“You cannot be here. Okay? I hate to speak in small words, but you have to leave. Right. Now. Yes?”
“No.”
“No is the wrong answer. You have failed this test. You are now expelled.”
I started from the library and went to the kitchen, where Mrs. Turner was fussing over the next round of tea and cakes. “Duke is cut off,” I told her. “No more tea and absolutelynocakes. Not even a cookie.”
“Very sorry, Miss March, but a duke outranks a mere commoner.”
“Are you calling me a commoner?”
“I am not calling you a commoner, Miss March. You simplyarea commoner.”
“Good help is so hard to find!”
I jogged back to the library, where “His Grace” was holding my cat in his arms like a baby and staring up at the portrait over the fireplace.
“Rainy, who is that man above your mantel? He’s new, isn’t he? Never seen him before, and I’m intimidated by his striking good looks.”
“Pops gave me that painting for Christmas. His name is LeVar Burton, and he hosted a television show calledReading Rainbow.He’s basically the patron saint of Book Witches.”
I gave Mr. Burton the traditional salute—palms together and then opening them as if my hands were a book or butterfly wings.
“Should I be jealous?” Duke asked.
“He’s married, and you’re leaving.Now.”
“You’re being quite hasty, darling,” Duke said. “You hired me, after all.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“But I did,” Mrs. Turner said, carrying in another tray of Zebra Cakes.
I looked at him. I looked at Mrs. Turner.
To both, I said, “You’re fired.”
—
They ignored thisnews, of course.
Mrs. Turner poured two cups of tea. Duke took one graciously. I took the other one far less graciously.
“Hello, I fired you both, remember? No offense. Either I fire you both or I get fired, and I really don’t want to get fired. I’m a Book Witch. There’s no other job in the world that calls for the only skill set I have.”
“Allow me to remind you,” Duke said, “I never quit a case once I start it, and I’ve never failed to solve a mystery. So you could do worse than me.”
He was right. You could no more stop a fictional detective from working a case than you could knock the moon out of orbit with a peashooter. The odds of me solving the mystery increased exponentially with a fictional detective on the case.
However…
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. Do you know how much trouble you got me into?”
“Not nearly enough,” he said, grinning behind his teacup.
“I had my umbrella confiscated tonight,” I told him. “Because of you.”
“Me? I wasn’t even here.”
