Her queen? Vicki wasn’t likely to know a thing about bees—
“Do you speak her language?” one of the younger women asked with interest.
Thequeen of bees, of course. Gerard rubbed at the welt on his jaw. He’d do well to stay on the right side of a female who commanded bees. She could quite possibly kill him.
Four
The next morning,Iona settled in the masculine study to attempt to sketch from memory the box she needed. She wished she had Langstroth’s book and not just her notes. She was so frustrated with her efforts by the time Mrs. Merriweather interrupted that she greeted the slender lady in relief.
“Letters from Calder Castle! Lydia forwarded a missive from your sister,” the librarian said cheerfully, waving a sealed envelope.
Shock rippled through her, but Iona maintained her pretense by rubbing at a wrinkle of puzzlement on her brow. “My sister?”
“Don’t be foolish,” the librarian admonished. “Lydia worked it out as soon as she met you. We are librarians, after all. We have records of every Malcolm ever born.”
Iona had been dismayed to learn that the various librarians visited each other. Before she’d come here, she’d heard that the Calder Castle librarian was a recluse. She had thought Isobel would be safe there. But the recluse had died and sociable Lydia had taken over.
Worse, the new Calder librarian was from Northumberland. Lydia had visited her family, then stopped at Wystan to see if she might have her child in the Malcolm stronghold most beneficial to births. That was when she had met Iona and put two and two together.
Iona should have stayed out of sight, but the desire to read the Langstroth book had been too strong. She had made a serious error in judgment in asking about the book.
“Lydia plays games,” Iona asserted, hoping to make Mrs. Merriweather doubt her conclusion.
“Oh, I don’t think so, but librarians are sworn to keep your secrets, so you needn’t worry about us—even if we do worry about you. We’re here to help.”
That was a generous offer, too generous. Iona didn’t intend to endanger anyone else in her private matters.
Without confirming the librarian’s suspicion, she accepted the letter with a frisson of fear. Isobel would never have taken a chance on revealing their connection unless it was urgent. But she wouldn’t tear open the seal while the librarian watched.
“Thank you, Mrs. Merriweather. I’m sure Lydia told her steward about my hives, and that’s all this is about. Does the earl ever order books for the library? I know you keep the Malcolm journals, but surely he must require a reference book occasionally?” She didn’t even know if it was possible to buy an almost twenty-year-old book. She’d only set foot in a bookstore once, when she’d been sixteen and had no coin.
“Oh, his lordship never stays long enough to read. He lives in London most of the year and has access to all sorts of libraries elsewhere. The journals by other beekeepers aren’t sufficient?” she asked in concern, diverted from the letter.
“They tell me a great deal on how to use my gift and what they learned about bees, thank you, but they lack a scientific approach to hive building. I understand Langstroth’s concept, but I do not have the ability to diagram it.”
“Oh, ask Lord Ives, then. He’s quite skilled at sketching all sorts of things. I’ll show you.” Apparently forgetting the letter, the librarian scurried off to find examples of his lordship’s work.
Iona couldn’t very well shut and lock the study door so she could read her letter. Afraid of interruption, she waited impatiently. When Mrs. Merriweather didn’t return, she gathered her materials and fled upstairs.
The castle was a warren of chambers, old and new, spacious and small, elegant and neglected. She’d chosen one of the small, neglected ones—near the back stairs, with a window overlooking a sturdy trellis.
She liked having multiple escape exits. She refused to be found and caught.
Once safely behind a locked door, Iona pried open the seal on her letter with shaky hands. Just the act of risking this communication meant Isobel must be frightened. That meant her twin’s normally cautious nature would escalate to the ridiculous—like concealing code under the envelope flap.
Iona read the obvious script first—Isobel wrote as steward of Calder Castle, inquiring into the best means of protecting their hives over winter. Had Mrs. Merriweather opened the missive, she’d have seen nothing extraordinary.
Lighting a candle, Iona ran the paper over the heat. Yes, there it was, their childhood code. She wrote out the numbers that appeared, then finding the letter “L” on the inside flap, worked out the code with “L” as the number one. It was a basic code, but it had fooled their stepfather and his minions for years.
The coded message was brief and horrifying: ARTHUR IN E’BGH.
Dread clutched at her throat. The American was only a few hours away from Isobel.
They’d been socarefulin covering their trail. They’d traveled separately from Craigmore, wearing a variety of disguises—being twins made traveling together too dangerous. Isobel had even dyed her honey-blond hair black. They had only the funds they’d skimmed from the household budget and sale of their mother’s pearls. They’d each found rooms in different cities. Once hidden, they’d written to the School of Malcolms and to Mrs. Merriweather under their Malcolm names, looking for positions.
It had taken well over a month to establish their new identities and safe havens. It had been almost six months since their escape. Surely their trail was cold.
But Arthur Winter was a wealthy man accustomed to having his way. With the encouragement of her stepfather, Mr. Winter would think himself a hero in scouring the kingdom in his pursuit of the twins and a title. It wasn’t the self-absorbed American who frightened her. It was her desperately bankrupt stepfather.
