Page 67 of Impetuous

“Yes, very old.”

“I suppose there could be some books packed away up there.” She stared off into space for a long moment, then shook her head. “Not since I’ve lived here, though. At least, I don’t think I ever stored any books there. Let me think about it. Perhaps I will remember something.”

He thanked his mother and left her with a kiss on the cheek and went down the hall to his grandmother’s room. His grandmother, as he had expected, was already dressed for the evening meal and was sitting in a chair by a lamp, doing needlepoint until it was time to go down for supper. She looked up questioningly as he came in.

“Philip. Well, this is unexpected.” She held out her hand for him to make a bow. The elder Lady Neville was one who insisted on the courtesies. “What brings you up here, you young jackanapes? Have you decided to offer for that girl yet?”

“What girl?”

She grimaced. “Don’t play the fool with me, young man. You know good and well what girl. The same girl whose company you have been monopolizing ever since you got here. The Verrere chit.”

“Is this all anyone ever talks about?” Philip wondered out loud.

“One takes what gossip one can in the country. But only a cake would think you could dance attendance on a woman all day long for two weeks and not be suspected of being in love.”

“I am not in love.”

“In a marrying frame of mind?”

“If I decide to marry, I promise that you will be the first to know. Well, perhaps the second.”

“Third, more like. Well, then, what brought you up here if it wasn’t to ask my advice about offering for a Verrere?”

“Cassandra and I are trying to locate an old book. A book about a queen or queens. It is at least two hundred years old.”

She gave him the full blast of her aristocratically cold face. “I hope you are not suggesting that I am old enough to know anything about that.”

He smiled. “Not about when it came to the house. Only whether you ever heard anything about it in the time you have lived here.”

“I’ve been here fifty-five years now. But I must say that we never did much talking about books. Sir Richard didn’t care for books much, and he seemed to pass that feeling on to our son.” She leaned her head back, thinking, but finally shook it and shrugged. “I cannot recall ever hearing of a book about queens. Which queens, anyway?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. That is why it is so difficult to find. It is merely a passing reference in a family history.”

“Two hundred years ago?”

“Yes.”

“You expect a book to hang about for a rather long time.”

“I was hoping that it would be important enough that it would not have been thrown away.”

“I don’t think it was important to my husband. Perhaps to his father. That was why Sir Richard hated books so much. His father rammed them down his throat from the time he was a boy. He used to say he decided that when he was grown he would never read a book. I believe he kept his word.” She paused, looking much struck. “You know, I just thought of who might know. Aunt Liliane!”

“Grandfather’s aunt? But, Grandmother, the last time I went to see her, she didn’t know who I was. I can’t think she would remember a book from her childhood.”

“I don’t know. People keep the oddest things in their heads. Particularly when they get old.” Lady Neville’s ramrod-straight back and disapproving face indicated that she herself would not reach that state for some years, if ever. “Sometimes they remember what happened far in the past better than what happened this morning. My father was like that. The reason I thought of Liliane was that she was bookish, like Sir Richard’s father. She would be much more likely to know if such a book existed.”

“Thank you, Grandmother. I should have known you would come up with something.” He stood and bent over her hand again politely.

“Of course you should have, my boy,” she agreed, with a twinkle in her eye.

He left the room whistling, his spirits much improved. Aunt Liliane might not be much of a hope, but she was better than what they had at the moment, which was nothing. And visiting her also meant that he and Cassandra could spend a pleasant day away from the house.

* * *

“SHE IS YOUR great-aunt?” Cassandra asked as the open carriage spun along the lane at a fast clip.

“No, my great-great-aunt. She was my grandfather’s aunt.”