The Librarian's Spell Patricia Rice (top 100 novels .txt) 📖

Max caught up with her in a few strides. He grabbed the trailing bow down her back and halted her in her tracks. “How the hell did you get into this thing? I thought you were the queen of France or princess of Scotland, and all I could think of was how I could pry it off you.”

Lydia didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. Max thought of a gown’s construction, and not it’s fashionableness or how well it looked on her. Well, he had said she looked like a queen, but that was simply because she had dressed fancy for a change.

He truly wasn’t accustomed to civilization.

“Self-buttoning on the bodice, ties everywhere else,” she said in resignation. She had never been the kind of person who could stay mad. She was much too reasonable—and too busy. “I am supposed to try on the dinner gown. It is the whole purpose of the ladies arriving with the boxes. I believe your mother has given them to believe that the gowns are my trousseau and that we are making a formal announcement tonight. What did you mean, you don’t want to hurt me? You’re already hurting me by hiding up here.”

“It’s better than finding me in the arms of your dratted maid, or the schoolgirl I saw in the parlor, or any other female who might catch sight of me. I know you don’t believe me, but I have looked down the barrel of shotguns when women thought I was cheating on them or men thought I was after their wives. But what am I supposed to do when females develop the vapors in front of me? Let them fall on the floor? And if one grabs my cravat and kisses me? Fling her against the wall? I may not like civilization, but I’m not completely uncivilized.”

He had all her buttons unfastened by the time he finished his rant. Lydia shrugged out of the fitted tunic as she hurried through the bathing room and maid’s chamber to the bedroom. To her relief, someone had carried up all her boxes. She tried to imagine how she would feel if she found Max in another woman’s arms, but she was not an imaginative sort, and their liaison was too new for her to say she trusted him.

“A gentleman might not throw a strumpet against the wall, but I’m not averse to doing so,” she decided. “I do have some advantage over other women in that I am large and strong and don’t need a shotgun to remove unwanted pests.”

She untied ribbons and bows and pushed off the train, then the skirt and pannier bustle.

Max caught her waist and lifted her from the circle of fabric and wire. His hot hand scorched even through her exceedingly fine new elastic corset. “And you may stamp rats with those dainty boots and throw wolves over your pretty shoulder, but you should not have to do so for me.”

“Then learn to do it yourself,” she huffed.

His masculine proximity was too tempting, and she refused to fall at his feet like a schoolgirl. Escaping his embrace, she threw open box lids until she found what she sought. “You are asking me to go downstairs and entertain your sons, your mother, and all her guests, and their husbands. I do not know these people well, Maxwell. I am from England. They are not my family. They are yours. And you need their help if you are to prove that you are not dead.”

He yanked open the wardrobe door and removed a dinner coat. “Fine. I will embarrass the lot of you to prove I’m me. How many maids are serving?”

“Mrs. Folkston brought in her grand-niece, that is all. Mr. Folkston and Zach will do most of the serving. You will be fine. Lady Dare brought one of her photography students. They do wedding portraits. They are expecting you to make an announcement tonight. Since—among other things—Azmin captures malevolent spirits with her photographs, I suppose she is verifying that you won’t beat me when everyone has gone home.”

“Do you expect me to make an announcement?” he asked, rummaging for clothing from the stack he’d carried up.

“Your mother will if you don’t.” Lydia shook out the gold silk skirt with the dashing ruffled cream-and-russet underskirt. She had never worn impractical colors like these, but her heart sang at just the lovely lightness of the fabric. She concentrated on sliding into the trailing underskirt without wrinkling or tearing anything rather than look at Max dressing behind her.

They were sharing a bedchamber. She should be embarrassed, but they’d shared a great deal more than a room these last nights.

“What was the book you carried up here?” was his surprising reply.

“Book?” She spun around, vaguely remembering carrying a book. She was always carrying books. Distracted by the sight of Max in starched white linen, fastening his cravat at his throat, she almost forgot the question. Narrow-hipped, broad-shouldered, dark curls rakishly tumbling over his brow, Max reminded her quite forcefully why they were even having this conversation.

Fighting a surge of lust, she pounced on the book. Opening the pages, she frowned. “A journal from one of your ancestors. He was an Ives, although on the wrong side of the blanket. I wonder if my growing up in England is causing problems with this more Gaelic library. . . Perhaps I should have gone to the Wystan library in Northumberland.”

He tapped the pages impatiently. “Why this book?”

“Because it wasn’t in place.” She scanned the pages swiftly, flipping through until one leaped out at her. “The journal writer tells us his home included an ancient watchtower and Malcolm journals, apparently very old ones that his mother had collected. But she kept them in a proper library because the tower was crumbling. He tore down the tower and added windows where the doorways once were.” She showed him the sketch.

He studied it, then handed it back. “Very pretty. But your tower