There was, of course, no portrait of Rand.
“Professors do not rate paintings,” Rand said dryly beside her, apparently reading her mind.
She looked back to the picture of his parents. She could almost see the woman’s graceful fingers stroking the silky, purring cat. “She looks very loving,” she said of his mother.
“She was. The only love I ever received.”
“Not the only,” Lily said quietly, and Rand squeezed her around the shoulders.
Kit had gone ahead through the library and into a small room beyond, where a massive desk took up most of the space. Upon entering, Rand immediately moved behind the desk and began opening drawers.
Kit was already pulling books off the shelves. “These are deep,” he said. “There’s another row of books behind the first.” He gestured to the opposite wall. “Lily, you can start over there, and we’ll meet in the mid—”
She was heading over to do as he suggested when she heard his indrawn breath. She swung back. “Have you found them?”
“I think so.”
Behind the books he’d removed sat a long row of multicolored spines, none of them marked with titles. As he drew one out and opened it, a grin spread on his face.
“Yes, this is a diary. An older one, from 1664. Now we just need the most recent.”
Her heart racing with renewed hope, Lily pulled out another and flipped open the cover. “I cannot read it.”
“It’s in code,” Rand told her, standing over her shoulder.
“Oh, now I remember.” The dates, at least, weren’t encrypted. She turned pages, noting this one ran from mid-1668 to early 1669. “You got in trouble for breaking the codes, didn’t you?”
“Did he ever,” Kit confirmed with a wry grin.
“When I translate the latest diary,” Rand said, “it will get us out of trouble. Let’s find it.”
But though thirty-odd journals crowded the shelf, none of them were the most recent. They looked behind the books on all the other shelves, floor to ceiling, but there were no more journals to be found.
An hour later, when they’d closed the last cover of the last book in the small room, Lily dropped onto a chair. “What now?”
Rand’s jaw set. “We search the rest of the house.”
“It’s gigantic! And one small diary could be anywhere…if it even exists.”
“It exists,” Rand forced through gritted teeth. “My brother didn’t record his life for twenty-nine years and then suddenly stop.”
Lily felt as though her emotions were on a swing. Down and then up. Up and then down. Dejection settled in for now. “It could take days. We could still be searching when the priest shows up to marry you.”
“Lily.” Rand came over and took her face in both hands, raising it for a soft kiss. “We will find it, and we will be the two who are married.” He looked to Kit. “We may as well start here in the main library.”
That lofty, two-story chamber was easily eight times the size of Alban’s study. Lily took one look at the endless shelves and felt like weeping.
This would never do. She had to regain her spirits, had to do her share of this enormous task. Rand wasn’t giving up, and she couldn’t, either.
But after the excitement of the discovery and the disappointment that had followed, she couldn’t face starting over just yet. “I’m going to check on Rex,” she told the men. “I’ll be right back.”
Downstairs, she hugged the huge mastiff around his neck, tight, as though she could draw strength from his big, warm body. After all, he’d survived a harrowing ordeal and, from the looks of it, come out none the worse for wear. When he licked a slobbery path across her face, she laughed. “All right, then. I’m going to find that diary.”
Feeling immeasurably better, she rose, then froze, staring at the dog. “I wonder…” she whispered, then took off at a run, heading back to the library.
SIXTY-TWO
ETTA IN TOW, Margery ran into Bennett’s study and smiled when he bolted up from his desk. “What are you doing here?” he gasped.
They met halfway, his mouth dear on hers, the kiss wild despite her old nurse’s presence. Her fingers twined into his long dark hair, and his arms went around her to clutch her close. When he finally broke the kiss, she was breathless. “I told you I’d come to you again, didn’t I?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“I’ve been combing the countryside for witnesses. Rand had promised to do that, but then he took off for Oxford and has yet to return.” She ran her hands up and down Bennett’s back, frantic to touch him, to feel the strong muscles beneath his thin shirt, to convince herself he was here, he was real, he wouldn’t die, that somehow they’d end up together. “I cannot just sit in my uncle’s house and pray anymore. I have to do something. I have to find someone who saw Alban come after you.”
His hands clenched on her waist. “I feel so helpless, stuck here in this house. All I can do is write letters.” His gaze flicked to the papers littering his desk. “Letters and more letters,” he said, looking back to her, his green eyes laced with despair. “But I know no one with influence greater than the marquess’s. No one who can save me.”
“Did you get my letter? The one where I explained Uncle William’s promise to spare your life if I marry Rand?”
The look in his eyes—misery—told her he had. “Do you suppose you could come to love him?” he asked, his voice so harsh she pictured each word being forced through his throat.
“Not like this. He’s my brother—”
“Then you cannot do it. I won’t allow you to sacrifice your life for mine. You’ll be unhappy all your days.”
“Not as unhappy as
