Page 22 of An Arranged Marriage with a Cruel Earl (Marriage Mart Scandals #2)

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.

They went to go and check the shelves in the middle together.

Emmeline pushed on the sides of the bookshelves, then bent down and pressed at the shelves themselves. “Unless there’s a trapdoor to a cellar here,” she added with a grin.

“I would not be surprised,” Andrew said lightly. “After what happened to you, nothing will surprise me anymore.” He gazed at her, his heart aching. She was still wearing his coat, her dress torn and dirty, and she still had a smudge of dirt on her cheek. He reached out, resting his hand on her shoulder. “I am so glad you are all right.” His voice was thick with emotion.

Emmeline gazed into his eyes. “I could not stop thinking of you,” she admitted.

“You thought of me?” Andrew stared at her in disbelief.

“All the time,” Emmeline told him. “I wanted to believe I would see you again.”

Andrew stared. He had thought she was afraid of him, that she was at best indifferent and at worst that she actually disliked him. But this?

“You wanted to see me again?” he breathed.

“So much,” Emmeline admitted.

“I don’t know what I would do if I had never seen you again.” He could not contain his pain at the thought, nor the longing in his heart. He leaned forward and his lips pressed to hers. She tensed for a second, then relaxed and he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her into a kiss that was filled with all the emotions he could not express.

Emmeline leaned against him, and he tensed, struggling to hold back the wave of feelings that had been building inside him for days. He bit his lip, willing himself to stay composed. She moved closer and he stepped forward, so as not to fall off balance, and as he did, his foot kicked the bottom shelf. He blinked. It sounded hollow.

“Emmeline?” He gazed at her. “Do you think there might be a hidden compartment there?”

Emmeline frowned. “In the shelf itself?” Her eyes lit up. “Let’s see.”

They bent down and together tapped along the back of the lowest shelf. It did indeed have an echoing tone to it, as though there might be something there; some empty space behind the front board.

Emmeline moved her fingers down the side and gasped.

“Here! There’s something.”

Andrew hurried to check, and he found what she was exclaiming over—a small metal lever. His fingers closed over it, and with a steady press, he pushed it down. As they both stared in amazement, the back of the shelf slid back to reveal a hidden chamber.

“We found it,” Andrew murmured, his voice laced with awe. “I wonder if there’s something inside.”

Emmeline bent down to reach into the narrow opening. Andrew had to suppress the urge to push ahead of her, lest there be something dangerous in the gap they had uncovered.

“There’s something in here,” she declared.

Andrew’s eyes widened. She was holding two small leather-bound books in her slim hand.

“We found them,” Andrew repeated, staring at the two books in her hand, bound in brown leather that he was sure could only be the journals.

Emmeline gaped at him; her eyes wide. “We did!” she declared. “We really did.”

She held up the books and he took one. He passed her one and opened the other and slowly they began to read.