“I’m staying with Crowley. He has a thing or two to say about Miss Wystan. Do not think you’ll be living here in comfort once the judge throws out your case. You’ll be fortunate you’re not both cooling your heels in prison for the next decade.” Slapping his wet hat back on his head, he stalked out of the hall.
Max fought a frisson of fear. Could Lydia’s neighbor prove the land wasn’t hers? Or was this an ugly reference to testing Lydia’s talent? How would his uncle know about that?
If Max had brought disaster down on the library, he had even more reason to marry and win his estate back. He’d need the wherewithal to fight her enemies.
Twenty-two
Two weeks later
* * *
“I do wish I could be on the champagne train with our guests.” Lady Agnes sighed while sorting through a basket of delicate lace. “It will be such a lovely party! But I love helping you with the gown and flowers and menu. I need to be two people.”
Lydia winced as the seamstress stuck a pin into her hip instead of a seam. “I hope you did not provide too much champagne. The men drank it with whisky at the engagement dinner and became much too boisterous.”
She feared the encounter with Max’s uncle had been the reason for the hilarity, not the formal announcement of betrothal. But Max had brushed off whatever had happened.
“Max said his funds are limited until the court frees them, so it was only one case. And that nice Miss Trivedi helped us find pink ribbons for a fraction of the cost. I know how to be frugal!” Triumphantly, she found the lace she wanted and pulled it from the basket.
Max had spent these last weeks practically living under the tower, except when he was down in the village ordering bricks or bringing laborers up the mountain. She knew he was sending telegrams to his friend in the city as well—avoiding asking her to do any more correspondence.
That was worrisome, but she had her own hands full with the wedding, staffing the castle, looking for a steward, and desperately attempting to answer letters without the use of the journals. She didn’t know how to approach him with her insecurities.
She feared that if the court didn’t accept the few witnesses who had responded to Max’s pleas, he would have wasted all his available funds on his mother’s dream of a magnificent wedding. Lady Agnes’s notion of frugality didn’t precisely correspond with Lydia’s.
Or maybe she was just excessively nervous.
“Have the trustees given you full possession of the trust yet?” Agnes asked, working out a tangle in a ribbon. “You wouldn’t have to fret so much about money then, would you?”
“They said I must be tested?” Lydia hadn’t had much time for studying all the documents, but those words had stayed in her head. They’d keep her awake nights if it weren’t for Max exhausting her.
“Tested?” The older lady frowned, stuffed the ribbon back in her basket, and shook her gray curls. “Foolish men. Tested.” She humpfed.
That did nothing to reassure Lydia, so she chose to block it from her mind, for now.
For fittings, they used one of the smaller rooms on the upper floor of the castle that may have once housed a seamstress, judging by the mirrors and wire dress form. Lydia was learning more about the sprawling fortress than she had ever known while working for Mr. C.
Max had expanded her world considerably.
She admired the full length of her wedding gown in the cheval glass. She’d insisted that it be plain, without an excess of frills. Lady Agnes wanted a train of lace flounces. The result was an elegant ivory silk that clung to her full figure in front and a detachable train covered in blond lace in back. She hoped she didn’t have to walk down many steps.
“I really must ask Mrs. Folkston if all the guest rooms are ready,” Lydia fretted. “They haven’t been opened as long as I have been here, and that’s been years.”
“Don’t fash yourself, as I’ve heard people say.” Lady Agnes opened what appeared to be a jewelry box. “Your servants know what to do. I’ve asked one of my teachers to join us. She’ll make a good steward so you needn’t worry over household details. You have quite enough to do.”
Lydia felt her ample stomach sink to her feet. “A female steward will never do,” she murmured. “Really, my lady, you must quit interfering, or you’ll drive Max away again.”
His mother held up a string of pearls and eyed it critically. “She’s a Malcolm, dear. She’ll be fine. Do you think you should wear pearls to match the ivory or would you prefer a contrast? Your eyes are such a deep blue that I don’t know if sapphires will do them justice.”
“I’ll have hydrangeas for my bouquet, so blue will do.” Lydia fidgeted, needing to escape this suffocating room. She could practically hear the correspondence on her desk screaming to be answered. And she wanted to remind Max to crawl out of the tunnel he’d discovered before the wedding party arrived.
As far as she was concerned, this wedding wasn’t even real. It was a show Lady Agnes was staging to convince everyone that Max was her son.
Given what she and Max had been doing every night these past weeks, formal vows merely proved any child she might bear was legitimate. She’d not realized how much she’d longed for a child of her own to love, until she started counting days while fretting that Max would feel trapped into staying.
She hadn’t realized a great many things, and now she was making a lifetime commitment to a man she scarcely knew, in front of people who might declare her a fraud, while a court might declare her new husband officially dead. She might as well stand on the edge of a cliff and wait for a strong wind.
“The tower is trembling again, dear,” Lady Agnes said, sifting through her box for sapphires. “I do hope Max knows what he’s doing.”
* * *
“Oh, cripes,” Max swore as he slid downward in a rush of dirt and stone through a hole in the collapsing floor.
His sons shouted in terror. With the forethought of experience, Max had already established a framework for such incidences. He caught one of the braces and let the stones rush on without him. Straining his arms to lift himself up, he swung his legs back to more stable ground before anything else could give way.
He was already covered in filth from head to toe anyway. He peered down into the black stream far below, assessing the walls that could be seen in the dim light. “We may need to consider Portland cement, iron pipes, and a pumping station if the rocks are this unstable.”
“It must almost be time for the dinner guests,” Richard said, a little nervously. “Perhaps we should stop now and clean up?”
Max grimaced. He’d far rather explore what was down below. But he understood his son’s concern.
“First, we put up boards blocking this passage and add warning signs. Some of our guests have inquiring minds.” He crossed two big timbers over the hole, then two more to block entrance to this part of the corridor. “Do we have anything to create a Keep-Out sign?”
Bakari produced a charcoal pencil from his pocket. “Will this work?”
Richard propped a thin board between the timbers and wrote letters on it. For good measure, he drew a skull and crossbones. “That’s for people who can’t read,” he said in satisfaction. “That’s why tavern signs have drawings on them.”
“He knows history,” Max muttered, gesturing for them to head out. He didn’t know whether Richard realized his father couldn’t read, but it didn’t seem to matter to the boys. They just wanted to dig in dirt and drive nails for fun.
Soaked in smelly slime, Max emerged from the cellar just as the first guests arrived—his wedding party arriving early for tonight’s dinner.
Thrilled at the sight of fancy thoroughbreds, the boys ran for the stable. Max scowled and aimed for the garden door before someone took him for the night soil man—except his clothes reeked more of oil than sewage. Interesting.
He had this next week to present witnesses in court that he was the same ignorant boy his relations had known nearly twenty years ago. After his
uncle’s insults, Max thought maybe he should greet his guests in all his filth and prove he hadn’t learned a thing. Irritated at his own thoughts, he took the path behind the kitchen hedges and pushed at the garden door.
It didn’t open. For the first time in the weeks he’d been living here, someone had bolted the damned tower door.
Now what did he do? Stalk through the front door with the guests? Go through the kitchen in all his stinking dirt and traipse through the entire house? There was only one corridor to his tower chamber and that was at the front.
Had he been in any of the primitive outposts where he was most comfortable, he would have found a bathhouse or a lake or a pump and just sluiced himself off. No one would have cared that he was wet and dirty. Here, men were supposed to be immaculate and smell of expensive shaving soaps.
He didn’t want to bring shame on Lydia. . . Except, he realized, Lydia would simply look at him, laugh, and point at the bathing room.
This was about him. He was the one harboring a childish memory of being laughed at, taunted, and made to feel like an ass.
He’d faced lions, savages, and floods since then. He could handle a few pampered dandies, especially if he thought of Lydia’s castle as his home. In his own home, he could do as he damned well pleased. If his guests were offended, they could leave. Max stopped and savored the sweet taste of power.
If this was his home and the choice was his, he’d rinse off before dripping through the kitchens. Max strode off to the stable and lowered himself into a horse trough. He should install pumps once he had the tower repaired. Maybe an outdoor shower for the stable lads and gardeners, after Lydia hired them again. The cistern held plenty and refilled easily.
Richard and Bakari ran out and laughed at him as he dunked his head to scrub his hair and came up sputtering. Several of the new arrivals glanced his way out of curiosity, but they had no reason to recognize an uncouth field hand bathing in his clothes. Max was grinning by the time he ordered the boys to fetch him a cloak to cover himself.
He dried off as best as he could with a horse blanket. Clothes dripping, he wrapped in a cloak and stomped in through the kitchen door. The servants froze at his entrance.
“You’ll have to mop up after me, I fear. It was either this or offend our guests.” Without further apology, Max traipsed across the stone floor and up the servants’ stairs. One of the young maids, naturally, followed at his heels with a mop. But apparently his stench put off any amorous inclinations. Huh, lesson number three—stink put women off.
Guests were already in the billiard room. The ancient table sagged. The room was lined with books and reading chairs instead of hunting trophies, but it was the closest imitation of a male refuge the castle possessed. The men glanced up as Max passed wrapped in a cloak and leaving a trail of slime, but they returned to their game, as if weird apparitions were normal. Ives then, and Max snorted in relief.
Ladies gathered in the great hall, sipping tea and delicately dining on cakes. They stared as he dripped down the carpeted corridor, rightfully so, of course. But they didn’t follow.
He was pondering muck and oil as a natural deterrent by the time he reached the tower, unmolested. Lloyd popped out of the guest room where Max still kept most of his wardrobe. He figured Lloyd and probably Marta had to know he was sleeping with Lydia, but for his mother’s sake, he kept up the pretense of occupying the lower chamber.
“I’ve taken the liberty of running a hot bath,” Lloyd said stiffly. “Your attire is in the bathing room with your shaving gear. Do you need any further assistance?”
That was the man’s way of saying You’re late, you stink, and you need a shave. Max appreciated his reticence. “I’ll be fixed up in a trice. Is Miss Lydia waiting on me?”
“Her mother and sister have arrived and are with her now. If you have no further need of me, I must see to Masters Richard and Bakari.” He bowed and hurried off, no doubt relieved Max didn’t need assistance as most gentlemen would.
Lydia’s family had arrived. This wedding really was happening.
It had seemed a fine idea a few weeks ago, before he knew all the insecurities lurking behind Lydia’s serenity. She presented a fine façade of strength and confidence that had everyone believing her foundation was sound, when it was as unstable as the tower she lived in.
He lacked experience in shoring up the foundations of ladies. . . Well, the emotional kind anyway. He was pretty good at corsets. Refusing to look backward, Max sank into the tub and scrubbed, creating an oily sheen in the water. Tomorrow, he would be a married man. Within the week, he hoped to be a wealthy one again. Planning any more future than that risked insanity.
* * *
“Here, wear this to dinner. It makes me feel like a princess.” Lydia adjusted the lace mantle over her mother’s rounded shoulders.
She’d hastily cleared away evidence of Max’s occupancy before bringing her family up, but they seemed too distracted by the lovely suite to notice small details, like the building blocks in the study.
“In that gown, you almost look like a lady,” her sister Sara said admiringly, with a touch of jealousy. “Being a librarian must be most lucrative.”
Lydia shook out the midnight blue skirt adorned with pale gold ruffles that she’d been told complemented her hair. “I have been saving my earnings for years. Open the wardrobe, and you’ll see what I’ve been wearing. But Mr. Ives is from a wealthy, noble family. I thought I should attempt to appear like a lady for his guests. Why don’t you borrow that shawl on the shelf? It’s a good color with your hair.”
Her mother and sister had darker red hair than Lydia. She was trying to learn about colors. The green shawl should work for both of them.
“Please do not take this wrong, dear,” her mother said hesitantly. “But why would a wealthy gentleman settle for a vicar’s plain daughter? Is there something you’d like to tell us?”
Her family had been with her only a few hours, and already they were eroding what little confidence she possessed. They meant well. Lydia knew they did. But they made her feel like an ugly stepchild. Perhaps they just raised the memories of her youth as a plain, overlarge misfit.
She did her best not to doubt herself—and Max. He’d not been particularly attentive these past weeks, but he’d been working hard, and so had she. Planning a wedding and learning to run an estate while desperately attempting to find the journals she needed consumed every minute of the day.
At night—that was a different story. Max certainly seemed to find her attractive in bed. That ought to be enough.
“You’ll have to meet Mr. Ives, Mama. You’ll understand. He’s not at all like the shallow gentlemen you’re thinking about,” she said, if only to bolster her confidence.
Sara admired the shawl in the mirror, then wandered through the adjoining rooms to study the office where Max had substituted wooden blocks for books in his effort to produce a copy of the tower supports. “Papa would have loved this office.”
Lydia had left all the trust documents Keya had sent on the desk. She’d studied them in hopes of learning more about testing her as librarian. She could find no mention of who did the testing or how, but there was certainly mention of it, proving the solicitors had done their homework.
Finding nothing reassuring, she’d tried to make heads or tails of the estate’s maps and boundaries. She’d hoped Max might look at them, but of course, he really couldn’t.
Praying she wasn’t in over her head, Lydia twisted the sapphire ring Max had given her. He and his mother had chosen it from the jewelry box. He’d promised her any ring she liked once he’d won his case, but she liked this one because it was a family heirloom, and Max had picked it out. It made her almost feel as if this wedding were real.
Well, the ceremony would be real enough. The marriage itself. . . Again, she hid her doubts. “I wish Papa could have lived to see my study,” she called to her sister, while she pinned her cameo brooch to the mantel around her mother’s shoulders.
Both her mother and sister were considerably shorter than herself, so she could not loan them any of her other finery. They’d grown stouter than Lydia remembered as well. She gestured for her mother to precede her from the bedchamber. They had to descend and meet the guests at some point.
“Papa always loved you better,” Sara claimed, lifting her skirt and petticoat so they didn’t knock over the blocks covering half the floor. “He used to let you sit with him for hours.”
“That was because you attended school, and I didn’t,” Lydia reminded her. “He called you his pretty butterfly.”
“He loved all three of you equally,” Mrs. Wystan said firmly. “I’m sorry Elizabeth couldn’t attend, but she couldn’t leave Scottie with his broken leg. She said she’s sorry to miss this, but she thought it best if she stay home with all the children.”
Elizabeth was their prettiest sister. She’d had a lovely wedding. Lydia had helped make her gown and find the flowers for the church and planned the reception. She would have loved seeing her again—and maybe showing off just a little. She wouldn’t reveal her disappointment. “The children must come first, of course. Perhaps once everything is settled, I’ll be able to visit. I’d love to see my nieces and nephews.”
“You’ll have time?” her mother asked warily.
She hadn’t been able to get away while Mr. C had been ill. Now that she was performing both his duties and hers, Lydia didn’t have an answer, so she pretended not to hear. She’d been having a nightmare lately that she left the castle and the door locked behind her, refusing to let her back in.
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