He cleared his throat. “How did the others take that news?”
“Lizzie and Sarah have given their notice, I’m afraid, and so have Owens and James. I’m afraid it was a bit of a shock to them, and they found the prospect rather intimidating.”
“Yes, I’d imagine.”
When, hoarse and in pain, Stephen had suggested that Baldwin apply to Mina for an explanation, he hadn’t expected anything so close to the truth or with such consequences to the household. Anger stirred, and he thought he might have a word with Mina—and then he saw her face in his mind, eyebrows arched and lips thin. He heard the iciest of her professional voices:Iwasundertheimpressionthatpeopleshouldknowifthey’re risking their lives, even if circumstances preclude giving them an exact reason.Then she’d say something sarcastic about forgiving her presumption.
Neither Stephen’s natural gifts nor the artifact allowed him to read minds or to see the future. Apparently such abilities weren’t always necessary—or avoidable.
“Mrs. Hennings is still on to cook,” Baldwin continued, “and I’ll be handling the horses and the butler’s duties. Polly and Emily and Mrs. Baldwin should be able to manage the house, and Miss Seymour has said she can lend a hand as needed. It’s a bit irregular, my lord—everything is—and a bit of a pinch as well, but you haven’t been entertaining much, and honestly, we’ve had it soft round here for a while.”
“Have you?”
“Oh, aye, especially for London. At least from all I’ve heard.”
“And Miss Seymour…volunteered?”
“Said the work would do her good, my lord, though she’s not trained to it exactly.”
“Well.” He put aside the mental image of Mina in a maid’s uniform and turned his attention to the reason that the others had left: danger, even if not the kind they were thinking of. The dark of the moon approached, and while Stephen had made a little progress, he suspected Ward would only double his efforts because of it. “As it turns out, I’ll have some work for her to do myself. Tell her I’ll see her in the library in a quarter of an hour.”
“She’s there already, my lord.”
***
Some corner of the house or the library itself had produced a ladder, one that went high enough for a reasonably tall woman like Mina to reach the top of the bookshelf. When Stephen entered the library, that was exactly what she was doing: cradling three books in one arm, reaching for another with her free hand, and making an amused little “hmm” sound at something she saw up there.
Until he remembered to be a gentleman, Stephen noticed her ankles and the backs of her legs, and reflected on just how much of a view the angle would permit.
“What might you be doing, exactly?” he asked, once propriety reasserted itself.
Mina looked over her shoulder, keeping her place steadily on the ladder. “Cataloguing your library.”
“And why?”
“Because it wants cataloguing.” She collected the last book and started down the ladder. Stephen put out his hands to steady her, just in case, and told himself not to hope for an accident. “Unless you have a system you didn’t tell me about. A veryoriginalsystem. One that puts Austen next toCommonDiseasesoftheCow.”
“Well—no.”
Mina reached the bottom of the ladder unaided and put the armload of books down carefully on top of one of the towers. “Right, then. I’ll do it the normal way: fiction by name, nonfiction by subject. You pay double if I get eaten by spiders.”
“Spiders? I’d thought they’d dusted this room when I took up residence.”
“The room, yes. Between the books”—Mina removed a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped gray dust from her fingers—“no. Not that I can blame them. Not like most people use the place, especially the high shelves, so no need to chance the roaring hordes of arachnids.”
Stephen blinked. “Spiders don’t roar.”
“Ha. I suppose they don’t write threatening notes in the dust, either. By the way, I found this.”
A gesture toward the desk indicated a small book bound in dark blue leather with an unmarked spine. Stephen picked it up and flicked through a few pages. Handwriting covered them, not printing: a crabbed hand he didn’t recognize.
“Someone’s diary, I’d think,” he said. “Not my father’s—perhaps one of his relations’. Perhaps not. The ink’s not too faded. It can’t be more than a few hundred years old.”
“Almost hot off the presses, then,” said Mina. She looked from the book to Stephen, then asked, with a certain careful diffidence in her voice, “Do you mind if I have a look? There might be something helpful in it. You never know.”
“If you’d like,” Stephen said immediately. “I doubt you’ll find much, but whoever wrote it is long past caring for secrets, I should think,” he added, which made himself feel a little better about his first response.
Neither his father nor his uncles would have been fool enough to write down the secret vulnerabilities of the MacAlasdair blood, assuming there were any. They also would have told Stephen beforehand, and as far as he knew, the keys to his destruction were the same as for any man, only applied in greater quantities.
