The Queen's Librarian (16 page)

Lucas groaned and wished there was something to beat his head against besides Saffron.

Priorities!

“Stop with
The Eyes
,” Lucas snapped. “And the voice. And the….” He waved his hand around and then had to smile politely when Alise Fenn misunderstood and waved back. “And the
Alex
-ness. Just stop looking like that, stop talking like that and stop with those
eyes
.”

Alex did stop, but still, Lucas could
feel
him, damn it, riding beside him and being all
Alex
and
asking
and
offering
, and making Lucas almost smile when he shouldn’t and think things he shouldn’t, because he had a rather pressing job to do right now and his trousers had no business tightening.

Think of Laurie. Think of Laurie.

Think of… Mother in her bloomers.

And how did
that
one not work? Was there no sufficient weapon against The Eyes?

Lucas was already juddering in the saddle, trying to keep himself from steering Saffron right into a tree in his anxiety, and trying
not
to admit in anything that might resemble a conscious thought that he was well into the process of convincing himself that a… distraction might actually do him some good. Not that Lucas had any ulterior motives or anything. One tiny little embarrassing story and then a distraction as a reward. It might even help him think more clearly, which could only help Laurie. Right?

Argh. Lucas? Was a degenerate. He didn’t mean to be—it just… happened. A lot, but still. It was the stupid
eyes
. They put ideas in Lucas’s head that really didn’t belong there when he was supposed to be worrying about finding his cousin.

And then Alex only made it worse with a slow blink and a soft smile and a tiny nudge of his elbow to Lucas’s ribs.

“Please?”

OhGodyesrightnow
was rolling around on the tip of Lucas’s tongue, but luckily, it didn’t actually fall out his mouth.

No, no and
no
. There were
priorities
, damn it! And Lucas did actually have some that had nothing to do with Alex’s trousers and the lovely things contained therein. And anyway, Alex already knew too many embarrassing things about Lucas, and this one hadn’t even been Lucas’s fault, it had been
Laurie’s
, and
Laurie
wasn’t even here to take away some of the sting because….

Damn it. Right.
There
were those pesky priorities.

Stupid Laurie.

Stupid Alex.

Lucas should punch him. Right on the nose. And then he’d have to kiss it all better. And maybe give him a cuddle. They’d have to dismount to do that. And get off the road, because it was nobody else’s business. A quick stop behind a convenient tree or outbuilding, just for a quick hug to show there were no hard feelings—heh, hard—and then, since they’d already be there—

And there he went again.

Lucas shook his head, shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, and clenched his teeth.

Stupid libido.

“L
UCAS
,
I swear, if she comes at me one more time with those claws, I’m going to—”

“Whatever it is, for pity’s sake don’t say it out loud,” Lucas hissed at Alex and flipped a page. “She’ll hear you and then take her revenge while you sleep.”

They were sat on the floor in Lucas’s main room, every book in the little house stacked around them like a fort. As promised—or threatened, depending upon one’s perspective—Cráwa had beaten them there and had been waiting impatiently on the lane when they’d finally gotten there. Well, Lucas assumed that little superior moue on his face had indicated impatience, but really—who could tell?

“What did you want Parry for?” Lucas had asked him.

“Where shall we begin?” Cráwa had snapped back, so Lucas merely waved him up the walk to the main house.

Lucas hadn’t minded playing the coward and leaving the main house to Dorset and Cráwa, though Alex had been a little disappointed—he’d never seen Cráwa go head-to-head with Lucas’s mother, and it wasn’t likely she’d be pleased to have her house taken over and used as a research laboratory. Lucas overruled the promise of the spectacle by telling Alex there was no way Lucas’s mother was not going to blame Lucas for all of this, and if he had to look at that sad, disappointed expression she trotted out when she wanted to convey her displeasure without words, he might just cry. He felt no shame when Alex caved. Having everyone in the world believe he had the physical prowess and emotional capacity of a twelve-year-old girl should damned well be useful for
something
.

Lucas waved at Cat and lowered his voice. “I swear sometimes she can understand what we say.” And then he felt stupid for lowering his voice, so he cleared his throat. “And she is not above the occasional sick-up in one’s boot.”

“You say that like it’s something new,” Alex groused and then heaved a long sigh as he slid a book onto the probably-not-the-one-we’re-looking-for pile before taking up another. He shooed Cat away from where she’d darted up onto his lap and tried to make herself comfortable on the open pages. When shooing didn’t work, Alex merely lifted the book and flipped her off it so she had no choice. Cat went, but not without an evil glare and a switch of the tail that held an implicit promise of
later
. Alex glared right back. “I won’t be judged by a creature that licks itself for fun.”

Lucas smirked. “If you could lick yourself for fun, you’d—”

“Yes, let’s leave that one understood but unsaid, shall we?” Alex snatched a cube of cheese from the plate by Lucas’s knee. “You haven’t even touched your lunch.”

“Lunch” was being a little kind. Lucas had managed to shave off the hard bits from the last of the cheese and put it together with half a loaf of crusty bread that was just making a go at stale but hadn’t quite pulled it off yet. He hadn’t been down to the barns for days, and Stafford—who had the day-to-day running of the grounds, and who was
not
Mother’s personal gardener, no matter what Mother thought—had given up on delivering fresh stock to Lucas’s door after the last time Lucas had forgotten to tell him he wouldn’t be home for a few days and Mister Stafford had arrived one morning to find a family of raccoons having the forest animal equivalent of a dinner party on Lucas’s doorstep, cheerfully sharing the basket of eggs and the tin of milk Mister Stafford had left the day before. Which, to be fair, was
three years ago
, but Mister Stafford did not abide waste, and he did not forget. Which meant if Lucas wanted eggs or milk or anything else not dried or salted and stored in his tiny cellar, Lucas visited Mistress Stafford personally and picked them up himself. Which he hadn’t. Which meant they had hard cheese and almost-stale bread for lunch.

Alex’s grimace of disapproval had been placated with a mug of yeasty beer. It was brought back when Cat had stuck her entire head in the mug. It was placated again when Lucas switched mugs with him.

“Eat, Lucas.” Alex straightened his leg and poked at Lucas with his socked foot. “You didn’t have breakfast.”

“Mm,” Lucas replied, squinting down at the book on his crossed legs as he absently picked up a crust of bread. He put it back down again to turn a page.

Alex tutted then loudly rustled the pages of the book he was holding. “Half of these are in another language, and we have no idea what we’re looking for in the first place. How are we supposed to know if we’ve found it?”

“I don’t think we’re going to find it,” Lucas answered, frowning down at his own book and distractedly stroking Bramble’s silky ear. “At least, I don’t think….” He trailed off and flipped a page. No, this wasn’t making any sense at all.

Alex set a hand to the pages of his own book then leaned over to see what Lucas was reading. “Lucas, this really isn’t the time to wander off the point.”

“I rather think this
is
the point,” Lucas said slowly, thinking.

“How is a book of ancestry even near the point?”

“It isn’t.” Lucas turned another page and followed the lines of descent and all of those lovely distant relatives that sat between Lucas himself and the throne. Right. Just as he’d suspected. “Which
is
the point, actually. Only not the point they think it is. It’s an entirely different point. Which is making me very happy in a way that is
not
the point at all, but I shall be making it a point to make the point to Cráwa at my very earliest convenience.”

Alex stared. “Somewhere, Tress has had a sudden urge to kick you in the kneecaps and has no idea why.”

“Tress doesn’t generally need a reason.” Lucas snapped the book shut then stood to find his boots. “We have to go and take the horses back.”

Alex scowled after him as Bramble hopped up to follow Lucas toward the door. “But we’re supposed to be—”

“Aren’t you the one who said I should be thinking about what we should do next? Well, I’ve thought, and I’ve decided we need to take the horses back to Parry.”

“And what made you decide to do
this
in particular?” Alex asked, flipping the book of ancestry open and frowning at a few pages before he dropped it and rose. “And what does it have to do with finding Laurie?”

“I’m not sure it has anything to do with finding Laurie,” Lucas answered as he hopped on one foot to pull a boot on—he’d checked it first. “But we’re not going to find that book here, and Dorset and Cráwa won’t be finding it up at the main house, either.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “What do you know?” he asked, a touch suspiciously, as he pulled his boots on with a little more grace than Lucas had managed. “And how did you figure out whatever you know from a book that has nothing to do with anything except your obsession with how there will never be enough distant relatives keeping the world safe from a reign of Lucas the Confused and Pissed Off?”

Lucas grinned. “Well, my obsession has just paid off in ways I’m not sure I even understand yet, because there is no Booths Brinley in my family tree. I mean, there is, but only through his sister’s side. The Tripp family split off from the Brinleys over a hundred years ago. Some legal feud, something about a flood and an archaic statute that compelled Laurie’s great-grandmother to take Rolling Green from the Brinleys and give it to my great-grandfather, along with the care of the Circle. My father wasn’t descended from that branch, though I suppose they’re likely distant cousins, if I wanted to spend the time going through their lines of descent. Which I don’t.”

Alex’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “And this means…?”

“It
means
,” Lucas crowed, “that whatever book Cráwa’s looking for, it won’t be found here and it won’t be found up in the main house, either, because the Tripps are not descended from Booths Brinley in the way he seems to think we are. Cráwa is barking up the wrong family tree, as it were.” He paused to snort because that had been kind of clever. “Which
also
likely means that Cráwa has been insisting that I present Laurie every year for no other reason than that he read a few entries in the
Lines of Descent
wrong. The only mildly interesting thing about the Tripps is that we were awarded Rolling Green and the responsibility for the Circle when Booths Brinley lost it, right around the same time the Circle was closed and the Daimin banished.” He paused. “Also, we’re kind of loopy. And poor.”

“All right,” Alex said, easily enough, then he tilted his head. “So why are we going to take the horses back to Parry instead of telling Dorset what you’ve found? Which, I might remind you, he asked you
specifically
to do.”

Lucas swung the door open and let Bramble lope out ahead of him while he turned back to grin at Alex. “Because I think that’s why Cráwa went there—because
Parry
is descended from Booths Brinley. And out of the ten children in the family, Parry is the youngest.” He paused to grin, because he just couldn’t help himself. “And Parry
likes
me.”

W
HEN
they crested the top of the small hillock surrounding the dell in which the stables sat, it wasn’t hard to pick out the gilded head of Parry outside in the yard, along with… oh no. That was Auntie Del watching Parry hitch a carriage to a docile little bay. Parry was still treating the buttons of his shirt like they were ironic suggestions. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if Auntie Del hadn’t been so obviously
looking
.

Lucas thought leaning over in the saddle and throwing up would probably not be a very good way to make an entrance.

The bay whickered cheerfully when she noticed the approach of her stallmates. Saffron whiffed a soft salutary noise in return while Bramble danced a little at her side then ran ahead. With a happy yelp, Bramble preceded Lucas and Alex into the stable’s yard, stopping politely—politely!
Bramble
!—to receive a pat on the head from Auntie Del before greeting the bay.

Good grief, Bramble was almost as tall as the pony. No wonder people mistook him for one so often.

Brent, Parry’s elder brother and apparently Auntie Del’s driver, emerged from around the back; with a grin and a wave he elbowed Parry and pointed over toward Lucas. Parry looked up and gave a smile and a wink before turning back to the hitch. Alex grumbled something under his breath that probably shouldn’t have made Lucas smirk but did. With a suspicious sidelong glance at Lucas, Alex pinched his mouth then swung down from the saddle. Lucas followed suit.

“Lucas, dear!” Auntie Del called out with a wide grin. She crossed the yard in a flurry of skirts and expansive, floppy hat as Lucas and Alex led their horses toward the stable’s wide doors and secured the leads to the posts. “You see? I knew it would be all right, didn’t I say?” She twirled like a young girl then snatched up Lucas’s hand.

Auntie Del was a fine woman, she truly was, and Lucas loved her to pieces. She was perpetually happy and her butterscotch biscuits were the closest to the Heavenly Portal Lucas would ever come. Auntie Del and Uncle Harland had taught Lucas almost everything he knew about farming when he was a mere boy, idling away the slow hours with his feet paddling in the shallow creek behind the big house where Auntie Del and Uncle Harland farmed the chunks of land deeded to them as a wedding gift by Lucas’s father to his youngest sister. Until Mother had found out that Lucas had let Parry kiss him on the swing beneath Auntie Del’s great oak—a fact that, if Lucas had his way, Alex wouldn’t find out until Lucas had been dead and in the ground for at least ten years—and then the extended visits to Auntie Del’s and Uncle Harland’s had abruptly ended. To this day, Lucas didn’t know if it was because of the kissing or “that awful deathtrap” that was, apparently, Auntie Del’s swing. Auntie Del still hadn’t gotten over it and hadn’t spoken to Lucas’s mother since. Well, she had, but with the decibel levels the “conversations” had reached, one couldn’t actually consider it “speaking.”