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 the inevitable knock sounded on her door. With a sigh, she set aside the journal.
Her mother and sister strode in bemoaning Lydia’s shabby gown and braid. Behind them followed the ladies Lydia had only recently come to know—Lady Phoebe, Lady Dare, and Olivia Blair, who lived half way to Glasgow and had children to mind, so didn’t visit often. She must have been on the early train.
The ladies descended on Lydia in exclamations of joy and admiration, steering her toward the bedchamber as if they’d lived here all their lives. Lydia began to feel a trifle better about her wedding day.
“We left our men outside with Max,” Phoebe said. “He has his sons leading tours beneath the tower. They’ll be digging up the Roman bath if we don’t start this ceremony soon!”
Lydia could only imagine. . . She almost laughed at the vision of Max and his best men walking up the aisle in mud-encased shoes or worse. “Surely the marquess and the earl aren’t out there, are they?”
“The marquess?” her mother asked in astonishment, stepping away from Lydia’s elaborately gowned entourage. “Surely a proper lord would not dig under the tower?”
“The earl is an Ives. I don’t know about the marquess, but Ives curiosity is greater than common sense.” Lydia hugged her mother. “Do not fear. We will all be as grand as you wish for a few hours.”
“Your hair, we must start with your hair!” Olivia cried happily. “I have brought an assortment of pins and combs and ribbons you can pick through as you like. I know you disdain ornament, but today, you must shine.”
“I was very shiny last night,” Lydia informed her. “Lady Agnes emptied her jewel box over my head.”
“I wish I’d had my camera here.” Lady Dare was setting up said camera. “In the future, we’ll all have glamorous portraits of our wedding days to hang on the wall. Real people, real memories, not artificial backgrounds and fake poses for a painter.”
“Posing for a camera is equally artificial,” Olivia pointed out.
They quarreled amiably as they brushed and pulled and tugged at Lydia’s hair. If she believed the ladies, her hair wasn’t as vulgar as she thought. They exclaimed over the color and the fineness and the frizzy curl as if it were a stack of gold instead of a haystack. Of course, Max claimed to like it, too, but he’d say anything to persuade her into bed.
She’d drifted off into a vision of their honeymoon night when another knock resounded on the outer door.
“That must be our tea.” Uninterested in hair or clothes, Lady Phoebe was rummaging through books on the bedchamber shelves. “I’ll fetch it.”
When she returned, she was grim and pale and holding a letter instead of a tea tray. “The trustees have sent the committee to test your librarian skills. Why would they do that on your wedding day?”
Lydia was in too much shock to even consider an answer.
Twenty-six
Torn between the assorted vexations threatening their wedding day, Max gave up blocking his uncle and ran after the two officious suits knocking at the front door. He’d find a dungeon cell and lock them in it. Why, by all that was holy, would the trustees send a committee to a wedding? On a Sunday. Without any warning.
The message Max inferred from this attack, especially delivered by Crowley, was sinister. The solicitors meant to prevent Lydia—and possibly Max—from taking over the property they wanted to sell. It was a modern version of storming the castle.
He dashed up the front stairs and into the great hall only to see the two strangers escorted out the other side. With his mind on the goal, he didn’t even notice the room full of women—until Susan intercepted him.
Panicked, he glanced around. Ladies everywhere, watching, easing closer. In a fit of frustration, Max grabbed a claymore off the wall, holding it like a shield in front of him. “Out of my way, Susan. Don’t come between me and my bride.”
Susan looked startled. Others tittered. No one stopped him as he rushed through the immense hall into the corridor beyond, just in time to see the footman steering the interfering bastards toward the guest library.
Pointing the sword in his hand, Max shouted, “Zach, stop right there! They are uninvited intruders. They might mean harm to Miss Lydia. Throw them out or lock them up!”
Both men turned and blanched at the sight of Max in his tweeds and leather breeches, wielding a sword almost as large as they were. They weren’t hefty invaders but paunchy, bespectacled, office sorts, the kind of civilized gentlemen who wielded paperwork like weapons. Max avoided the sort on principle. He wasn’t sorry to terrify them.
He could hear the ladies rustling into the corridor and knew they listened and watched and could suffocate him in silks and coos at any moment. A chill crept up his spine. His only allies were outside. He didn’t have time to sort this lot out, although he heard his mother speaking impatiently.
Trapped between women in silk finery and document-wielding businessmen, forced into the same uncomfortable position that had sent him fleeing as a lad, Max stood his ground. Even if no one else understood, he was confident that Lydia knew why he might lose his temper and behave uncivilly to women and bespectacled solicitors.
Max pointed the claymore at the cowering gentlemen. The footman watched Max nervously, as if he might go off his head. Maybe he would.
Amazingly, the ladies stayed behind him. He didn’t have time to ponder that curiosity. “E
ither you leave, sirs, or I’ll have Zach lock you in the wine cellar until Miss Wystan has time to ask the reason for your presence. And that will be sometime tomorrow, at best.”
“We haven’t come all this way to be put off,” the older, balding one protested. “It is Miss Wystan’s duty to subject to our testing. The position of executor may be appointed, but the library itself must be maintained by a true librarian.” He sniffed in disdain at Max’s sword.
Max remembered those days of being looked down upon by these sorts. He’d learned a few things since and grinned wickedly. “And it is my duty to protect Miss Wystan with my life. Would you prefer that I send Zach for pistols? Or should I just behead you here? The wine cellar is quite comfortable, I’m told, better than the dungeon. We have one of those too.”
Well, it could have been a dungeon. There weren’t any cells anymore. Max had no problem stretching the truth.
The dreaded rustling of petticoats approached, but it was his mother’s voice he heard. “Don’t worry, Maxwell, we’ll manage from here. I don’t believe anyone notified me of the testing committee’s arrival, so I’m quite certain they must be impostors. Come along, ladies, let’s lock them up until we have time to question them.”
The two strangers went wide-eyed and cringed backward. At a bunch of women?
Max swung around to face a sea of crinoline, silk, and. . . swords. The ladies had all followed his example and armed themselves from the great hall’s arsenal. Even Richard’s mother held a dagger. Some of them looked almost formidable, as if they knew how to use their rapiers. The broadswords—not so much.
“Father!” Richard shouted from the garden door behind the terrified solicitors. “Father, come quickly. Someone has fallen into the tunnel!”
“Hell and damnation!” Max shoved past his cowering captives, leaving them to the bloodthirsty women.
* * *
Lydia pulled on one of her old gowns, quicker to don than frills and trains, and hurried downstairs to greet the testing committee. The great hall was filled with chattering guests—wielding swords. She saw no sign of the strangers sent by the trustees.
Rushing along behind her, her bridesmaids halted to observe the spectacle.
“Why is everyone armed?” Phoebe asked in puzzlement. “Should I have worn my sgian dubh?”
“I don’t like the idea of weaponry near my library,” Lydia said uneasily. “I intended to ask Max about removing some of the collection elsewhere. It’s a trifle. . .”
“Medieval?” Azmin, Lady Dare, suggested with amusement.
Lady Agnes emerged from the grumbling crowd, holding a hand to her ample chest and breathing hard. “There seems to be an emergency,” she announced.
Seeing no sign of solicitors, Lydia immediately went into panic mode. “Max? Max is all right? And the boys?” Had Max’s fear of women fighting over him come true and he’d fled? The ladies certainly seemed to be bristling with hostility, but that could just be the swords scaring her.
“Someone has fallen down a well. Max and half the wedding party are out there playing in dirt.” Gesturing at the door, Lady Agnes appeared more put out than afraid.
“All the male half of the wedding party,” the female steward-to-be said from behind her. “I think the men have a secret means of communicating. I just saw the earl and marquess rushing out through the front entrance a moment ago in dishabille. I hope those aren’t the only shirts they brought with them if there’s to be a fight.” Those were more words than Miss Malcolm had said all last evening.
“Have Lloyd prepare some of Max’s shirts. Ask their valets what they need,” Lydia told her. “What happened to the testing committee? Didn’t a deputation arrive?”
“We’ve taken care of them for you.” Towering over her sister, Lady Gertrude, the other half of the School of Malcolms, spoke with dour authority. “You needn’t concern yourself.”
That sounded ominous, but Max in danger was more important. “I’d best see what is happening outside then.” She lifted her old skirt and started for the garden door.
“You can’t do that, dear!” Lady Agnes cried. “Max shouldn’t see his bride before the wedding.”
Lydia heard the snickers behind her. She didn’t redden. They were married ladies, after all, and her friends. She liked having friends she could trust. “There won’t be any wedding if Max falls down a hole. It’s dangerous under the tower.”
While Lady Agnes practiced fainting, Lydia strode out, followed by half her entourage and a number of guests she didn’t recognize. The new steward hesitated over Lady Agnes, but then hurried to join Lydia, as a good steward should.
Outside, men in both suit coats and shirtsleeves were hauling Max’s stack of lumber through the garden byre doorway. She found Bakari lingering nervously at the back of the crowd. “What is happening?”
He grasped her hand anxiously. “A big hole opened in the bottom of the tunnel yesterday. We blocked it and put up warning signs that even someone who cannot read would understand. But someone must have taken the signs down. Father said he does not know what is down there but it is unstable. Is that the right word?”
Bakari had a large vocabulary for a six-year-old, but he was still a child. Lydia crouched down to hug him. “Unstable means the tunnel is crumbling. Your father knows that. He will be careful. Tunnels aren’t deep. The person may have hurt their leg and simply can’t climb out.”
Richard appeared behind Bakari and shook his head, where Bakari couldn’t see him, indicating her assumption was wrong. Lydia felt her stomach tighten and was grateful she’d eaten little. She pushed Bakari into Olivia’s hands. The lady knew what to do with children.
“Perhaps I had better see what is happening for myself,” Lydia said with what she hoped sounded like confidence. “Perhaps the men might like refreshment? Richard, would you be in charge of that?”
Letting a few of her entourage protectively shuttle off Max’s sons, she made her way through the crowd of male strangers. They glanced at her with curiosity, rightfully so, she supposed. Olivia had fixed Lydia’s fiery hair in elaborate curls and entwined them with ribbons and sparkly pins so she appeared like a queen from the neck up. From the neck down, her frayed black gown wasn’t suitable even for a servant. But it suited for pushing into the dirty dark byre.
She gestured for the other ladies to remain behind. “It’s full of cobwebs. Wait here, please.”
Inside, she let her eyes adjust to the gloom. Stacks of lumber and bricks filled one corner of this front chamber. Men hauled down a few more timbers and added them to the pile, tipping their caps to her and hurrying back out.
She recognized Laddie and one of the stableboys emerging from the tower cellar’s interior. “What is happening? Is Max all right? Is anyone hurt?”
“The man Mr. Ives calls Cuz is down the tunnel,” Laddie answered, respectfully pulling on his cap brim. Laddie wasn’t a talkative sort on the best of days.
“Mr. Ives is climbing down to pull him out,” the other, older man with him said. “But it’s a right crumbly tunnel, iffen you ask me. And deep. Anyone fool enough to get himself in there ought to be left to get himself out.”
Cuz. His cousin? Max’s cousin had fallen into. . . what? A sewer? A cistern?
Lydia was trying not to panic when a suited gentleman blocked the outside light and started shouting, “Where’s my son? What happened to my son?” Entering, he startled at seeing Lydia—or any woman at all, presumably.
“Mr. Franklin?” She’d never been introduced to Max’s uncle, but she was good at putting two and two together.
“Where’s George? They told me George was hurt. Where is he? If that devil has harmed him, I swear, I’ll—” His face was nearly gray with fear, which didn’t go well with his fading blond hair.
“Max is apparently trying to save a fool who bypassed warning signs,” Lydia said, interrupting the tirade. Since he hadn’t bothered asking who she was, she saw no reason to explain. “I can’t say if the fool is
your son. Unless you have knowledge of sewers and cisterns and the like, I’d advise you to stay out of the way of those who do.”
“Who the devil are you to talk to me like—”
The tall marquess dipped his platinum-blond head as he entered from the low interior door. He looked dusty and unhappy but spoke with respect. “Miss Wystan, good. The idiot is likely to suffocate if we don’t find some way of hauling him out. Max is going down with some equipment. He says to ask you if there is anything in the library about an oubliette?”
As if just noticing George’s father, the marquess nodded politely. “Excuse me for interrupting. You were saying?” His cold tone indicated he didn’t actually wish to hear Franklin finish his tirade.
Apparently recognizing the striking marquess, Max’s uncle wisely shut up.
“An oubliette?” Lydia shuddered. How would she ever find a book on an oubliette? “That’s a medieval torture device, isn’t it? Why would the library have such a thing?”
“Because the original tower was a fortress designed to protect its inhabitants from enemies. It was not a particularly civilized period. If you have any books at all on the construction of the foundation, those would be useful as well.” The marquess looked at her expectantly.
He didn’t know she couldn’t find anything.
“I thought I gave Max everything we had. I’ll bring down those books,” she suggested. “I don’t remember any mention of an. . . oubliette.”
“Max seems to think there may be a trap, at least. His cousin was apparently searching for imaginary silver and has fallen deeper than the drainage tunnel into a part Max has not explored. It’s apparently very tight.” He didn’t look at George’s father.
“Is Max. . . is Max in any danger?” Lydia asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
The marquess looked sympathetic. “The tunnel is not in good shape, but he’s knowledgeable. He has Simon Blair with him. They both know mining. They’re working at shoring up the sides. They were hoping a device might already be installed for pulling the prisoners out—or at least for lowering food to them. But they didn’t wish to dig through rubble to find out.”
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