The Queen's Librarian

By C
AROLE
C
UMMINGS

N
OVELS

W
OLF
’
S
-
OWN
S
ERIES

Ghost

Weregild

Koan

Incendiary

Published by D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

Copyright

Published by

Dreamspinner Press

5032 Capital Circle SW
Ste 2, PMB# 279
Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Queen’s Librarian

Copyright © 2013 by Carole Cummings

Cover Art by Paul Richmond

http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com

Cover content is being used for illustrative purposes only
and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Ste 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

ISBN: 978-1-62380-868-6

Digital ISBN: 978-1-62380-869-3

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

July 2013

F
OR
Linda, who loved these guys from Page 1, and to Jenni, who shook her head and sighed at me until I submitted it.

Huge thanks to Caroline, Julia, and Marlene for always caring and always helping me put my best foot forward.

And, I suppose, (grudging) thanks to Fen, because if it hadn’t been for the bleak despair that was his headspace, I would never have needed Lucas and Alex to brighten up the path away from his angsty abyss

Chapter 1

L
ICKING
Alex right now, Lucas supposed, while a very good idea, was perhaps not terribly wise. One, Lucas would have to stand up and make his way across the pub’s floor to the billiards table where Alex was currently pantsing young master Declan Slade, and the walking part wasn’t exactly a given, considering the standing-up part was in serious question. And B, Lucas probably shouldn’t just go about licking people in public places. They might start to expect it of him. Alex probably wouldn’t like it if Lucas went about licking anyone who asked. Not that anyone else besides Alex
would
ask Lucas to lick them. Anyway, no one else could possibly taste as good as Alex, so Lucas decided making free with it was probably not in his best interests.

He also decided he was very drunk.

“Here, let me top that off for you,” Parry offered with a grin that Lucas didn’t trust at all, but more dark ale came with it, so he let it pass. “After all,” Parry went on, pouring from the pitcher slowly, so as to keep the foam to a minimum, “it’s a celebration, innit?”

Lucas bobbled a nod, just saving his spectacles from taking a swim in his ale, and shoved them more firmly up the bridge of his nose. Ah, maybe he wasn’t so drunk after all; he could see much better now. “Celebration,” he agreed, and he raised his flagon to Parry then waved it vaguely over in the direction of Alex and Slade. “God bless good Declan Slade and the—”
and the purse he brought with him
, Lucas almost said, but managed to cut it off in time. Parry was looking at Lucas with eyebrows raised, waiting for him to finish. Lucas gave him a grin and sucked down half his ale.

One good thing about being a sloppy drunk: people didn’t really expect you to make much sense. Lucas should get drunk more often, he decided. Maybe it would lower his mother’s expectations. And anyway, it made his head all light and swimmy and soap-bubbly, and almost everything seemed funny, or at least amusing. Even Parry. Lucas watched the lamplight flicker over Parry’s disgustingly gold-wavy-thick hair then followed a glittering streamer of its nimbus as it sparked up into the beams of the low ceiling, all colorful and rainbowy and really very pretty, and fanning out—

Oh, wait, that was only a stray ale droplet on his spectacle lens. Should he take them off and clean them? No, he might drop them into his ale. And it really was very pretty.

“So tell me, Tripp,” Parry said as he refilled Lucas’s cup yet again, “will you be stealing this suitor from your sister too?”

Lucas wanted to growl. It came out a snort. He’d never live that down. Well, he might, if Alex would quit bloody blathering about it every chance he got, how he’d come to court one of Lucas’s sisters and ended up instead pinning Lucas to the wall of the formal parlor halfway through the interview.

“You’ve rather a reputation, Mister Booker,” Lucas had begun the meeting bluntly, blatantly scowling, because Alex’s reputation, as it were, had rather preceded him. Or at least his brother’s had. Lucas might be dying to unload one of his sisters and all the expense that came with her onto some poor unsuspecting dandy—well,
wealthy
unsuspecting dandy; there was a reason Lucas was almost desperate to marry off the remaining four of his six older sisters—but he actually loved them all, and had seen no reason to inflict Alex Booker on any of them. Not that Lucas had ever actually met Alex before. Their social circles didn’t exactly intersect, Alex’s social circle being more or less the entire world, and Lucas’s being his mother, his sisters, a dog that had been mistaken for a pony more than once, and a cat that had sort of come with the house and who seemed to think mousing was beneath her. Oh, and creditors. Couldn’t forget the creditors.

Still, it was a small village, and That Booker Lad—as handsome as he was rich, Lucas couldn’t help thinking a bit sourly—seemed to have made it his mission to bed everyone in it. Well, all right, three. That Lucas knew of. That Booker Lad was actually Alex’s brother, Anson. But still. Things like that tended to run in families. And the fact that Lucas had no idea if that was actually true was not the point. Neither were Alex’s eyes. The point, that is. The eyes were not the point. At all. And they were not making Lucas weak in the knees. At all. They were just blue. Blue eyes. Nothing more. Blue, blue, blue and deep and merry and intense all at once, and wow,
cheekbones
that really needed to be licked quite a lot, and….

Sigh.

Lucas had certainly been able to see Alex’s—cough—appeal, much as he tried not to, but the responsibility of finding good matches for all his sisters was a heavy one, and Lucas took it very seriously. God knew none of his sisters did.

Still, Lucas had told himself, it could have been worse—it could have been Anson Booker, who, by all accounts, had discovered several years ago that the thing in his trousers was useful in more than one way, and hadn’t stopped discovering new and interesting ways to use it since.

“Tell me why you want to court Clara,” Lucas had demanded of Alex in his best master-of-the-manor tone, and settled an imperious I’m-cousin-to-the-Queen-and-you’re-not look on his sister’s prospective suitor.

Because, his love of and concern for his sister aside, Lucas had no intention of adding some too-handsome dark-haired, blue-eyed ankle biter born on the wrong side of the blanket to the expense column of the estate’s books. He was trying to get
rid
of overhead.

Alex had frowned a little, tilting his head like he’d never considered the question before. “Clara?”

Lucas had stared, trying to decide if Alex was having him on, but when it appeared he wasn’t, the stare turned to an openmouthed gape. Not
quite
the superior image he was trying to project. “If you don’t even know her name,” he’d snapped, “why d’you want to court her?”

“Well,” Alex had replied slowly, genuinely frank, “isn’t it what people… do?”

It had rather gone downhill from there. Well, depending on one’s perspective. Alex had not walked away that night with permission to court Lucas’s sister, but he
had
walked away with the knowledge that Lucas’s hair was red everywhere, and that he tended to babble obscure languages in the throes of orgasm. Lucas still didn’t know quite how it had happened. One minute, he’d been trying to decide how to tactfully tell Alex that there was no dowry and the expense of both the handfasting and the wedding would have to be covered by the Booker estate, and the next Alex’s hand was so far down Lucas’s trousers that Lucas wondered if it might not come back out with one of his socks.

Clara made it a point to forgive Lucas quite frequently. Which, of course, meant she didn’t forgive him at all. The
you owe me
was implicit in every sweet smile she’d given him for the past three years. Which was why it was so important to Lucas that everything go well with the promising young Declan Slade.

Lucas let his somewhat blurry gaze stagger back over to the billiards table, where Alex was charming young Slade with a lesson to make up for the obscene amount of silver of which Alex had no doubt just relieved him. Slade was listening attentively, looking at Alex with rapt, ingenuous interest, like most everyone did. Bloody charmer, that Alex. Lucas couldn’t help the grin. It wasn’t only Alex’s looks, with his dark hair and exquisitely trimmed beard, and the shoulders just wide enough, set exactly right on a tall frame that made his subtly expensive coat hang just
so
, the tails flaring over his perfect,
perfect
bottom with—

“Hoy,
Tripp
,” Parry barked, right next to Lucas’s ear, “you’re drooling.”

Lucas blinked, frowned at Parry, then somewhat belatedly slapped a hand over his mouth. He scowled. “Am not,” he retorted. Not exactly the sharp, cutting rejoinder he’d been hoping for, but… well.

Lucas + Ale apparently = Squishy Brain² with a remainder of Fuzzy Tongue.

Parry smirked. “You might as well be. I don’t even want to know where you went just now.”

Lucas’s eyebrows went up. “I’ve been right here.” He frowned. Hadn’t he? He didn’t remember going anywhere.

“Riiiiight,” Parry drawled. He sat back in his chair and eyed Lucas with a look that was unsettlingly appraising. “So tell me, Tripp, since you’re seeming a bit more… relaxed than usual….”

He shrugged when Lucas narrowed his eyes, but the smirk was still there, and if there was one thing Lucas knew all too well, it was that one should never trust a smirking Redford Parry. Also, one should never trust one’s older sister to dye one’s ridiculous red hair a much more sedate and respectable shade of brown, but he’d been ten, after all, and Nan had
sworn
she knew what she was doing, and then sworn it wasn’t
quite
as green as Lucas kept wailing it was, and anyway, it was autumn and all the lads were wearing hats these days, so she didn’t see why he was being such a prat about—