“Caught your eye, did it?” he asked, raising a knowing dark eyebrow. “Out of the thousands of volumes in there, the one about my engineering ancestor and his librarian wife simply leaped out at you?”
“Singular, but not useful.” With disappointment, she set the volume down and returned to dressing.
“You don’t analyze, do you?” Max buttoned his waistcoat. “You take everything at face value, not taking time to wonder why one book would catch your eye. You’re waiting for magic to happen. But that’s not how it works.”
Lydia hoped the corset she was wearing was tight enough for the new bodice and began struggling into the narrow sleeves. “How am I supposed to analyze an enormous library of whispering books?”
“I don’t know. I can’t read, remember? That’s your talent. I never saw anyone read and comprehend a book as swiftly as you just did.” He helped her with the stiff bodice, then shrugged into his tailored coat. It was country wear and not a fancy tailed coat, but the black emphasized his weathered bronzed complexion.
“Then I’ll just read the entire library. Although what good that will do if I can’t read Gaelic, I can’t say.” In a huff, she started pulling the pins from her hair so she might brush it into some semblance of order.
“How many languages does the library contain?” Max took the brush from her and gently pulled at the tangles. “I love your hair. It’s like holding sunshine.”
She wanted to melt at his romantic flattery, but she was too agitated. Her entire life, her home, depended on understanding a library that wouldn’t speak to her. “I don’t know. Mr. C could read Gaelic, Latin, Greek, and some Italian and French. I know Latin and Greek and can figure out many phrases in Italian and French, but I’ve not run across them often in the books I’ve seen. Gaelic is a problem. And if that is the basis of this library, then I don’t belong here. I will be found out any day and cast from the castle.”
Max grabbed a handful of hair and tugged her around to face him. He was large enough to almost make her feel small. Almost. He touched his nose to hers. “You belong here. Hire a steward. Live in the stacks. Figure it out. But do not leave, not ever. Understood?”
Never leave? While he traipsed the world with women falling at his feet.
She crushed his cravat in her fist, stood on her toes, and nipped his nosy nose.
Twenty-one
Max threaded Lydia’s hand through the crook of his arm as they strolled toward the enormous drawing room in what once had been the great hall. He’d like to appreciate the gas-lit chandelier and sconces and the pegged oak floors littered with carpets from Persia and Turkey, but the people swiveling to watch their entrance had him fighting the urge to bolt.
He’d attended occasions like this as an eighteen-year-old. They had turned out very badly. Of course, back then, he hadn’t known not to study the bon-bon box of female confections. He ignored them now, instead, attempting to recognize the gentlemen guests from Lydia’s descriptions.
His mother rushed to greet them. “You look so much like your father that I have to hug you!”
Max was fairly certain his father had never turned up with bite marks on his nose. He shot Lydia a look as he hugged his mother. Lydia demurely smiled as if they hadn’t just been shouting at each other. The bruised memory distracted him from the gathering crowd.
“Come along, Maxwell, let me introduce you.” His mother tugged his arm.
Despite the argument, he preferred Lydia’s no-nonsense company. Actually, he was trying to picture his betrothed flinging lusty ladies against the armament-covered walls, but he hoped he could defend himself well enough that she needn’t do so.
“I think Lydia can manage, Mother. Why don’t you take a seat by the fire and sip your ratafia?” He supposed that was mean, but he had to start asserting himself with females sometime.
“It’s only proper I act as hostess, my lady,” Lydia said in a pacifying tone. “Is my new gown too violent a color?”
“Oh, no,” Lady Agnes declared, easily distracted. “With your hair, it’s absolutely ravishing. Perhaps you should do color instead of white for your wedding gown.”
“Ivory, perhaps,” Lydia suggested. “Would you ask Lady Dare about color while I introduce Max to the gentlemen? She’s an artist with an eye for these things.”
Interesting. Distraction worked, at least with his mother. He needed to learn Lydia’s technique for isolating herself, because he had a feeling she did that regularly. Nose biting might not be the preferred method.
“Can the gentlemen escape to another room?” Max murmured as she led him toward the table where decanters and glasses waited. “There is a pretty young thing sailing in from starboard.”
Lydia’s bow lips didn’t curve, but he caught mischief in the blue of her eyes as she slanted him a look. “A mere child. Surely you can handle her?”
“Miss Wystan, thank you so much for allowing me to see your magnificent home. I’m over the moon delighted to be photographing your wedding.” Fair-haired, blue-eyed, obviously one of his mother’s students, the child looked at Max as if he were ice cream and chocolate all wrapped in one—evidently anticipating an introduction.
He was pretty damned certain distraction did not work on the dessert-deprived.
“That’s good to know, Miss Laurel. I believe Lady Agnes could use more ratafia, if you would be so kind?” Lydia sailed onward, forcing Max with her, leaving the student gaping.
“Deftly done, my dear,” Max said in approval, registering direct command as another defense. “You have a managing way about you. It won’t stop her, though.”
“Lady Phoebe and Lady Dare aren’t following us. Apparently it is only the single ladies in this company that you must avoid.” Lydia hesitated, then added honestly, “And possibly your mother. Don’t mistake me—she’s a wonderful woman. . .”
“But a meddling witch,” Max cheerfully agreed. “A harmless one I needn’t fling against walls.”
Lydia halted before a professorial sort in tweeds and a sturdy gentleman with oil staining his fingernails. “Lord Dare, Mr. Blair, Maxwell Ives. I think everyone can sort out who is whom. I need to speak with the ladies.” She strolled off, abandoning Max to strangers.
The professorial one stuck out his hand. “I’m Doctor Dare, actually. The viscountcy is recent and unexpected so forget the title. Apparently, my wife has volunteered to take your wedding portraits. Unless you have need of a physician, I am relatively useless. If you require help with engineering problems, as the ladies seem to think, Blair here is your man.”
Both gentlemen had the dark-haired good looks of an Ives. Max had a vague recollection of an Alexander Dare in one of his sojourns to his southern cousins’ homes. But Blair was a stranger.
Relaxing his guard in male company, Max shook the physician viscount’s hand. “Should you happen to remember me as a recalcitrant, sulking youngster, you might identify me to a judge. Otherwise, your presence makes the ladies happy and that counts.”
Dare tilted his head to study Max but didn’t light up with recognition. “All Ives look alike to me,” he admitted.
Gut twisting, fearing his strong family features would be a problem, Max turned to the stranger—his cousin Phoebe’s husband, if he did not mistake. “Blair, good to meet you. Lydia is learning your typewriter invention. But I’m thinking I need an archeologist to work out this plumbing problem.”
“I’m more mechanical than structural, but I’d love a tour of that tower foundation, if we have time tomorrow,” Blair responded. “Hugh Morgan and I are removing some of the medieval tenements in Old Town and learning how to develop adequate plumbing is essential. The doctor and I were just discussing the disease factor of these primitive edifices.”
The round-faced, smiling maid arrived bearing a tray of nicely browned tartlets. “A nibble until the meal is served, gentlemen?”
Max turned his back on her to top off his glass at the liquor table.
“Mr. Ives, sir, tartlet?
” she insisted, following him.
He swung back to his companions who stood tart-less, watching in bemusement. Grimacing, Max snatched the tray from the maid and passed it to them.
“Oh, sir, you needn’t do that! Please, let me, you’ll ruin your coat. . .” She began dabbing at an imaginary spot on his lapel with a napkin.
“For heaven’s sake, leave the gentleman alone.” The young photography student approached, grabbed the napkin, and pointed back to the ladies. “Ladies should be served first.”
Max sighed. He knew he should express gratitude for the rescue, but he also knew it wasn’t rescue. Without a word, he strode away from the quarreling women and back to Lydia. He took a seat beside her and threw back a swig of good Scots malt.
She glanced from him to her male guests. He assumed she noted the quarreling young women because her lips tightened.
“Not the stage for wall-flinging,” he murmured. “If I leave the room, they’ll most likely go back to normal.”
“You are not leaving the room,” she said grimly. “Your mother planned this dinner for you.”
“Did I tell you how regal you look in all that finery?” Max asked in amusement. “I know where I can buy a jeweled scepter and a tiara, although I suppose you would prefer a necklace. Diamonds? Amethysts?”
Her lips turned up, as he’d hoped. “A mace,” she said defiantly.
He grinned in appreciation. Dinner was finally called, and he breathed easier as they departed for the eccentric dining room with the round table. The student was placed on the furthest side from him, behind a silver epergne some ambitious soul had polished for the occasion. Normally, he’d wish the centerpiece to the devil. For tonight, it meant he could concentrate on Lydia and his cousin Phoebe on either side of him. He rather enjoyed a table with no head or foot so there was no precedence he had to memorize.
Relaxing a little, he followed the conversation as it bounced from Phoebe’s animal shelter to Dare’s new medical project to Blair’s latest invention. Lady Dare, in her colorful sari, spoke of the latest efforts in color photography. Perhaps he’d been attending the wrong sorts of society functions. He warily watched a new young maid delivering trays from the kitchen, but she merely darted nervous glances and ran off like a frightened hare.
Over the epergne, the pretty student attempted to attract his attention by offering food commentary so obviously directed at him that it was painful. His mother had a word with her, and she was reduced to wide-eyed, longing looks that Max easily ignored.
He had actually reached the point of enjoying the lamb medallions enough to compare them to one of the few fine dinners he remembered in rural regions when a footman entered with a card in hand instead of food.
The servant uncertainly presented it between Lydia and Max. “The gentleman asks to see Mr. Ives.”
“At this hour? In the rain? Do we ask him to join us?” Lydia let Max take the card, realized her mistake, and leaned over to read it. “David Franklin?”
Conversation halted. Max debated telling the footman to heave his uncle back into the rain. But this was Lydia’s home, and he respected her hospitality. One glance at her worried expression warned that heaving would not be the best path to her bed.
It certainly hadn’t taken long for news of his whereabouts to spread.
“Now I know how men were tamed,” he muttered, pushing back his chair. “Offered war or women, we’ll take the easy route every time.”
Phoebe looked at him strangely, but Lydia chuckled.
“Gentlemen, if you’d like to stand witness that I did not murder my uncle—”
Apparently having been informed of the legal battle over Max’s non-death, they pushed back their chairs before he could complete the sentence. His mother looked as if she’d like to join them, but Lady Dare placed a gold-bangled hand over her arm and whispered something pacifying. The women all stayed put.
“Pistols or swords?” Max murmured as they traipsed down a corridor lit only by oil lamps. Apparently the gas lighting was just for show in the grand hall.
“One assumes your uncle is not young?” Blair asked.
“He was younger than my father by some years, late fifties now, I’d wager, but hale and hearty. I doubt I’ll give him an apoplexy if I wave a pistol under his nose.”
“I’m surprised he came alone,” the inventor said.
Knowing the Ives family a little better, the good doctor refrained from commenting.
“It’s a tactic,” Max acknowledged. “He’s come here to show his true colors and browbeat me. He’ll not expect me to have support.”
At age eighteen, larger than most full-grown men, Max had scorned the need for anyone’s aid. He’d learned a little strategy since then.
He strolled into the paneled medieval hall as if he’d lived here all his life. He didn’t particularly feel like a king or even a lord. But he had to admit the wealthy surroundings gave him an advantage over the rain-soaked gentleman warming himself at the dying fire. The chandelier’s lighting had been turned off, and the wall sconces lowered to burn dimly.
His uncle noted Max’s companions with surprise. He recovered quickly. “Can’t face me alone, can you? Any impostor who would cheat an old lady is a coward.”
Oh well, so much for any hope of a peace treaty. Max crossed the Turkish rug to confront his step-uncle. Once, he’d thought Franklin a formidable man of admirable intelligence. Today, he saw a graying, rain-soaked bully clinging to his power.
“I believe it is yourself you think I’m cheating, since my mother has little left to lose.” Max countered the twisted accusation with truth as he never would have known to do in his youth. He proceeded as if they hadn’t just clashed swords. “Good evening, Uncle David. We’re in the midst of my engagement dinner. Had we known you were interested, we might have sent an invitation. You will excuse my friends for believing a visit at this hour might be an emergency. Surely you haven’t reached bankruptcy in less than a week?”
The fire gleamed on his uncle’s fading blond hair but concealed his eyes. His anger was only reflected in his choice of words. “It’s true then? You think you can marry into Lady Agnes’s insane family and steal a dead man’s estate? It won’t work, you know. I have witnesses to prove you’re not my nephew. Perhaps I should introduce them to your fiancée so you don’t cheat her as well.”
Max’s companions poured themselves whisky and leaned against the mantel, silently providing encouragement with their presence but leaving the floor to Max. He appreciated their confidence in his ability to defend himself.
“If you came here to insult me, then I must apologize for my youthful mistake in believing you as brilliant as my father.” Just to give his fists occupation, Max poured a tumbler of whisky and didn’t offer his uncle any. “In which case, I made a grave error, leaving you terribly overwhelmed by the difficulty of managing so large an estate. Does that mean Cousin George isn’t any help either?”
His uncle scowled. “Everyone knows Maxwell Ives has been dead for years. The poor sod couldn’t even read much less perpetrate a fraud of this immensity. You will never prove your case.”
At the mantel, the viscount-physician raised a wry eyebrow. “Is there no memory from your childhood you can drop on him so he gives up this folly, and we can all go back to our dinner? I’ve been told there is champagne chilling in anticipation of your announcement.”
Max shrugged. “My only memories of my uncle are of a stuffy office and books of numbers and discussions of cents and per-cents well above my head.” Max hesitated, recalling those days. “Well above my head, since I was most likely a very young schoolboy. Once my father realized what a disappointment I was, he left me in school or with my cousins. Since I left these shores at fifteen, there aren’t many memories to recall.”
“See?” His uncle turned to the viscount. “He has nothing. The messages purportedly from my nephew were written by men of letters, not the lazy dolt who could barely write his name. The recommendatio
ns in those posts are from that Glaswegian spider who’s been weaving webs around every decent investment in the city. Once he has his hands on the estate, Hugh Morgan will own us all.”
“Ah, forgive me again, sir,” Max said, biting back a grin as his uncle revealed his hand. “I failed to introduce you to my guests, Lord Dare and Mr. Andrew Blair. I believe you’ll know Blair as partner to the spider who will indeed be managing my investments once the court returns them.”
It was difficult to tell in the dim light, but Max thought his uncle turned an unhealthy purple.
“You will not usurp all my decades of hard work. You may resemble an Ives, but so do dozens of others I can present. Without proof, you are nothing. I will offer Lady Agnes a decent residence on the side of town not riddled with pestilence, and I will see that she has an adequate allowance so she may have the parties I remember she enjoys. She’ll see the error of her ways and drop your support. If you have half a brain, you will accept the substantial sum I’m offering you to take the next ship out. Leave before I humiliate the ladies by having you flung from the courtroom as the fraud you are.”
“Had you offered my mother that ten years ago, I might have taken you up on it,” Max acknowledged. “I have no use for you or civilization or juggling pounds and cents. I left in the first place so as not to humiliate my family. Instead of being grateful, you tried to rob my mother of her family home, you deprived her of income, and forced me to find Morgan to handle my affairs. And now you insult my intelligence. I’ll see you in court, sir, and you’d best pray the judge is lenient for I’ll not be.”
“That school will fall down on your mother’s head!” His uncle raged. “I am merely attempting to remove her to somewhere safe.”
“There’s a major civic development project scheduled for the property across from the school,” Blair offered. “A fortune can be made if those old tenements are torn down and replaced with modern buildings to house lawmakers and the like.”
Max sighed and studied his uncle with despair. “You have spent too much time with your accounting books, Uncle. You’ve forgotten that the point of money is not to watch it grow but to make people safe. Just as fair warning, my fiancée is the Malcolm librarian. She holds the family genealogy, and we have corresponded for years. Neither she nor anyone else who really knows me doubts my identity. It is your problem that you never took the time to learn who I am. Do you need a room for the night? I can ask Miss Wystan if she has a bed for you.”
The Librarian's Spell Page 19
