Page 1 of An Inventor and An Inconvenience (Gentleman Scholars #5)

A s Faith Somerton reread the letter she had recently received from Adriana, her excitement mounted. She didn’t know what to make of the quote, though.

In shadows deep where secrets sleep,

‘Neeth moonlit sky, the roses weep.

Her hands trembled slightly as she read the letter once again. The cream-colored paper was already showing wear at its creases from multiple readings, but Faith couldn't help returning to it again and again, particularly to the curious verse that had captured her attention.

The words seemed to pulse with possibility, though Faith still didn't know quite what to make of them. She smoothed the paper across her knee, breathing in the faint trace of lavender that clung to it—Adriana's signature scent. The letter continued below the verse:

Greta found an old poem with these words and Ellis is certain he read them somewhere while he was at Oxford. I’m certain the libraries are much too extensive for you to search every book, but if you could possibly find anything really old, especially before the papal rejection, that would be spectacular.

"Spectacular indeed," Faith whispered, a grin spreading across her face despite her attempt to maintain scholarly composure. The word tasted like possibility on her tongue.

A clock chimed somewhere in the house, its deep tones reminding her that she should be organizing these books, not poring over personal correspondence. But then, when had she ever been able to resist the siren call of potential knowledge?

Especially when it came wrapped in such an intriguing mystery.

The late afternoon sun slanted through the leaded glass windows of her father, Professor Somerton's library, casting honey-gold patterns across the worn carpet and illuminating motes of dust that danced in the air like tiny stars.

Faith sat cross-legged on the floor—hardly a ladylike position, but there was no one to see—surrounded by stacks of leather-bound books and loose papers. The familiar scents of aging vellum, leather bindings, and brass polish wrapped around her like a comfort blanket, though today they couldn't quite calm her racing heart.

The thought of proper forms of address made her chuckle quietly to herself. Adriana and Ellis were now the Earl and Countess of Beaverbrook—titles that should inspire formal deference, even in the privacy of her own thoughts. But how could she maintain such distance with someone who had become one of her dearest friends, even if their relationship existed purely through letters?

Despite the gentility of her birth, Faith wasn’t really used to using what Society would consider proper forms of address.

In the environment she lived in, Professor was the highest title that could be given and was the most revered. Since she was a mere “Miss,” titles really didn’t apply to her. And yet, she ought to give her friend the respect she was due.

Faith laughed. It wasn’t difficult to consider Adriana a close friend considering how few young women she had ever met—any females, except for servants, really. Even the servants were mostly male in this city dominated by the university and the men who attended it.

Faith sighed and glanced around the room she was in.

Her father’s library was one of her favourite locations in all the world. She rolled her eyes. “In all the world?” A bit dramatic for a pragmatist such as her. It was not as though she had travelled the breadth of England, let alone beyond its borders, so her description was rather grandiose.

The scent of paper, ink, and the leather that bound the books was familiar and comforting despite her mixed feelings about the location of the room. Her father’s library might not be the largest or most extensive to a scholar, but to her it was warm, inviting, and cozy, at least when her father wasn’t present.

Not to say Professor Somerton ever objected to her making use of the room whether he was present or not, but Faith couldn’t imagine her father approving of her current activity whether it was taking place in his library or not.

“But wouldn’t you be better off perfecting your womanly charms?”

That question, oft repeated by her father whenever he realized he ought not be speaking to her about some subject or other, never failed to put her teeth on edge.

Men like her father considered education to be exclusively the right of the male of the species. She tried not to mind. Tried and failed miserably. She knew her father loved her in his own way, and she adored him as much as she could, but it had become a lonely life since her mother died.

The irony was that her father had provided her a wonderful education.

Unfortunately, it was as if it were their dreadful secret, no one must ever know. In addition, she was limited to her father’s specialties or whatever books he would allow her to access. It was as though he couldn’t help himself, he was a born educator, and yet he was full of disapproval when she actually learned anything.

Of course, the fact that they lived in Oxford meant she had access to a great deal of educational material, most of which her father didn’t know she had managed to get her hands on and consume.

The thing was, he was always tied up with his students or his own research, and she had a great deal of time on her hands. She had determined that what he didn’t know about her educational pursuits wouldn’t hurt either of them.

Faith shifted, her skirts rustling against the carpet as she reached for another stack of papers. The sound seemed overloud in the library's hushed atmosphere, making her glance guiltily at the door. But no, her father was deep in preparation for his afternoon lecture. She could hear the faint murmur of his voice from his study down the hall, practicing his delivery as he always did.

The library itself seemed to hold its breath around her, its towering shelves creating the illusion of a separate world. This room had been her sanctuary since childhood, though her relationship with it was complex. Every shelf represented both opportunity and restriction—books she could access but wasn't supposed to understand, knowledge within reach but formally denied her because of her gender.

The thought made her hands clench involuntarily, crinkling Adriana's letter. Faith smoothed it hastily, her fingers lingering over the words about Oxford's lost library. How ironic that she, forbidden from formal study, might help recover texts that had been hidden away during another time of intellectual restriction.

Faith shook off the disquieting thoughts and returned to Adriana’s letter.

The Countess was asking her to find, or at least try to find, a particular book here at the University. Another young woman Adriana had become acquainted with, and someone now involved in the search, had found an old poem that they thought might have something to do with the treasure hunt.

Some of the scholars Adriana knew thought the treasure referred to Oxford’s lost library, so she could understand why they might think a poem connects the two seemingly divergent things, but Faith wasn’t so sure a poem could possibly be pertinent.

Faith also didn’t think it was likely that the treasure they searched for was the lost Oxford library; she was nearly certain those books were gone for good, or at least most of them. They weren’t “lost,” they had been discarded, destroyed. It was enough to break her heart just thinking of it.

Faith suspected she might know where a couple of those books were, but it was very difficult to hide that many books, considering how few locked rooms there were in the grand edifices of Oxford. Of course, there were plenty of locked rooms, but they all had keys—and scholarly people were determined to poke their noses into them.

She knew that well, since she had been found many times with her own nose in a book and scoffed at by the same scholarly gentlemen—or worse, by the non-scholarly so-called gentlemen who came up to Oxford as a matter of consequence rather than for a love of learning.

It never ceased to annoy her that the wealthy and noble young men of England could waste their time dallying about town, while she could never attend a single class. She would have appreciated the access to education so much more than most of them.

“Don’t get angry, Faith,” she reminded herself and returned her attention to her work. And Adriana’s letter.

There’s reason to believe that others know about the treasure. We aren’t certain how they could have found out, but the gentlemen are getting anxious. I don’t want to put pressure on you, my friend. I know you’re busy with trying to get support for your school. But if we could find a treasure, you wouldn’t need backers.

Faith gulped over those words. “The gentlemen” Adriana referred to were not like the loose screws who came to Oxford just because they had nothing else to do. These were the sort who appreciated the education they accessed at this fine establishment.

Her father had his favourites, some of whom he stayed in touch with. Take, for example, Jasper, or rather Lord Jasper—he never ceased prattling on about the man. It tended to rile up her irritation whenever Father brought up the gentleman, just like he had two days ago when he warned her that the noble scholar was coming for a visit.

Her father was nearly giddy with excitement. Faith had lost her appetite immediately. Professor Somerton’s attachment to his former student caused his daughter a wave of jealousy that was immediately followed by guilt.

She had never met the man, or rather, she had never been introduced to him, and she hadn’t seen him in several years. He had been so treacherous as to go to Cambridge for a couple of years before joining his friends at the institute they had established for pursuing their scientific research without the assistance of sponsors.

Roderick Northcott’s Scholarly Society.

It didn’t officially have such a title, but Faith couldn’t help thinking of it with capital letters. She was of two minds about it, torn between admiration and vexation.

Funny thing was, her professor father had been both appalled and impressed by Roderick Northcott’s pursuit of supporting his friends' research. Faith’s father was quite convinced that the traditional ways were best, that scholars ought to work alongside sponsors and allow them to benefit from the scientist’s work.

And yet he couldn’t help himself from admiring when one of his students did something useful, or practical, or even lucrative—despite that being so very déclassé. Such as the Scholarly Institute Roderick Northcott had set up.

Faith only knew about it because those very same scholars had put Adriana in touch with her to assist with the research.

Faith laughed. What would her father think of their pursuit of treasure?

He didn’t yet know Faith had any knowledge of the matter.

He would consider it a fairy tale and beneath his notice. But Faith was intrigued and was convinced that the treasure had to be of a financial sort. She knew that wasn’t based necessarily on logic, but entirely upon her wish.

So, it might as well be a fairy tale, just as her father would consider it.

Faith was determined to establish a school of some sort, particularly for girls, and Adriana, the Countess of Beaverbrook, was interested in assisting her.

Faith was thrilled at how much their interests aligned, and she knew that the countess’s deep pockets most likely would allow them to pursue the interest even without a treasure. But in the meantime, while her father still needed her, she would remain by his side and do her best to learn as much as she could.

And if they found a pot of gold at the end of their treasure hunt, she wouldn’t say no to that either.

Faith turned her attention back to the clues Adriana had sent.

She shouldn’t allow her mind to wander so desperately toward her own pursuits. She had agreed to help with the treasure hunt, such as it was.

She ought to focus; her own educational desires would wait. They had already been waiting all these years—what was a little bit longer?

Sunlight caught the brass fittings on a nearby shelf, drawing her eye to a particular volume—one of her father's oldest texts on medieval Oxford. Something niggled at the back of her mind, a half-formed connection between Adriana's letter and a passage she remembered reading in that book. Carefully, trying not to disturb the organized chaos of her father's system, Faith extracted the heavy tome.

The leather binding was smooth beneath her fingers, worn to a dull sheen by generations of scholarly hands. Faith inhaled deeply as she opened it, letting the musty-sweet scent of old paper and ink wash over her. Somewhere in these pages, she was certain, lay a clue that would help unravel the mystery of the treasure her friends sought.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway, and Faith quickly arranged some of her father's papers over the letter. Professor Somerton appeared in the doorway, his silver hair slightly dishevelled as always, his spectacles perched precariously on the end of his nose.

"Still at those books, Faith?" he asked, distraction evident in his tone. "You know, you really ought to be—"

"Perfecting my womanly charms?" The words slipped out before she could stop them, edged with more bitterness than she'd intended.

Her father's expression shifted, that familiar mix of regret and resolution that always appeared when they skirted too close to this particular topic. "Well, yes, perhaps that would be more... appropriate."

Faith bit back her automatic response, forcing a smile instead. "I'm nearly finished here, Father. Though I did notice some interesting marginalia in your copy of—"

"Best not to trouble yourself with such things," he interrupted, though his voice held a note of something that might have been pride, quickly suppressed. "Oh, and do remember that Lord Jasper Linford will be arriving tomorrow for consultation. We'll need the small study prepared for his use."

Faith's heart gave an odd little jump at the name, though she told herself it was merely annoyance. Lord Jasper—her father's favourite student, the one he never tired of praising. She had never spent any amount of time with the man, but his shadow loomed large in her father's stories, a paragon of scholarly virtue she could never hope to match.

"Of course, Father," she said smoothly, already planning how she might position herself to overhear their discussions. "I'll see to it directly."

After he left, Faith returned to the medieval text with renewed determination. Her father's imminent visitor was all the more reason to make progress on Adriana's puzzle quickly. She had no intention of letting Lord Jasper's presence interrupt her research, no matter how much his impending arrival made her pulse quicken with a mixture of curiosity and resentment.

The smell of beeswax polish from the library's wooden panels mingled with the leather and paper scents as the afternoon light grew golden. Faith's fingers moved surely through the pages, searching for the passage she remembered. When she found it, her breath caught.

There, in her father's precise handwriting, were the same words from Adriana's poem: In shadows deep where secrets sleep. The professor had written it in the margin of a passage describing the university's medieval architectural renovations during the 1500s, alongside a note about "possible concealed chambers" and "architectural anomalies in the old library wing."

Had her father been researching the same mysteries that now captivated Adriana and her friends? Faith's pulse quickened as she traced her finger over his familiar script, wondering what connection her scholarly father might have to this treasure hunt.

Faith's hands trembled as she compared the two texts. The connection was unmistakable, though its significance remained unclear. But one thing was certain—she had found something important, something that linked Oxford's past with the treasure her friends sought.

Setting the book carefully aside, Faith gazed around the library that had been both her heaven and her prison. The setting sun painted the spines of hundreds of books in shades of amber and gold, each one containing knowledge she wasn't supposed to pursue. Well, she had never been very good at accepting artificial limitations.

She was going to solve this puzzle, uncover this treasure, and perhaps in doing so, find a way to establish the school she dreamed of. Nothing—not societal restrictions, not her father's reservations, and certainly not the imminent arrival of Lord Jasper Linford—would stand in her way.

Faith carefully copied the relevant passage into her notebook, her mind already racing with possibilities. Tomorrow would bring its own challenges, but for now, she had a mystery to unravel and a purpose to pursue. The library's shadows lengthened around her as she worked, keeping her secrets safe in their familiar embrace.

Perhaps there was a treasure to be found in Oxford after all.

She was going to find that treasure, and she was going to establish a school. Nothing could stand in her way.