Celeste knew she had erred by mentioning love, but she had not been able to help herself. He had invented a gun that could kill five people at once—and he refused to sell it! Lord Erran’s mind was a fascinating place she would like to explore more. But they rode along in silence after that. She debated all the other things she could have said, but how else did one express such admiration?
It didn’t help that this damp forest in the midst of a glorious autumn felt more like spring. She could feel the earth’s burgeoning fecundity here. Or perhaps she was just remembering his kiss and how it had felt sleeping beside him last night. She seemed compelled to do stupid things around this brilliant, honorable, annoying man.
They kept their horses to the pace of the baggage cart. Lord Erran . . . Erran . . . rode back and forth, keeping an eye on their surroundings but not leaving her out of his sight, as she feared he might do. As he probably wanted to do, she admitted. He looked dashing in his tall hat and caped redingote, every inch the nobleman. Just watching him was cause for excitement.
Fortunately, that was all the excitement they encountered. They rode into the village about noon. Enchanted by the neat cottages, nodding Michaelmas daisies, and a few late roses, Celeste exclaimed in pleasure. “I thought this would be a dismal place! It is lovely. Your family should visit more often!”
Erran rode up beside her, pointing out a cottage almost inundated in rose canes and surrounded by aromatic herbs. “That’s my great-granny’s home, the Malcolm who was a cousin of your ancestor. I don’t know who is living there these days. This was all owned by Malcolms once, according to family legend, until they made the mistake of marrying into the Ives family.”
“The mistake?” she asked in amusement. “From rural anonymity to marriage to nobility is a mistake?”
He shrugged. “I don’t pay much attention to the stories. But after the fifth Earl of Ives and Wystan married my great-grandmother, she gave birth to my grandfather, who became the first Marquess of Ashford. There are those in the family who claimed he had magical talents as strong as his mother’s, and that was the reason he was so successful. You can ask the ladies when we reach the tower.”
Magical talents. Celeste was wary of talking about magic. Native magic was often associated with evil intent, and her own might be used that way. She’d rather just call it talent. She didn’t know if she dared ask anyone anything so personal as to what kind of talents they possessed.
“Why do you call it the tower?” she asked, skipping over the question his reply had opened.
“It was once a medieval fortress, but we’ve only maintained the original hall—which was quite a large tower for the time. The bailey walls have crumbled and been carried off to build the village. Once upon a time, this must have been a bustling little town that supported a busy fort of knights and courtiers and their households, but that’s all gone now. There is not much here now that we have no need to guard against Scots barbarians.”
The road wound through more woods, along a stream, and into a meadow surrounding a hill topped by an enormous stone structure. At first glimpse of a real medieval castle—or its remains—Celeste halted her horse and sat back to study it.
“It is very tall,” she said in awe. Several rows of windows indicated a number of floors topped by crenellations and a guard tower.
“The better to see the enemy. I was told my great-grandfather enjoyed astronomy, like Theo, and he set up his telescopes on that top floor. I suppose in earlier times, height was the best way of studying the stars as well as the countryside. If it hadn’t been for Duncan’s injury and all the women staying here, Theo might have settled up here with Aster. We’re a little over a day’s ride from her home.”
“If all the Malcolm ladies are as nice as Lady Aster, I shall enjoy this visit.” She pressed her mount into a walk again.
“The ones I’ve met range from rude and overbearing to sweet and giggly. I don’t think they’re much different from anyone else, except they like to pretend they’re witches.”
She reached over to swat him, but he rode ahead.
“What do they call male witches?” she called after him.
“Insane,” he called back.
***
Erran considered his off-hand comment later and thought perhaps he hadn’t been too far off the mark—he must have been insane to come here.
There were only three enceinte females in residence, but they’d come accompanied by an assortment of maids, sisters, mothers, children, and midwives. The arrival of fresh fodder for the gossip mill filled the ancient hall with a swirl of high-pitched voices, fragile females, and delicate frippery. Feeling uncomfortably like a bull in a china shop, Erran wanted nothing more than to escape to the library with a decanter of brandy.
He introduced Celeste to the only vaguely familiar relation and let her be swept off in a gaggle of women, all talking at once. She didn’t seem unhappy with the attention.
He consumed a platter of sandwiches and other bite-sized comestibles while he waited to be assigned a room. He could probably make a bed on the top floor, but he had the need to know where they’d place Celeste.
Which was foolish of him, he realized, swallowing a tiny cake and discovering the tray to be empty. He had no need to protect her in his family home while she was surrounded by other females. She was perfectly safe here.
If he could not retrieve her inheritance, she would be quite happy here, he suspected. She didn’t need him. She’d said so.
She only needed a friend.
Since he had no notion of how to be a friend to a lady—although he was pretty certain it didn’t involve making mad, passionate love to her—he would do best to try to find the information they sought and send her back to Jamaica, where she would be even happier, and justice would be served. Then Duncan could have his whole townhouse back and Erran could take rooms there in hopes of finding some place for himself on his brother’s payroll.
Or he could bellow and send all these frippery females scurrying and take Celeste up to bed and be the bully his size allowed him to be. A pity he was too civilized for that. He should have been born in a different century.
Imagining shining armor and ladies swooning at his feet—no doubt in horror—he set down his lemonade, located the nearest exit, and strode into the next room. From there, he worked his way through the maze to the library. He was studying the index to discover the filing system when a familiar scent wafted around him.
“Thank goodness,” the lady said, studying the towering walls of shelves with interest. “I thought we’d never make it out alive.”
He almost laughed, if only because he was relieved to have her with him again. That way definitely lay madness, but he couldn’t be less than honest with himself. He enjoyed her company. And he’d rather be anywhere than explore a Malcolm library. He’d studied law more in the courtroom than in books, preferring action to sitting still. Her presence made his task more agreeable.
He pointed at the catalog. “I found the page where they’ve indexed your family’s journals.” He gestured at towering, two-story walls of books. “It just may take me a while to determine their filing system.”
“Oh, my.” Obviously entranced, she tilted her head back to admire the layers of walnut shelving, books, railings, and ladders. Stained glass windows offered the only natural light.
Erran had lit oil lamps on the table to better read the index’s penmanship. The glow illumined Celeste in a halo, and he could scarcely tear his gaze away. He was in deadly danger here. She’d said she could love a man like him. What the devil did that mean? He couldn’t remember anyone ever bothering to love him, so he didn’t grasp the concept.
It didn’t matter what it meant. He had no means to marry, no other talents than working in English law—from which he was currently banned—and she wanted to return to an island where he would be useless. He had no interest in taking up sailing and trade or even raising cane. And if he ever did create a useful invention, the patent courts and industries were here, not half way around the world.
He didn’t even know why he was thinking like this. Maybe he should start believing in Aster’s foolishness about magic castles.
Celeste lit another lamp and carried it to the first section of ground floor shelving. “What are the catalog directions?”
“Eccentric,” he muttered, tearing his gaze from her slender form and back to the book. “We must look for family branch name—from the sixteenth century, apparently. In your case, that would be Hermione Wystan Malcolm if I’m following these charts. Then we trace down through Hermione’s descendants until we reach the one who married a Rochester.”
She cast him a look of dismay over her shoulder, arching her lovely brows. “How does one find anything with a catalog like that?”
“If one isn’t the family librarian, like Aster, one starts on the Hermione bookcase, presumably.” Erran consulted a library map and pointed at the fourth case to the right. “Logically, the oldest volumes will be on the bottom shelf, and the more recent ones at the top.” He pointed up the ladder to the balcony tier.
She crouched down to examine the volumes on the bottom shelf. She had to pull one out to read the title page. “I fear you are correct,” she said in awe as she turned yellowed pages. “This is in Latin, I think. Hermione must have been a scholar.”
“Hermione had any number of descendants named after her, so presumably she was a decent sort. If you’ll read down this list, I’ll climb up to the top and try to find your shelf. It may spread over more bookcases as it goes higher.”
Staring up at shelf after shelf of their ancestors’ books, she shook her head in awe. “Does anyone ever read these?”
“We’re about to. Libraries are repositories of information and collected wisdom. Aster claims the journals are here so history needn’t keep repeating itself, so we can learn from the past. Unfortunately, no one has come up with a subject list for journals other than the name of the author.” He pointed out the column he was following on the page of her family’s tomes as she returned to his side. They both smelled of horses, but he could still detect that subtle exotic scent that was all hers. His hunger for her hadn’t abated. He needed to step out of the reach of temptation. Ladder climbing should do it.
“Well, if we’re dealing with magical families, I’m certain there must be someone who can magically locate the required volume, if necessary,” she said with amusement, placing her slender fingers on the page near his.
Erran clenched his thick fingers rather than reach to cover hers. He backed off in the direction of the ladder. “Aster calls herself a librarian, so she must assume that’s her task. But she’s mostly interested in genealogy and astrology.”
She glanced up at him with those velvet-lashed eyes that haunted him. “Perhaps if she and Theo were allowed to live here, she might do more. Usually, one must practice talents for them to improve.”
Erran felt the impact of that declaration like a blow below the belt. He wasn’t about to practice voice manipulation or levitation. Refusing to acknowledge what she was telling him, he climbed the ladder to the next level and started checking dates on the upper shelves.
“If I’m reading this correctly, the year of my father’s second marriage is the fourth level down in the second block to the left,” she called up to him as he reached the balcony.
Holding up the oil lamp, Erran began scanning volumes until he found the year. “I’m going to take out all the volumes from that year, the one prior, and the one after. From the looks of it, your parents had a lot to say. This could take forever.” He set the lamp on a shelf and gathered up an armload of slim volumes.
“If I my memory doesn’t fail, my father rewrote his will after my mother’s death,” she said, scanning the catalog. “Shall we check that year to see what he says about it? That shelf should be two shelves above where you are now.”
Erran grabbed that stack as well. As he began carrying down his prizes, the housekeeper rapped and entered.
“Your rooms are prepared, my lord, miss.” She bobbed a curtsy. “The spirits are in a turmoil, so we expect Lady Octavia to have her lying-in during the night. We have taken the liberty of placing you in the guest rooms on this floor so you won’t be disturbed by the coming and going.”
“The spirits?” Celeste whispered as Erran reach the bottom of the ladder with the last load of books.
“Malcolms,” he whispered back, holding a stack of books under one arm and offering his other so they might follow the housekeeper. “Expect the weird.”
She lifted another stack of books instead of taking his arm. “That makes us weird. You may reject this fascinating family, but I do not.” she said curtly, striding off ahead of him.
Which left him to admire the graceful sway of her hips as they traversed the insane maze of public rooms back to a quiet corner behind what appeared to be a billiard parlor/game room and a small sitting room littered with books and papers and various needlework projects.
“I hope this will be satisfactory,” the servant said, opening a heavy panel door for Celeste. “I’ll send Abigail to help you dress for dinner.”
She took Celeste’s stack of books and set them on a table inside, then nodded down the corridor. “If you would, my lord, the next chamber is prepared for you. I fear we don’t have a valet in residence.”
Celeste raised her eyebrows in warning—reminding him of Aster’s accursed admonition about sleeping on different floors. He would be damned before he listened to such foolery. He was reluctant to abandon Celeste in this towering hall of emptiness. He pretended not to understand her question and waited outside her door until he saw that she was settled.
“If you don’t mind,” she told the housekeeper, opening one of the books. “I’m very weary from the journey. I would much rather have a bath and a cold collation in here than join the ladies. Could you make my apologies?”
By Jove, she was a woman after his own mind! Relieved that he did not have to argue over the rooms, Erran imagined an evening reading through this muddle of journals. With any luck at all, they’d have what they needed by morning.
“I’ll give you good evening then, Miss Rochester,” he said, bowing.
Immersed in the book, she nodded dismissively, and the housekeeper closed the door between them.
Directed to his own room, Erran immediately noted the connecting door. Insanely, he felt better knowing he could reach her easily.
All he had to do was resist the temptation to open it unless she invited him in.