Read The Queen's Librarian for Free Online Page B

well, almost weirdly enthusiastically, actually, nearly doing backflips to assure Lucas that he was in love with Clara and not her supposed dowry. And he hadn’t even been drunk yet. It endeared him almost instantly to Lucas, and even Alex had been soppily charmed. Of course, there was still the meeting with Slade’s parents to get through before everything was official, and the Queen had to approve, if Lucas ever got the chance to put the request to her, but Clara wanted this, and it was a love match, not a contract of convenience, so Lucas would make it happen.
    He spared a dark look over at the leaning tower of account books stacked beside the desk as he pulled his shirt on. The approach of Crone’s Night meant the approach of Winter Tithing, and Lucas knew all too well that he’d have to do some serious juggling when it came. The Faulkes’s potatoes had suffered blight, and Lucas knew they’d lost almost a quarter of their harvest; there would have to be adjustments in the rent so the family wouldn’t suffer too terribly over the winter. Discreet adjustments, or Mister Faulkes would be too conscientious to accept a lower tithe than some of his neighbors. And the Greenleys had been surprised with twins two months ago, which not only added an unanticipated mouth to feed to their already tight resources, but would take Mistress Greenley out of the fields come Harvest. If they ever got a Harvest.
    Lucas peered out the window, scanning the sky— one more day, please, just one more day —and reached into the wardrobe for the green jumper. Alex liked him in green, and Mother had knitted it for him, so perhaps he’d make them both smile by wearing it. Anyway, the sleeve of his coat was going to need a bit of mending—stupid thorns—so he’d best take that up to Miss Emma now, instead of wearing it and taking a chance on making the tiny tear into a major unraveling. That and the whole coat-smelling-like-pub thing. That was going to earn him one of Emma’s chiding looks, he was sure, but perhaps she wouldn’t mention it to his mother.
    “I’m a grown man,” he muttered to himself, shutting up the wardrobe with a grumpy kick to the door. “Well, all right, maybe a little stunted. But still. As grown as I’m going to get. And I can go to a pub if I want to.” Cat brupped at him, eyeing up the jumper with a gimlet gaze as Lucas laid it on the bed.
    “That,” he told Cat, pointing at the pile of soft, thick yarn, “is not your bed.” He shooed at her. “Go on, then, off with you.” Cat only stared at him with her oh look I think that food-fetching minion is trying to communicate look, which segued directly into her how annoying look, and didn’t move. Lucas tried out a glare, but it was very hard to impress Cat. Keeping an eye on her, albeit a fuzzy one once he took off his glasses, he pulled the jumper over his—
    “Mathlasa thei scontun.”
    Lucas did not shriek in surprise at the voice directly behind him. All right, he shrieked a little. Kind of high-pitched and ten-year-old-girl-ish, but at least it was muffled into the jumper.
    Heart suddenly racing, Lucas yanked the jumper down and spun, split right down the middle between outrage and relief. He took in the platinum hair, the grim determination, the… very odd clothes, now that he was looking. Lucas set a hand to his chest, like he was trying to prevent his heart from thumping out through his breastbone.
    “Scontun,” said the man, and he cracked a small, friendly smile as Cat leapt from the bed and into his arms. When Cat failed to scratch the man’s eyes out, merely purred and nuzzled and fawned like a slutty kitten, Lucas could do nothing but stare. “Red Libe-aar-in,” the man told Lucas sagely.
    Lucas blinked, distractedly reached for his glasses, and shoved them on. Drat, he wasn’t seeing things. “Right,” he said slowly, “Libe-aar-in,” then he shook his head and rubbed at his brow. “Bugger all .”

Chapter 3

     
    L UCAS