The Librarian's Spell by Patricia Rice (reading eggs books TXT) 📕

Maxwell Ives on the other hand, preferred flipping his world upside-down. He didn’t even seem to be aware that he was doing it. He had this amazing confidence that everything he did was right. Or if he did it wrong, that he could fix it. Maybe that was the key.

She didn’t have that sort of confidence. She hadn’t once fixed anything. At best, she held things together to prevent them from falling apart. Which was what she was trying to do now—keep the tower from falling apart.

The arrow slits did not provide sufficient light for a good examination of the walls. Max vowed to come back later with lamps and look for damage. He was just excited at studying a different part of the tower. The idea of an eyrie above the household, accessible only to him, and the boy, of course, was an equal enticement.

Lydia was right, dammit. His son wasn’t ready for school.

He’d telegraphed his investor friend, Hugh Morgan. He’d ask Hugh about schools. Right now, the tower had his complete interest.

Not true, he realized a moment later when Lydia’s lavender fragrance joined him on the top landing. Every nerve tingled with awareness as she unlocked the door with her chatelaine of keys.

“We never lock the bottom door,” she said pragmatically. “But this one works well.”

“Let’s take a look at this place. It was too dark last night to see anything.” Except Lydia, weeping, but Max didn’t mention that.

Lloyd or Marta or both had apparently straightened the sick room he remembered. The cot was gone. The stacks of ancient tomes had disappeared. An old horsehair settee was centered on one wall. Wing chairs flanked the fireplace. A piecrust tea table held knickknacks. The room looked fussy and unused.

Lydia gasped in shock. So, she hadn’t ordered the removal of her employer’s effects.

“If the servants are allowed to move things, then we should be allowed to investigate the suite,” Max announced. He had a feeling Lydia would simply have turned the room into a shrine.

If she was the new librarian, this suite should probably be hers.

“Where is your room?” Max asked when she didn’t respond. He paced, studying the high-ceilinged chamber.

The windows overlooked a rolling hillside. A tapestry covered the wall that should be the inner tower. He wanted to see the confounded inner walls. He crossed to the door he assumed led to a proper bedchamber.

“We passed my room on the way up,” Lydia replied, sadly touching the settee. “I needed to be near Mr. C and the study.”

“You live in one of those cubbyholes?” He stopped to stare at her in disbelief. “Where do you put your wardrobe?”

She glanced down at her shapeless gown. “I hang my gowns on hooks, as I’ve always done. It’s not as if I need evening gowns or walking dresses and whatnot.” She chuckled at the notion.

She was even more gorgeous when she smiled. Max replied without thinking. “You would look spectacular in an evening gown. If I were on speaking terms with my mother, I’d curse her for sending you to this remote outpost with only a hermit for company. You should be adorning ballrooms and dinner tables.”

If she reacted to his insane declaration, Max couldn’t tell. He was really bad at this flirtation business.

He opened the door and stepped up—into another damn library. How many libraries could the place have?

The Malcolm librarian lived here. Of course the castle spilled over with books. . .

As well as several globes, a telescope, a ship’s compass, a celestial mobile. . . Max drank it all in. If he had a home, this would be it.

Lydia touched the map globe as if fearful she’d burn her finger. “I’ve never seen anything like this. How do you find anything?”

Happy to have an excuse to stand close, Max leaned over her shoulder and spun the sphere until he found the British Isles. “This is where we are, in the upper half. Your school didn’t have a globe? How did you learn geography?”

He longed to kiss that long neck or nibble her ear. She’d probably plant a noser on him if he tried, and he rather enjoyed the notion. She was a challenge like no other woman he’d ever encountered.

“I didn’t,” she said, shrugging. “My father was my teacher. He knew Latin and Greek and how to write sermons, among other literary things, but nothing scientific. I lived with his books. I didn’t fit in well at school. After I memorized all the school’s textbooks, the teacher didn’t know what to do with me. And when I outgrew everyone else. . . I learned more at home.”

Max wanted to fling all those idiots out windows. Instead, he squeezed her shoulder and leaned over to show her Burma, on the southern hemisphere. “That’s where my next job is.”

“It’s on the other side of the world! How do you not fall off?” She tilted the globe up and down to measure the distance.

“There are millions of people there, and as far as I’m aware, none have flown off. Here’s where Bakari lived.” He pointed out Egypt. “We sail through this sea here, out to the ocean, and straight up the coast to home.”

“It almost looks easy,” she said with uncertainty, edging away from him.

By all the gods, he wanted her. Max wanted her with a desperation he could scarcely control and certainly didn’t understand. He had so little experience with wooing, that his limitations were frustrating. Unlike every other woman in his life, Lydia barely acknowledged his existence.

She drifted away to examine the telescope and compass.

Shelves of books hid the inner wall in this room—and they were square like all the other walls. How did that work? The outer walls were obviously curved with lots of windows. He could practically see Edinburgh. With the telescope, he might see the ocean.

“The journey is not easy. From Egypt, it takes months, even with a steamship.” Max crossed the Turkish carpet to the next door—another step up, odd, as if the suite was a spiral staircase. If the