Iona almost managed a grin at the image. “The two of you would clear the dance floor in your magnificence. None could compare. Just picture it. Make it happen!”
The librarian and her husband were not small people. They towered taller than most of the gentlemen, and while they were young and athletic, they were not light on their feet. But they were splendid in their fine array and happiness with each other.
Lydia smiled a little. “Perhaps we should try a reel or two. Who knows when I may escape my library again, especially after the little one arrives.” She caressed the barely noticeable bulge beneath her frilled apron-front bodice.
“Look, your husband has seen you. I’ll leave now. And again, thank you a thousand times for bringing me here. I’ve been longing to see this library ever since I heard of it.” Iona retreated into the shadows.
Lydia pinned her with a knowing gaze. “Your sister is invaluable to me. I’d like to hear your story one day.”
Iona chilled. No one must know that she had a sister. The librarian was too perceptive. “Maybe after I’m dead. You’ll have my journal then.”
She hurried away before Lydia could interrogate her. Iona looked too much like her twin, which was why Isobel had dyed her blond hair, and Iona had cut hers. Then Isobel had gone to Edinburgh and Iona now hid in the wilds of Northumberland. Small and mousy when dressed as servants, they normally went unseen by wealthy aristocrats.
But in her eagerness to finally lay her hands on the bee book, Iona had stolen this opportunity to leave her hiding place, even knowing the risk. Now she knew why the Calder Librarian had taken the time to help a humble beekeeper—Lydia had recognized Iona’s resemblance to her steward back in Scotland, despite their disguises.
Iona didn’t have time to worry about consequences. She’d jeopardized her safety to make this trip. She needed to find the book.
Leaving the lights and music, she hurried down the backstairs, away from any guest who might notice her. Once inside the darkened library, Iona lit a gas sconce by the door. Yates Castle wasn’t a library of Malcolm journals, but a real, honest-to-gosh library with every book known to mankind collected by the duke’s family over the centuries. It smelled like heaven should smell—of polish, leather, and wisdom.
The duke’s library was immense, a palace of knowledge as well as beauty. It extended the entire length of this wing, with two-story stacks along the walls, more accessible ones in the center, and a ceiling painted by some long-gone artist. To Iona, it was a church and university all rolled into one.
Apparently influenced by his journal-collecting Malcolm ancestors, the duke paid a full-time librarian who catalogued and labeled each bookcase by topic. Lydia had vouched for Iona and obtained a key for her. Iona had already made inquiries and knew exactly which shelf she needed.
Carrying an oil lamp placed at the entrance, she wandered through the shadowed stacks, reading the labels. She located the area on beekeeping with a sigh of satisfaction.
Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee: A Bee Keeper’s Manual, finally. She lifted it from the shelf with reverence. She had begged her stepfather for this book since her eighth birthday, a few years after the book had been published. It had taken fifteen years to finally hold a copy in her hand.
One did not find many books on beekeeping in the Highlands and certainly not in her stepfather’s non-existent library. And now that she had escaped his hold, she had no money to buy books.
Everything she knew, she had learned from her mother, but those methods were primitive. Few real beekeepers used skeps these days. Burning out a colony to cut out the honey was too destructive. She’d been perusing the books in the Wystan library, but Malcolm journals were equally outdated on the subject.
In her one brief visit to London when she’d been sixteen, she’d been able to find a few pamphlets on modern beekeeping and learned how to build a movable comb. It had been imperative that she learn to do so. Now, finally, she was ready to advance her skills in honey collection and hive construction.
A descendant of generations of Malcolm queen bees, her queen required the best care available. If she could never go home to her other hives, Iona had to protect this one.
She found a table and took a notepad and pencil from her pocket.
Lost in the intricacies of building wooden hives with movable frames, she didn’t hear the intruders enter. Only when the scents of lust and duplicity wafted back to the stacks, followed by a lady’s moan, did she register the intrusion.
Curling her lip in disgust, Iona tried to determine which door they’d entered by—the one she’d left unlocked, of course. Shame on her. She simply hadn’t thought anyone would be interested in a cellar library when there was a ball in the glorious ballroom above. She could see the door but not past the center shelves to where the amorous couple must have availed themselves of an empty table.
The duke’s librarian did not like to have his books removed from the library. Iona respected that. But she might not have another chance to read this manual. She had to leave for Wystan on the morrow.
Did the fools not notice her lamp? Probably not, she realized. The library was immense and if the shelves hid the couple, then they hid her and her small light.
She could remain—she’d simply have to listen to passionate moaning or draw attention to her presence so they would leave. She couldn’t think with all that going on, but being noticed wasn’t safe. Removing the book was her only choice.
Quietly, she tucked away her pad and pencil and blew out her lamp. She had already determined all the other exits. She’d simply take the one on the end opposite the intruders. She doubted they’d notice.
Discreetly gathering up her
