“Well,” Rosa said, glancing helplessly toward the stacks, “why not ask the university to help you? Surely there are any number of actual students and scholars who could suffice?”
“Absolutelynot,” Lord Kaspar replied, voice clipped. “This project is top secret, and the results need to come from me alone. Besides, most of those students are far too imbecilic to take on such a task. I need actual cleverness, and enough imagination to isolate the most promising possibilities. Some insight into the common peasant brain is essential, as well.”
Rosa swallowed, her gaze dropping to the floor between them, and while she knew she was now required to speak, to eagerly agree to such a prestigious project, nothing would seem to come. Lord Kaspar and his fellow nobles wanted to start awar. And worse, they wanted to manipulate innocent, impoverished people into fighting it for them.Dyingfor them.
There was an instant’s hurtling silence, during which Rosa could almostfeelLord Kaspar’s disapproval, boring deep into her skin. And then that touch became truth, with cold, hard fingers gripping at her chin, and tilting it up toward him.
And curse him, but despite being well over a decade older than Rosa’s twenty-four years, the pompous, marginally clever, disgustingly privileged Lord Kaspar was also unfairly, breathtakingly handsome. With those dark curls and thick eyelashes, the clean-shaven square jaw, the shadows under his grey eyes that spoke of too many late nights spent reading. And his long fingers on Rosa’s face were strong, familiar, as though he had every right to touch her, to do with her whatever he pleased.
Which, of course, he did. And Rosa saw the exact moment when he remembered it, the heat and the determination flaring across those lovely grey eyes.
“Youwilldo this for me, Rosa,” he said, his voice lower, smoother. “Won’t you, my clever little bookworm?”
Rosa could only seem to stand there, blinking at those eyes, and Lord Kaspar smiled again, chilly, amused. “Don’t second-guess your abilities, darling, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know you possess a thorough understanding of this library’s current resources on the subject, and you do not lack in reading comprehension or imagination. And, thanks to your background —”
He at least had the courtesy not to say it, to point out Rosa’s common peasant brain, or her inferior education at the Charitable School for Girls. But Rosa knew he was thinking it, all the same, and his smile was almost apologetic this time, his fingers gripping tighter on her chin.
“Youwill, Rosa,” he said firmly. “You will use this library’s plentiful resources to help you, and you will speak with Southall to obtain the report’s full requirements, and any extra sources you may need. And when I return from my travels in three weeks, you will have my finished proposal ready and waiting, full of shocking new revelations about those savage beasts. You donotwant to disappoint me on this, darling. Not now.”
His eyes had darted a brief, meaningful glance toward the door — towardLady Scall, oh gods. Lord Kaspar had meant that as athreat. And suddenly the terror was shouting again, spattering wide across Rosa’s thoughts, would she truly start a war, to keep her job, her library, her livelihood?Everything?
“But, my lord,” she heard her plaintive voice say. “What if I don’t wish to be part of a war?”
There was a flash of undeniable rage in Lord Kaspar’s eyes, enough to make Rosa flinch — but then it faded again, twisting away into something she couldn’t quite read, or follow. “You’re not, darling,” he said, his voice oddly flat. “You’re only serving your lord, who has beenextremelygenerous to you these past nine years. And surely, by now you know that pleasing me on such an important project can only benefit you. Not only financially, but personally, as well.”
Financially.Personally. And it was that last one that finally caught, held, gripped onto something deep inside. Something that hurled a hard shiver up Rosa’s spine, and she squeezed her eyes shut, drew in a breath, courage. She could say it. She could try again. She could…
“Personally?” she made herself ask. “Like you finally sponsoring me as a student, my lord? Publicly? At the university?”
Her voice came out sounding too loud, too presumptuous, echoing painfully against the stacks, against Lord Kaspar’s sudden silence. And when Rosa blinked back up at his face, it was far too easy to see the same old tired arguments, flitting one by one across his flat eyes. Women don’t belong in a university. Women can only be admitted under exceptional circumstances. I’ve already gone above and beyond to secure you this position here at the library, even this role should by rights belong to a man…
But Lord Kaspar didn’t speak any of it aloud. Hinting, perhaps, that the entire situation was far more dire than he’d first indicated, and Rosa held herself tall before him, held her gaze on his pale face. “Because that is what I want, my lord,” she said, her voice a whisper. “More than anything.Please.”
There was another instant’s stillness, the unease and the irritation warring behind Lord Kaspar’s lovely grey eyes, until finally he dropped his hand from Rosa’s face, and gave a heavy, exasperated sigh.
“Very well,” he said, voice thin. “If you impress me with this project — if you impress me very,verymuch, enough to achieve our ends — then I will request an exemption for you. In the fall.”
Rosa’s heart leapt, hammering bright and wild, and she couldn’t help a broad, genuine grin up at Lord Kaspar’s face. “Thank you, my lord,” she breathed, clasping both hands to her chest. “Thank you. I’ll impress you, you’ll see. I’ll blow your damnmind.”
The irritation had faded slightly from Lord Kaspar’s eyes, replaced by a familiar, tolerant amusement. “I’m sure you will, darling,” he said, with that low, telltale lilt to his voice. “In the meantime, perhaps you can find something else to blow?”
Gods curse the bastard, but his arched eyebrow had already quirked up, his hands moving down to unfasten the front fall of his trousers. Knowing full well that Rosa would never refuse, especially not now, not with an offer likethaton the table.
But even so, for a brief, hanging instant, there was again the miserable, overpowering urge to throw an enormous book straight into his smug, handsome face. To shout at him, No, you great lazy asshole, why don’t you write your own damned proposals, start your own damned war. Get Lady Scall to suck you off, if she’s so gods-damned important to you…
But Rosa desperately needed this job, and the occasional clothes it provided, and its meagre salary. Sheneededthis library. And if there was even the faintest chance of finally,finallybecoming a real scholar, after all these years — then she needed to suck it up. In every way possible.
So she nodded, with only the slightest hesitation, and even managed another smile up at Lord Kaspar’s pompous, satisfied face — before she dropped, hard, to her knees on the floor before him.
“Of course, my lord,” she said, through gritted teeth, as she took him firmly in hand. “I’m most delighted to serve.”
2
Three days later, there was anorc. In thelibrary.
“An orc?” Rosa repeated, toward Susan’s white, wide-eyed face. “Here?”
Susan nodded frantically, waving with her visibly trembling feather duster in the direction of the far corner. Well beyond the tall stacks, and Rosa glanced toward it, and then back at Susan again. Susan was the Dusbury Library’s regular morning-maid, a scattered, elderly woman who held a deep-seated fear of fairies and the underworld, and who more than once had claimed to see ghosts floating among the stacks.
