Page 64 of An Arranged Marriage with a Cruel Earl
Chapter 22
Andrew reached up to the top shelf and hauled books out, putting them on the oak table in the centre of the library. Emmeline was sorting them there, opening the leather covers and putting them in two piles—ones that needed investigation and those that were certainly not what they needed. He glanced at her, his heart twisting with concern.
She was pale and her face was smudged here and there with dirt. Her thick, red hair tumbled freely around her shoulders and her skirt was torn to ribbons in places. She looked beautiful, but his appreciation of the effect of it was marred by his desperate need to get her to safety. She should not be wandering around in cold, torn clothes and she doubtless needed warmth and rest.
“These are all my father’s books,” he told her as he reached up to the top shelf, lifting the last leather-bound volumes off and putting them on the table.
“There are only three I thought might be interesting,” Emmeline replied, gesturing at the small pile. “There were some notes written in the margins and I thought perhaps we should check them.”
He lifted one of the three books, which was a treatise on geometry. There were, indeed, notes in the margin, in his father’s angular handwriting. He let his eye drift over them, but there was nothing helpful there. They were all annotations about the diagrams and concepts in the book and if there was anything there, it was written in some sort of code that Andrew could not possibly guess.
“This one’s a book of philosophy,” Emmeline commented. “Nothing here either.”
“Let’s go to the next shelf,” Andrew suggested. They had already searched the shelf of books that had belonged to his uncle and had found nothing. The rest of the books—besides the few that were his grandfather’s, and those owned by Grandma—were so old that he had no idea which of the ancestors had owned them. If it would shed light on the mystery and bring his cousins to justice, he was willing to search all night.
Emmeline followed him and they started taking books off the shelves. It was a slow process—he did not want to dump a dozen books at a time on her, since she was not possibly strong enough to hold them all. It was,indeed, going to take all night and he needed to send for the Watch. Someone needed to keep Grandma and Emmeline safe.
An idea dropped into his mind, and he turned to Emmeline.
“Will you stay here a moment?” he asked. “I need to go and do something quickly. I’ll check on Grandma too. Lock the door behind me. Allow nobody in. I’ll knock three times, like this, when I return,” he suggested, demonstrating the knock on the table.
“Very well,” Emmeline replied. Her eyes were big and worried, and he swore inwardly, wishing he did not have to part from her for a second.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” he promised and, before he lost his nerve, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
Emmeline gasped, but a smile blossomed on her face, and he was grinning as he hurried out of the room. He waited until he heard the door lock behind him and then he raced to the kitchen.
Once he had done what he needed to there, he hurried back to the library.
His knock on the door was followed by silence, and he paused, wondering if he should knock again, but then the door opened.
“Come inside!” she exclaimed. Her eyes were wide and round, and a smile lit her face. “I had an idea.”
“You did?” Andrew asked excitedly. “What was it?”
“I wondered if there were any hidden doors or levers here like there are in the rest of the building. After all, there is a door just near the ballroom, where I escaped.”
“There is?” Andrew blinked in surprise. She had not told him the details of her escape, and he had been too relieved to ask her how.
“Yes. Anyhow,” Emmeline added, impatient because she needed to explain. “It would be so easy to hide a door like the one I came through behind a shelf—the whole shelf might move.”
“Yes...” Andrew frowned. It was a good thought, but he was struggling enough to come to terms with the fact that there was a hidden passage in the castle. He had never known about any of that—how was it that his cousin knew?
It must be in Uncle’s writings,he reminded himself. In his search for the treasure, he probably found all sorts of things.
“So,” Emmeline said with excitement. “I think we should look. Let’s start by the door. You go on the left, I’ll go on the right, and we’ll move around the room.”
“Very well,” Andrew agreed. It was an easy enough task, especially in comparison with looking through the entire library.
He went to the first shelf and started to search. Andrew checked the first one, then moved on to the next. Emmeline was more than halfway around the room when they reached the same spot.
“Nothing!” Emmeline declared. She sounded downcast.
“We haven’t done those ones,” Andrew said, trying to raise her spirits. He pointed to the ones in the middle of the room.
“I don’t see how they could conceal a hidden passage,” Emmeline said dolefully. “But we can look, if you like.”
“I do like,” Andrew said with just a touch of humour. She grinned at him, and his heart leapt.
