Twenty-eight
“There they are! You’ve been gone so long, we thought you’d fallen into the oubliette!” Max’s loud voice echoed off the old walls, penetrating even Gerard’s thick skull.
“We never thought even an Ives could fall asleep in this dungeon, no matter what you and your bride might be doing,” a feminine voice scolded.
Phoebe?
Gerard rubbed his pounding skull, then realized he couldn’t sit up. His heart lurched a beat as fought the very real nightmare filling his head and identified Iona’s soft weight on top of him. Had he killed her. . . ? But she stirred at the shouting and shifted to one side.
“For pity’s sake, Ives, you couldn’t find a better boudoir?” Rainford—sounding amused.
Rubbing his head, Gerard spurted out—“Ives!” He recalled the scene they’d experienced with wonder. “They were everywhere—with crossbows, spears, trebuchets, even a catapult!”
Beside him, Iona rubbed sleepily at her eyes. “The women worked beside them,” she added, sounding equally dazed. “They made arrows. They boiled oil. It was terrifying!”
“The books!” Excitedly, Gerard recalled the beautifully illustrated manuscripts the women had hidden. “They were protecting the books. The raiders were well armed.”
“But the invaders couldn’t climb the bluff,” Iona continued excitedly. “And they couldn’t break past the wall around the village. It was like watching from the top of the tower—”
Finally heeding their audience, Gerard squeezed Iona until she recognized the stillness too. They’d been speaking to each other as if there were no others to hear. Not very diplomatic of him. And he would never hear the end of this. Damn.
Soberly, he climbed to his feet and offered his hand to his wife, who glanced nervously at him. “I love you,” he whispered with feeling, still thrilled with their shared vision. “Whatever happens next, know I love you forever and always. Apparently Ives aren’t good at expressing that.”
She grinned and squeezed his hand.
“Go on.” Phoebe gestured impatiently. “Tell us more.”
Max regarded them warily. “You both had the same dream?”
“What kind of books?” Rainford crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the wall.
“Malcolm journals!” Phoebe cried, poking him. “Lydia has a library of them, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Defended by trebuchets?” The blond marquess waited. The blasted marquess should be on his way home by now.
Gerard would never live this down. Those were not journals they’d seen.
“Illustrated manuscripts!” Iona cried excitedly when he didn’t explain. “The ladies were hiding precious works of art.”
“Iona,” he said warningly. “You promised.”
“Don’t make me punch your sore arm.” She stepped away from him defiantly. “I love you madly, but you aren’t allowed to make all the decisions.”
He quirked his eyebrows. His gut clenched, but he refused to let anyone see his fear. If he loved this woman, he had to listen to her. Occasionally. Especially when she claimed to love his worthless self in the process.
She stood on her toes and kissed his jaw. “You can’t hide from me, my lord. I know you want to find those books. You can’t, not without help.”
“My decision, isn’t it?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral. He really didn’t want to explain this to an audience.
His insides knotted more when she glared back.
“Oh, and deciding who I was to marry without asking was your decision too?” she taunted. “How is that, pray tell?”
“She’s right, Cuz,” Phoebe said gleefully. “Sometimes, it’s best if one simply swims with the tide.”
“Perhaps we should go upstairs and discuss this over tea like civilized human beings?” Rainford raised his shoulder from the wall and gestured for the ladies to proceed him.
Gerard wanted to stay and explore, not be mauled with questions he couldn’t answer.
But he had a wife now, and as she’d so rudely pointed out, they needed to learn to make decisions together. Besides, despite her strength and courage, he’d just put her through a painful and terrifying experience. Even he was still shaken by the violence.
“More than tea.” Wrapping his arm around Iona’s waist and leading her from the tunnels was the only thing that felt right at the moment. He didn’t feel like himself but more like one of those barbarian warriors chasing down the invaders.
“Illustrated manuscripts?” Rainford asked from behind.
“Books,” Max grumbled. “More blamed books.”
Phoebe laughed. He couldn’t blame her there. Poor Max couldn’t read but he’d married a librarian.
“Why the devil are you still here—Cuz?” Gerard asked his long-legged cousin. The woman was striding ahead of them like a jungle explorer with her lamp.
“I’m to help prepare your bride and her sister for their visit with the queen, of course. The aunts insisted.” This from a woman wearing split skirts and a porkpie hat.
“That is generous.” Iona spoke hesitantly, as well she should. “Do we really need preparation?”
“You are fine just as you are,” Gerard insisted. “You’ll probably only see the Lord Chancellor anyway. Phoebe’s family is just bossy. I’ll be there with you.”
“If you want to keep the aunts and quite possibly my mother from going with you, you’ll take me,” Phoebe called back. “Andrew needs to go with us. I believe he’s under consideration for knighthood for one of his inventions. We’ll make it a party.”
“Or a circus,” Gerard grumbled.
Iona snickered and squeezed his arm. He hoped she had a way out of Phoebe’s machinations.
But if he was to rely on the only person in the world who understood his weird gift—
He had to concede to telling their tale, as she’d made clear. The vision belonged to both of them. His duties had become tremendously more complicated. Or perhaps love complicated them.
“It can be very simple,” Iona whispered, as if hearing his thoughts. “We do what we like unless it affects others. Think about it.”
* * *
Lydia bustled in to join them once they settled in the small guest parlor with their tea and whisky. “I’m so glad you’re safe! You were gone so long! And the books could tell me nothing about your whereabouts. The past isn’t always helpful.”
Gerard tipped his cup in Iona’s direction as if saying, “See, old history doesn’t count.”
Iona didn’t believe that. They could learn from experience. That was the whole point of their library. “Does the library mention illustrated manuscripts?”
Lydia looked surprised. “I haven’t looked. Shall I?”
“Sit down and drink your tea, put your feet up,” Max ordered. “We’ll have the tale of the pair before we decide.”
“Well, Ives?” Phoebe asked, sipping her tea. “Do we have to pry it out of you?”
“History is important,” Iona murmured, daringly trailing her fingers over her husband’s thigh. She thought Gerard needed more touching. He’d been carrying his burdens alone too long. “Would you leave those books for rats to nest in?”
“After four or five centuries, if they’re not already rat nests, they’ll last a few more. And there’s no proof that they’re still hidden or that we can determine where.” His cynicism sounded hollow to Iona’s ears. He was as eager to explore as she was.
“Illuminated manuscripts are extremely valuable,” Rainford noted from his chair by the fire. “If the castle holds them, Lydia stands to make a fortune.”
“I couldn’t sell books,” the Malcolm Librarian said in horror.
“As Iona said, illuminated manuscripts are works of art.” Gerard added more whisky to his cup, then squeezed her hand. “Ancient, possibly historical, works of art should be shared by the public in museums.”
“Or one could charge to see them,” Iona suggested. “I should imagine they’d require c
are and that would be costly.”
“Just tell us the tale, for all that’s holy!” Max bellowed. “Making up fairy tales is futile.”
“Fairy tales are literary parables,” Gerard taunted. “Something you would not understand.”
Iona pinched her husband’s hard thigh. It wasn’t easy. In retaliation, he poured whisky in her tea, and she sputtered, setting the nasty stuff aside.
He launched into their tale of barbarian invaders and dark-haired Ives’ defenders and most likely blond Malcolm women at their side. The vision had shown them illustrated manuscripts being hidden, but it hadn’t told more. What seemed certain was that all this had taken place here, in Calder Castle, as it was being built.
By the time he finished, his audience was enrapt. Like any good lawyer and politician, her husband had a smooth way with words.
Iona knew Gerard was uncomfortable with the questions that followed. Possessing a few more years of experience in discussing oddities with her family, she put a halt to his torment. “Lydia, Phoebe, I know you have experience living with your gifts. I don’t know about Max and Rainford. Would anyone like to explain how their gifts work?”
The men remained stubbornly mute but interested. Lydia and Phoebe made several false starts and gave up.
“That is why we have journals,” Iona pointed out. “We write down what we experience because we can’t really explain how we do it. There is no sense pestering us for what we cannot tell you.”
Iona sensed Gerard relaxing a fraction. She stroked his thigh encouragingly, loving that she had the right to touch him like this. He seemed to respond to tactile sensation the same way she did scent.
She grasped that what they’d done was strange to him, and he hated explaining himself. His position of authority had led him to expect people to take his word as law. That was an enlightening realization.
People wouldn’t question an earl, but they were bound to doubt a Mad Malcolm.
“Gifts aren’t tort law or contracts.” Gerard admitted his inability to explain.
“Where did you see them hiding the books?” Max demanded, going straight for the practical. “We’ll hunt them down.”
“That’s hard to say. The new tower was only partially built and there was no castle.” Gerard gestured at the room they sat in, just outside the tower. “The women stayed between what appeared to be an old watchtower and the partial wall of the new one they were building. The old watchtower walls were probably sealed in when they finished the new one.”
Ignoring male frustration, Iona turned to the librarian. “Lydia, if you would be so good as to look up references to the manuscripts—and perhaps to mausoleums or catacombs? That might be simpler than tearing down a tower over a vague vision.”
The librarian nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps in the interest of showing how gifts work instead of explaining, I should demonstrate how some of mine works. It’s quite hard to describe how books speak to me.”
Iona sensed her husband’s tension relaxing even more. She had never really used her sense of smell for more than identifying flowers her bees might like or avoiding people in ugly moods. Using it to help added an exciting dimension.
Gerard had been right—isolation affected how she learned, not always in a good way.
“Are you inviting us to see your library?” she asked in excitement.
“You and Gerard, not these other heathens who tend to mock what they don’t understand. They’ve seen it.” Lydia rose with stately grace and led the way out.
Eagerly, Iona clasped Gerard’s hand as they crossed to Lydia’s office, where Isobel sat with stacks of books. Her twin glanced up and stood, looking puzzled.
“We didn’t tell your sister you went missing,” Lydia explained. “She is a little too anxious.”
Iona hugged her twin. “We have been exploring. Marriage is quite exciting. You should avoid it.”
“I’m sure I shall.” Isobel regarded them in her studious manner. “Balmoral will be more than my nerves can handle. I’ve been thinking you should go in my stead, pretend you’re me. Did you need the office? I can leave—”
“No, dear, I’m showing your brother-in-law that history is important.” Lydia opened a hidden door behind the desk and gestured for them to enter.
Iona gasped as they stepped inside what had once been an ancient watchtower—the one in their vision?—and saw a stairway spiraling to the roof.
Around the stairway, books were almost leaping off shelves, jiggling as if in anticipation.
Thrilled, Iona practically danced in delight. “It’s magical! They’re so eager to see you, Lydia!”
The librarian smiled shyly. “It’s more like, I’m so happy to hear them speaking to me, that they want to leap into my hands.” She pulled one out from one of the lowest shelves. “This would be the lady who lived here while the fortress was built. I only read her earlier journal that described her new home when I was helping Max. I think she may be trying to tell us about manuscripts.”
Gerard took the tome and the others Lydia handed him that mentioned mausoleums, crypts, and—visions.
“It will take weeks to translate all these,” Iona protested, opening one of the journals. “I think this one is French.”
“I can take the French and Latin ones.” Gerard juggled the stack trying to open pages. “Gaelic is beyond me.”
Lydia pulled out a few more books from further up the stacks. “I can hear what the journals say, no matter the language. And they’ll open up to where we need them, so we needn’t read everything.”
“A much more useful gift than talking to bees,” Iona said in admiration.
“But it means I can never live anywhere else. It’s difficult, because Max loves traveling and can find jobs in exciting places—” Lydia opened the study door and led them out.
“Our gifts have downsides,” Iona agreed. “My mother was tied to her hives. But with the new frames, I can carry my queen wherever I like.” She glanced up at Gerard. “That is fortunate, since not everyone enjoys drafty castles in the north.”
“I’d follow you anywhere but there,” he whispered into her hair.
She poked his ribs and followed Lydia out of the library, into the study where Isobel waited with interest.
Even her twin followed as they carried the stack of books back to the parlor. Lydia held up the oldest one. “Manuscript first?”
After a general clamor of agreement and ordering a new round of refreshments, Lydia opened to the appropriate page and began to read aloud, translating as she went.
Silence ensued after she finished. Iona studied her husband worriedly. She sensed a slight odor of excitement, but his gentlemanly layer of duty was more pronounced.
“If I am understanding correctly—a Malcolm bride carried the books from Wystan as her dowry?” Gerard asked cautiously.
Max grunted. “Aye and that would figure. Books as riches—as if we can eat the blamed things.”
Iona chuckled. Rainford glared. Lydia intervened. “They were Bibles. She’d learned the art from a priest in her household. She had a gift for art. They could have earned income from her talent.”
“Except it says she occasionally inserted passages that weren’t in the Bible and her artwork tended toward prophesy,” Rainford said dryly. “Both could have her burned at the stake. Her husband might have been an ignorant brute, but he was right to protect her by refusing to show them.”
“I want to see those books,” Iona cried. “Max, does the description of the hiding place tell you anything?”
“That she was furious with the lout and didn’t want him to find them,” he grumbled.
Lydia held up another tome. “This one was written by her sister and was written at a later date.”
“The sister she left the manuscripts to?” Gerard squeezed Iona’s hand.
Now, she could sense his excitement taking over.
“The sister who understood the prophesies, yes.” Lydia read the passages where the youn
ger woman described moving the precious but dangerous manuscripts to her sister’s burial vault in the newly-constructed chapel.
“We can probably find that.” Max lumbered to his feet.
Lydia pulled him back down and waited expectantly.
“Does the sister say who she meant to have those books?” Gerard stroked Iona’s hand as he spoke. She didn’t recognize the scent surrounding him but she thought it might be hope. “Or did she mean to leave them buried?”
Lydia flipped a few pages. “She was quite angry with her brother-in-law, who never learned to read.” She shot a knowing look at her husband. “He apparently remarried soon after his wife’s death but refused to send his sister-in-law back to Wystan as she asked. Her ability to read and write was too valuable.”
Iona leaned forward. “So the sister died here too? And the knowledge of the books went with her?”
“Until now,” Lydia said in satisfaction. “This is the last mention of the manuscripts in the library. She wrote her request in excellent French, in a clear hand: I bequeath the dowry we never used to Wystan and its inhabitants, the only ones who might find these words and appreciate our gift.”
Twenty-nine
While everyone else prepared for dinner, Gerard and Max descended into the chapel crypt.
“I can’t believe I’m desecrating a graveyard for books.” Max shone his lamp at the vaulted ceiling of the underground chamber. “Look at this! Someone knew how to build for eternity.”
“The same someone who didn’t appreciate his gifted wife? I think the women are telling us he was a bone-headed Ives.” Gerard had seen the dynamic between his mother and father long enough to know how it worked.
“A man needs to be single-minded if he’s to accomplish anything,” Max grumbled. “If this place was built four hundred years ago, the engineer was brilliant.”
Gerard ran his hand above the plates marking names and dates. Without Iona to help him focus, he only received mild vibrations that he translated as grief and loss, with the occasional sharper pangs of what might be greed or anticipation. He had no practice at actually defining different oscillations.
Entrancing the Earl Page 24
