The Queen's Librarian (10 page)

Lucas tried very hard not to deflate at the subtle seduction in Alex’s low voice. Or
in
flate, as it were. “And so is everyone else. She’ll be gossiped about.”

“She’ll be admired for having straightened out Anson Booker. And she knows what she’s doing, Lucas. Tress is very smart.”

“Tress used to think I came out with red hair because Mother ate too many cranberry tarts.”

“Well, yes,” Laurie put in, “but so did you.”

“
You
.” Lucas snatched his hand from Alex and pointed at Laurie. “
You
don’t get to have an opinion, you traitor, you, you…
tattler
!”

Well, perfect. The stress of the morning had, apparently, turned Lucas into a five-year-old.

Laurie held up his hands. “I was concerned!”

“You were stirring pots.”

“Well.” Laurie shrugged. “You say that like you’ve only just met me.” He rolled his eyes when Lucas growled. “Oh come now, Lucas, your mother was going to notice the plaster the second you walked through the door, you know she was. And at least this way she thinks you got it doing something bold and daring, and not because you’re a helpless waif who can’t fend off a useless waste of cat fur and who can’t take care of himself in his own ridiculous ‘house’ that isn’t really a house.”

Lucas paused. Because this time, Laurie was actually making sense, and a person really had to stop and examine the anomaly.

“So you made me look like an utterly incompetent bonehead so that my mother wouldn’t think I’m an utterly incompetent bonehead.”

Laurie grinned. “It’s a unique sort of logic, but once you get the hang of it, it comes quite naturally.” He started walking, giving Lucas’s shoulder a pat as he passed. “C’mon, let’s get on, then, or we’ll never get there. Where are we going, anyway?”

“I
NEED
to rent a horse,” Lucas told Parry. “Is Saffron available?”

“For you, Saffron’s always available,” Parry replied with a smile that Lucas still didn’t trust, even without the whole sloppy-drunk thing. With a wink that made Lucas narrow his eyes a little, Parry threw a tangle of leather straps and halters over the door of an empty stall and wiped his hands on the front of his apron. “Up to the vineyards, then?”

“Er, no.” Lucas shook his head. “I won’t make it to the vineyards today. I have new business in Red Bridge that can’t wait.”

“Red Bridge.” Parry’s eyebrows went up. “That’s an overnight, at least.”

“Yes. It can’t be helped.”

Lucas sighed. He hated forfeiting even a little bit of privacy, but Parry had been at the Duck last night, after all, and if Lucas’s not terribly reliable memory of the evening was even halfway accurate, Parry had been a lot more sober than Lucas. Anyway, he’d introduced Slade to Clara, so if Slade truly had run off, never to be found again, Lucas could at least kick Parry’s arse by proxy and have a good excuse to do it.

“Listen,” Lucas said, leaning a little closer and dropping his voice. Not that it mattered; they were Parry’s only custom at the moment. “Did you happen to notice anything… off about Master Slade last night?”

“Off?”

Parry moved closer. And then a little closer, leaning across Lucas to drop a handful of nails into a bucket hanging off the…. Did he just sniff Lucas’s hair? Lucas jumped a little when Alex loudly cleared his throat behind them, but Parry only straightened then smirked.

“I’m afraid I can’t say I did.” He peered up at the ceiling and bobbed from heel to toe with an innocent look Lucas had learned from a very young age could not be trusted. “He seemed fine to me.”

With a crooked smile, Parry ran his fingers through his wavy gold hair then stretched, back arching and chest pushing out enough that Lucas was compelled to notice that the top two buttons of Parry’s shirt were undone beneath the bib of his apron, and the circumstance was revealing far more skin and hints of curly gold chest hair than Lucas thought entirely decent. He wondered if he should perhaps mention as much to Parry—what if his next customer was female?—but Alex started muttering something angry-sounding from where he and Laurie were waiting at the stable’s double doors, and Laurie outright laughed, which made Parry smirk again and take a step away.

“So is that what Red Bridge is about, then? I know his family hails from there. Does anyone know you’re coming?”

Did Parry’s smile seem a touch manic? Or was it Lucas’s imagination?

Lucas shook his head. “His people hail from Ashwater, actually. He’s the nephew of Kolton and Adela Slade of Red Bridge, and he’s been apprenticing with Kolton Slade in the family’s—”

“Um,” Laurie piped up. “I don’t think that’s right. In fact, I’m sure it can’t be.”

Lucas turned with a scowl. “Of course it is. He came to Red Bridge from Ashwater at the beginning of the summer to work for his uncle. Mister Slade runs a mill on the river, and he invited his nephew into the business because Mister and Mistress Slade have no heirs, and Mister Slade is growing too old to run the business by himself.”

“That’s….” Parry looked bemused. “It’s more than I knew, actually. I wasn’t aware he had such a, um… extensive story. Er, I mean, history.”

Lucas frowned at him, but Parry merely widened his grin. Which was definitely, if not entirely manic, at least a bit on the edgy side.

“Yes, all very impressive of Kolton Slade,” Laurie said easily, “for someone who hasn’t lived in Red Bridge for almost ten years and who doesn’t have any nephews, because he has no kin and no wife or children.”

Parry had a quiet little coughing fit then turned quickly to fuss with more bits and halters.

Lucas narrowed his eyes. “You’re mistaken,” he told Laurie. Because it was
Laurie
, speaking as if he actually paid attention to anything besides… whatever it was Laurie actually paid attention to.

Was
there anything Laurie actually paid attention to?

“I’m not,” Laurie asserted. “Kolton Slade has been my mother’s ambassador to Cantula for nine years now, and has lived there for at least seven of them. And he has a companion, not a wife—a very
male
companion—and has done for more than twenty years. There must be another Slade family in Red Bridge or something.” He tilted his head. “Lucas, Slade’s very speedy courtship of your sister had progressed to talk of handfasting. Had you not met the family yet?”

Lucas’s mouth flapped. Well, no, he hadn’t, but—“I’ve been very busy! I haven’t the
time
to jaunt off to Red Bridge for an overnight—there are things that have to be done, and no one else to do them. There are rents to collect, and rents to
not
collect because someone always needs an extension for something, and there are creditors to pay, and if the rain would just hold off for another day we can start the harvest,
finally
, and that’s not even counting the vineyards and orchards, and, oh God, I forgot about the accounts from Gunnerston, I still have to balance those and send the bills or I’ll never collect in time for the end of the month, and the Queen needs those translations before the diplomatic party from Qest’trel arrives in—oh God—
two weeks
, and now there’s courting and pearls and Anson dratted Booker and a runaway groom-to-be, and Clara is convinced Declan Slade did
not
leave her, at least by his own will, so I
have
to find the uncle now, and how am I supposed to—?”

“Whoa, hey, that’ll do then, love.” Maybe Lucas had blacked out for a second or two, because he hadn’t even seen Alex moving, and yet there he was now with a firm grip on Lucas’s shoulders, telling him in a soft voice, “All right, love, it’s all right, we’ll get it sorted,” and
oh
, Lucas so wanted to believe it.

“I’ve been trying all month to get the time for the trip,” Lucas told him, somewhat pathet—forcefully. “But the Slades never answered my letters”—and now that maybe he knew why, it made him even angrier—“and there was always something else cropping up, and it isn’t like they were going to be handfasted tomorrow, and damn me to the Netherworld, I should never have gone out pubbing last night, there are so many other things I should’ve been doing, I should’ve—”

“Lucas,
calm down
,” Alex said sternly, giving Lucas a bit of a shake while he was at it. “You are one person trying to do the jobs of ten. I want none of this blaming-yourself rubbish, especially when we don’t even know yet if there’s blame to be had.” His mouth set in a thin line. “For anyone but Slade, that is. Breaking off a courtship with a bloody
post
, for pity’s sake.”

Lucas had to stare for a second. Alex looked so ungodly sexy when his blue eyes flashed like that. Like a walking aphrodisi—

Wait, no. No, no, and
no
. Lucas was still miffed with Alex for the whole not-telling-him-Anson-was-trying-to-court-Tress thing. No ungodly sexy eyes!

“Post,” Parry echoed. He was frowning when Lucas turned to look at him. “But you were hosting him at the Duck last night.”

Lucas growled. “And if I’d had any idea whatsoever that he was all the while planning
this
, I would have taken the opportunity to shove a cue stick up his—”

“Right, but the point is,” Laurie cut in, peering at Parry with what looked like dawning comprehension, “it’s Sun’s Day. There is no post on Sun’s Day. A post would have arrived yesterday afternoon, before you even left for the Duck.”

“It wasn’t a post,” Lucas said. “It was only a note. Clara found it this morning pinned to the….”

Pinned to the dress she had been going to wear to the family dinner this evening, the dinner which Slade was supposed to attend and make his official, formal handfasting request. Pinned to the dress that, as far as Lucas knew, had been in Clara’s wardrobe, which was, of course, located in Clara’s bedroom.

Lucas’s vision went a little red at the edges. “What the
deuce
was Slade doing in my sister’s bedroom?” And how had he gotten in and out without anyone knowing?

“It had to be some time last night or this morning,” Alex said, pensive. “He was just racking up another round of billiards last night when I went outside to find you.” He stared off for a moment. “That was after midnight, but I don’t remember what time.”

“But he left directly after you did,” Parry told Alex. “I thought he’d followed you out to find Tripp, but then you came back in and he never did.” He looked decidedly worried now. “Something must have happened.”

Oh no. Maybe Slade had witnessed Lucas’s brawl with a bush and really had decided that….

Wait.

“I wonder if that crazy man actually was a relation of Slade’s.” Lucas peered up at Alex. “He had the same hair.”

“What crazy man?” Alex asked, dubious.

“That Mister Scontun. You know, from last night when I got—” Lucas stopped, flicking a quick glance at Parry and Laurie. He leaned up and whispered, “When I got stuck to the bush.” Louder, he went on, “He kept spouting babble he seemed to think was a language, I swear the man thinks he’s Daimin, and then when he broke in to the carriage house this morning, he kept shoving books at me and trying to demand something, but I still have no idea—”

“Wait, in your
house
?” Alex’s eyes were doing that sexy flashing thing again. “Are you saying there was some strange man in your house this morning?”

Lucas shrugged. “Well, yes, but he seemed harmless enough, just a bit dotty, and I tried to bring him up to the main house—I was going to send for a constable—but….” He frowned and shoved at his spectacles. “Now that I think of it, he disappeared not a step away from me. He was there one second and gone the next.”

And Bramble hadn’t even barked.

“Lucas,” said Alex slowly, “I didn’t see any man last night when you were stuck to the bush.”

That last bit, bless Alex’s heart, was said in a low whisper right in Lucas’s ear. Lucas didn’t know if the shiver was a result of the heat of Alex’s breath down his collar or the abstract unease that settled in his stomach.

“Well, it was dark,” Lucas offered. “And he does seem to come and go like the Green Warden himself.” He shook his head. “The point is, there was a man who looked very much like Slade at the Duck last night, which happens to be the last time anyone saw Slade himself, and then that same man was at Rolling Green this morning, where Slade
should
be but is decidedly not.”

There had to be a connection in there somewhere.

“Red Bridge,” Laurie said with a decisive nod. “If Slade has people there, we’ll find him that way. And maybe this mysterious Daimin-man too.”

“Right.” Lucas sighed and turned to Parry. “How much for an overnight to Red Bridge?”

“For you, two tepins,” said Parry with a grin, then his mouth flattened down and he lifted an eyebrow at Alex. “For everyone else, five.”

“But,” Laurie put in with a surprised little pout, “my mother is the Queen.”

“Then you can afford it.”

“Why two for Mister Tripp and five for everyone else?” Alex wanted to know, eyes narrowed.

Parry’s grin this time was a touch malicious. “Because I
like
Mister Tripp.”

Lucas probably should have said something indignant on behalf of Alex and Laurie. Well, Alex. Maybe. Anyway, Lucas didn’t think it would be very convincing through the smirk.

Chapter 5