at one of the local universities, but he had connections to Oxford. If he really did support me, and if I had some experience working with him, I was certain I’d have a better chance at getting accepted into their program.
Aunt Vivian glanced at me. “You’ve been quite busy, haven’t you? Why haven’t you said anything?”
I shrugged. “It’s not practical. I was a business major. If Connor’s old coach hadn’t hired me, I wouldn’t know the first thing about history. I thought everyone would laugh at me.”
“Well, that’s your father talking, there,” she said. “Between this and your breakup, you’ve probably been getting an earful. But you know you can talk to me, don’t you?”
“I do. I just wanted to tell you in person.” I’d hoped that, if anyone might understand, it would be Aunt Vivian. My parents had invested too much in my education and my relationship to understand why neither of those was ever going to work. But I remember, when I was little, I heard my mother tell someone that Aunt Vivian had left her fiancé at the altar. At the time, I didn’t understand what that meant, but now I knew Aunt Vivian’s decision to move to England and marry Uncle Oscar had been quite the family scandal. To this day, no one talked about it. So I knew she wasn’t likely to tell me to do the responsible thing.
Since I’d gone this far, I decided I might as well casually steer the conversation toward my plan to work with Uncle Oscar. “Let’s talk about something else. How about you and Uncle Oscar? How’s the museum exhibit coming along?”
“Not bad. I’m so glad he agreed to bring on that boy, Liam, to help him. Now that the historical society has asked him to give a series of lectures in Scotland in the spring, he’s got that to sort out as well. Oscar’s never been the most organized man, and Liam’s been so much help. He keeps me sane, not having to talk Oscar through every crisis. You met him?”
“Yes.” I flashed back to Liam’s floppy hair and baggy sweater, and his lack of credentials. “That was a surprise. Why didn’t you tell me that Uncle Oscar had hired a secretary?”
“I’m sorry about that. It must have slipped my mind. I’ve been so busy with the fund-raiser for the university. Then, supervising the greenhouse construction. They finished it just in time, too. It’s going to be lovely to have a vegetable garden again.” She sighed.
On any other day, I’d have been happy to talk about Aunt Vivian’s projects and vegetables, but today I wanted answers about what in the world they were thinking letting that guy into their house. “Liam said he’s been living here? Since October?” It was bad enough that he wasn’t
even qualified to work with Uncle Oscar, but letting a random stranger move in with them was completely bizarre. Besides, it was the holidays. Didn’t he have family to go stay with? What was he doing here?
“We gave him the old attic room. You remember? You and your brothers stayed up there the last time you came to visit? He’s very quiet, though. You won’t even notice he’s in the house. And since I don’t have to help Oscar with his work, I’ll have more time to spend with you.” She patted my hand and smiled.
My stomach clenched at her mention of the attic room—of my attic room. So that’s why I’d been put in the guest room. A childish anger filled my chest, but I squashed it down.
“Uncle Oscar seems pleased with Liam’s work,” I said, forcing my voice into a pleasant tone that concealed both my annoyance and my frustration that this underqualified outsider had trespassed on my plans.
“Oh, he’s quite bright. And such a nice, thoughtful young man. He’s working out quite well.” Aunt Vivian snapped a dead twig off a hedge as we walked past and spun it between her fingers.
“But how did you find him?” I asked. I still didn’t understand why my uncle would have chosen to hire someone who hadn’t even attended university when there had to have been any number of more qualified candidates. Like me.
Aunt Vivian cocked her head at me. “Are you concerned, dear? You needn’t worry about us. Or, perhaps… Are you interested in him? He is rather attractive, I suppose.”
“No,” I said, more forcefully than I’d intended. “I mean, it’s just strange, that’s all. Uncle Oscar’s never had a secretary before. And I guess I thought it would be just the three of us for the holidays.” I mentally kicked myself. Why was I hesitating? I couldn’t make myself say that I wanted Liam’s job.
“Well, the more the merrier, no? It is the Christmas season, after all.” We walked a few more steps in silence. “Do you want me to find out if he has a girlfriend?”
