It’s an easy question, Ryan, you can do this without crying.
In and out.
“I was President Colchester’s personal aide,” I say. “I was everything he needed to get through his day. I made sure he had his notes, the right clothes, the right speech, the right food. I woke him, fed him, fended off people who wanted his time; I led him and I followed him. I was—”
I break off, suddenly unable to find words. Not just the right words, but any words, all words. They’re gone, completely gone in the face of what I was to a man who’s now dead.
“You were his,” Sidney finishes softly for me. He’s studying me as one of his fingers rubs thoughtfully over the delicate gold paint on his coffee cup. “That’s what you were. You were his.”
I nod my head once, not trusting myself to answer.
“So you were like a valet?” Cremer asks. “An aide-de-camp?”
“Body man,” Auden says suddenly, breaking into the conversation. “That’s what they’re called, yes? A body man.”
I want to close my eyes against the rush of memories those words invoke, of the time Ash once used my body to soothe his man, his estranged lover Embry. Of all the times I wished he’d use my body to soothe himself, not because I was jealous of his wife or of his lover, but simply because I loved him so much that I wanted to give him everything. I worshipped him as my hero, I venerated him as my saint, and I would have stopped at nothing to ease his burdens.
“You were like a squire of old,” Sidney says. “Tending to a king.”
A squire. I like that. I like the feel of it in my mind, laden with images of pennants and armor. It sounds more romantic, more weighty than aide or assistant.
“Yes, like a squire,” I agree.
“And you didn’t find the work ignoble at all?” Sidney presses, his finger still tracing the filigreed patterns of his cup. “It wasn’t demeaning?”
It’s an unkind question, and Sidney wields it like scalpel—but strangely, it feels good. Like he’s slicing through something sticky and confining to let in the air.
All the same, my temper rouses the slightest bit. “There’s no such thing as ignoble work,” I say. “There’s nothing inherently less dignifying about compiling notes and running errands than writing poetry or crab-fishing or curating a museum. Yes, I was a squire, a body man. But my work meant that a great man could do his work, which I believed in. I was of service, I was essential, and I made life better and easier and more worthwhile for a man I cared deeply about—and that is noble to me.”
The table stares at me, all of them quiet in the face of my heated response. Cremer looks a little embarrassed on my behalf at my outburst, and Auden has his pretty forehead wrinkled in thought, but Sidney Blount looks . . . pleased?
“So for me, there’s no shame in small jobs,” I continue. I ignore the spike of heat in my belly at seeing approval in Sidney’s gaze. “There’s only shame in jobs poorly done.”
“It must have been hard to work with someone so closely and then lose him,” Cremer offers, obviously trying to restore the equilibrium of the conversation.
“Yes,” I reply, feeling tired and weak and sad. “Yes, it was.”
“And what will you do next?” Sidney presses again. “Where will you go? Whom will you serve?”
It should have been an odd choice of words, even for a former personal aide, but to me they aren’t odd at all. Serve has the cadence of sweet music to me, the harp of David soothing Saul, the whispered percussion of a sleeping king, able to sleep soundly because his servant is keeping watch, and so the answer comes out before I can even consider what it is I want to say.
“If I serve again, it will be my choice. And God willing, it will be for a long, long time.”
4
Morning comes with silvery light and a fussy wind, and when I pad over to the windows in my bedroom, I see snowflakes big as feathers fluttering past the glass. I watch them for a minute, as the flakes catch on the branches of the trees and the shrubs, and on my windowsill. There’s something rather cozy about it, knowing I don’t have to go anywhere, knowing there are no errands to run in the slush and slick of it all. All I have to do is find a nice cup of coffee and dig through a library—I mean, people pay their own money to do that, and here I am on Merlin’s dime, with a genial host and a job to accomplish. And having a job to accomplish is one of my favorite things in the world.
I get dressed with more anticipation than I’ve felt in weeks, pulling on jeans and a thick shawl-collared sweater over a Reading Rainbow T-shirt, running a pointless hand through my stupid hair, and then donning my signature glasses. I skip my usual shave because I’m feeling a little indulgent with the snow, and it’s not a privilege I ever had working in the White House.
Auden told me last night to make free with the kitchen, but I’m not a breakfast person, so I just make some coffee in the French press while I watch the snow and then head to the library, feeling deeply rested despite the early hour. It’s a few hours later than I normally sleep, since I needed to wake around four or five most days to get things ready for Ash, and I slept like the dead last night after treating myself to some time with my hand and thoughts of Sidney Blount. Specifically Sidney Blount’s long fingers, maybe even still clad in those tight leather gloves.
I came so hard I had to bite the pillow to keep from groaning.
So I slept well and rose just after the light began filtering in. But even though it’s early, even though the house is silent except for the wind and the hiss of snow on the windows, the library is not empty.
There’s someone here.
Sidney Blount sits at one of the long tables stretching down the middle of the room, his toned frame hugged by a black turtleneck sweater and gray trousers. He’s poring over a piece of paper, the fingers I thought so much about last night following a line of text as he reads. The snowy half-light coming in from the windows at the end of the library is faint enough that he has a lamp on the table, and the light casts the strong lines of his face into arresting plays of shadow and glow.
“Good morning, Ryan,” he says without lifting his eyes from his paper.
My name on his lips is shocking, electric magic, and I nearly trip over my own feet.
“Good morning, Sidney,” I choke out.
“Mr. Blount will do,” he says crisply, finally turning to face me.
I flush with either indignation or shame . . . or both. “I—ah, okay?”
“Is that going to be a problem? Me calling you Ryan, while you call me Mr. Blount?”
I suppose it should be, but as I reflect on it, I find that it isn’t. I’m used to it, after all. I’ve spent the last four years delivering every formality and courtesy to the people around me, and of course, it’s expected in the world of kink that language and names acknowledge the power play between Dominants and submissives. Not that Sidney and I are playing a game like that now.
I think.
“It’s not a problem if it’s on purpose,” I say.
“I would think it being on purpose would be worse.”
“No, because you asked if it was okay and I’m telling you it’s okay. If you didn’t ask, if you didn’t think about why you needed the honorific and I didn’t, then I’d know not to trust you.”
Sidney studies me for a moment, firm lips pressed into a thoughtful line. “Noted. And will it bother you if I work in here?” He gestures at the boxes and folders in front of him. “It’s easier if I have room to spread out.”
Spread me out instead. Work on me until I’m shivering and crying. Work on me until I beg for mercy.
“It won’t bother me,” I say, walking forward enough to set my mug at the edge of the table. I hope I look casual and collected, and not like I’m already planning to jerk off thinking about him again. “As long as it won’t bother you that I’m in here?”
“Of course not. I overheard part of your conversation with Mr. Cremer yesterday, and I understand you’re looking for a book?”
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I can’t tell if he’s being polite or if he truly wants to know . . . until I meet his gaze, and then there’s no mistaking his interest. His stare is keen and his eyebrow is arched, as if he’s impatient with my hesitation in answering.
“Yes,” I say. “The Tragicall Story of Tristram and Iseult of Lyonesse. There’s only two copies known to history, and one was destroyed in Germany during the war. The other copy is possibly here.”
“Possibly?”
“There’s a letter from John William Waterhouse thanking an Estamond Guest for letting him peruse the library while he stayed here during a house party. He mentions finding the Tragicall Story deeply inspiring and that he’d love to paint the lovers, which he did many years later. However, the letter is from the 1870s and there’s no hint of this book being here after that.”
“And what is this book to you?”
“A job,” I say honestly.
“Are you getting paid?”
“It’s not that kind of job.”
Sidney narrows his eyes. “And who is it that asks for this job? Who has enough loyalty from you to claim your time like this?”
“It’s not—” my hands move a little helplessly, as if I can make the shape of the situation I’m trying to describe. “I think Merlin is trying to do me a favor. Give me a purpose. I’ve been a little . . . lost . . . after the President’s death.”
Sidney seems to relax a little at my answer. “Merlin . . . Merlin Rhys?”
“You know him?”
“Everyone knows him. Why do you think he wants this book?”
“It’s really his Do—” I stop myself from saying the word Domme, switch to something else. “It’s his girlfriend that wants it, really. She didn’t say why. Just that they’d pay for me to come out here and fetch it.”
“Mm,” Sidney says, clearly cataloging all this away. “So you search the library until you find this book and you’ll bring it back to Merlin, and then what?”
“I don’t have another job lined up after this, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It is what I’m asking,” he says, a bit tersely, and then turns back to his work.
I stare at him for a minute, a little stunned, and yet under the astonishment there’s the feeling of an itch being scratched, the familiarity of a curt dismissal from a powerful man. It’s so known to me, so recognizable, that I’m smiling a little as I head to the far corner of the library, where I plan to start my search for Tristram and Iseult. In a way, it’s like working with Ash again.
Three hours later, and my lack of success has only made me more determined. I’ve gotten through a good tenth of the shelves, but it’s slow, tedious work, slower than I could have ever imagined. First of all, there’s no real order to the library, no sections or classifications, or any kind of organizational scheme at all. There’s no records, no catalogs, no metadata I can use to make my search any easier. And secondly, there’s not enough light to see what the hell I’m doing. The snow has grown worse, thicker and faster, and even with a lamp dragged along behind me, the gloom is so thick that I have to use my phone flashlight to see.
And complicating it all is the aged state of the books themselves—some of them without titles on their spines, some with titles but with the lettering peeling off and rendering the title unrecognizable. I have to pull most books off the shelf and check the front page to see what they are, and it’s so fucking time consuming.
I finish another row and pause to stretch, re-evaluating all the project flow-charts I’d made in my mind yesterday. People often think that being methodical and being efficient are synonymous, but that’s not the case. Sometimes efficiency requires creativity rather than logic, it requires vision; I pride myself on seeing the shortcuts other people miss.
So I take a minute to examine the library once again, now that I’m more familiar with it. I take in the huge fireplace to one side, the dusty reaches of the upper story, the ladders and stairs giving access to high shelves and balconies in a baroque tangle of dark wood.
And of course, my gaze is pulled to the elegant arch of Sidney’s neck over his mysterious papers, to the contrast of his strong, cut jaw against his black turtleneck. From this angle, the cashmere-covered planes of his shoulders and biceps are framed by the rows of richly colored books just beyond him, and—
Ah. Interesting.
On that same bookshelf in front of Sidney, I spy two large items that look more like ledgers than books. When I head over to investigate, I realize I’m going to have to climb the little ladder to reach them, and with a sigh I do, very aware that my jeans are not made for climbing things. With each rung, I can feel the denim pulling indecently tight around my ass and thighs. I just pray Sidney of the Impeccable Tailoring isn’t looking at me right now.
“Do you need help?” he asks from behind me. He’s gotten up and moved with such silent, catlike grace that I had no idea he was there.
“Um, I’m fine,” I say, reaching for the books and trying to get myself down to where he can’t see all the anatomical detail my jeans are currently revealing. But before I can take a single step down, Sidney’s on the ladder behind me, reaching for the books in my hand.
“Don’t move,” he orders, and I don’t move.
There’s the light tap of his Derby shoes reverberating through the wood, the gone-too-soon press of him against my back, and then he has both books in his hand and is climbing back down.
The ghost of all that lean warmth keeps me frozen for a long second, long enough for him to say from the floor, with a touch of wry amusement, “Do you need help down?”
“No,” I say quickly, not wanting him to see how much he affects me. “No, I’m completely fine.”
“Hmm,” he says, setting the ledgers on the table and going back to his work, and his hmm sounds like he’s not entirely fooled by my act.
But just a moment later, when I’m moving the ladder back to where I found it, he lets out a ragged breath, and when I turn, he has his eyes closed and his hand in a fist on the table.
Like it’s taking all of his control to remain right where he is.
5
“So these were Estamond’s records?” Auden asks, as I set the books on the sofa next to him. It’s after dinner, and the four of us have repaired to the library with whiskey to enjoy the big fireplace and the snow still fluttering past the windows in the dark.
“As far as I can tell. It doesn’t look like she got anything close to having the whole library surveyed, but some of it is here.”
Auden flips through the brittle pages, eyes running over lines and lines of browned, century-old ink. “Fascinating.”
Sidney, who’s standing at the arm of the sofa and looking down over Auden’s shoulder, moves away to the window. The firelight in the shadowy room dances everywhere, dances over the subtle lines of muscle and spine on his cashmere-covered back. “I still think you should consider hiring someone to take care of this,” he says as he goes.
Auden doesn’t look up from the amateur library catalog. “I don’t even know what that means,” he says. “I’m not sure if I care.”
“You could at least finish Estamond’s work and properly catalog the library,” Cremer says from the far sofa across the coffee table. “You could even arrange for the digitization of books that haven’t been digitized in other libraries yet. Think about it, Auden. If that Tristram and Iseult is the only copy left in the world and it’s here, how many other rare things are held hostage in Thornchapel’s walls?”
It’s the boldest I’ve ever heard Cremer speak, and I suspect it has something to do with how little scotch is left in his glass.
Auden must notice too, because he looks up at his lawyer with one of those boy-king smiles he has. “Cremer, you are saucy tonight! And about books, of all things!”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and when I pull it out, I see a message from a number I don’t recognize.
Unknown number: This is Nimue. Tell Mr. Cremer to hire a woman
named Proserpina Markham to work on Thornchapel’s library.
I stare at the phone for a long time, not really sure what I’m seeing. But four years working with Merlin has left me resigned to these sorts of things—when magic crops up, it’s always more work to ignore it than to let it blow through your life. With a sigh, I turn to Cremer.
“You should hire someone named Proserpina Markham,” I say very quickly, hoping it sounds less bonkers if I blurt it out.
The ledger Auden holds falls shut with a loud, papery clap. I glance over at him in surprise, even more surprised to see a muscle ticking wildly in his jaw.
“What did you just say?” he whispers. His long eyelashes sweep over those hazel eyes like dark fans as he looks at me with something like shock. “What name did you just say?”
“Proserpina Markham,” I repeat. “It’s a mouthful, I know.”
Auden is staring at me hard enough to etch my skin with his questions. My phone buzzes again.
Nimue: She’s a rare book archival specialist in the U.S.
“She’s an archival specialist,” I parrot.
Auden shoves the ledgers off his lap to stand. “Holy fuck,” he mutters to himself. He spears long fingers through his light brown hair in jerky, agitated movements. “Holy fuck.”
I take a look at my pacing host and then at the tipsy lawyer in front of me, who already looks eager to pounce on whatever this means to Auden if it will result in Auden hiring a librarian, and I quietly excuse myself from the seating area. I probably should get myself another drink or pretend to sift through the ledgers some more—polite, meaningless activity while I give Auden and Cremer privacy—but I can’t help it, I’m drawn to the giant windows.
I’m drawn to the tall, wide-shouldered man silhouetted against the glass.
Sidney stands with one hand in a pocket and the other with his scotch glass dangling between his fingertips. He’s gazing out at the snow-beleaguered scene outside, but he nods when I come to stand next to him, as if he’s been aware of my movements the whole time.
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