Page 33 of The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

Something in the weariness, the hollowness of his tone brought her up short. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “You should go.” He stood aside, waiting for her to pass.

But she stood her ground. “There is something strange about this library, something more than what Arthur told me.” Her words came out in a rush. “I get headaches here, but I went to see the eye doctor and he said my vision is perfect. The books I lent out unleashed...something. There’s a reason Mrs. Hewitt and everyone else doesn’t want me to spend time in here.” She drew herself up to her full height which was only to his shoulders. “I am your mistress and I demand you tell me what is going on.”

There was a hint of amusement in his eye as he raised a brow at this, but it quickly dissipated. “You’re right,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “I am going to tell you something, and I need you to listen. To really listen. No questions, no interrupting.”

She opened her mouth but he stopped her. “I mean it, Ivy.”

The use of her name again, the gravity of his tone, and she clamped her mouth back shut. Her nerves were alive, dancing in anticipation.

“Leave. Go now, today. Pack up your things and go back to London. Don’t listen to anything Mrs. Hewitt says, or Sir Arthur for that matter. Just leave, as soon as you can.”

Ivy stared at him, the muscle working in his jaw, his anxious eyes searching hers. That was it? Was she going mad? She had braced herself for...well, she didn’t know for what. But something more thanthat.She wrenched herself free of his grasp, and his hands fell away. It was getting harder to breathe in the small room.

“What on earth are you talking about? Why would I leave?”

Ralph cut his gaze away, a lump rising and falling in his throat before he spoke again. “I told you already, but you forgot.”

Clutching at his arm, she forced him to meet her eye. “So thereissomething to do with my mind, with the forgetting. What does it have to do with the library? Why can’t you just tell me?”

“I—I don’t want to frighten you,” he said, his voice suddenly unsure, as if he were a shy suitor at a dance.

“But I’m already frightened! Terrified, even. My mind is starting to slip and I don’t even know what’s real anymore or who I can trust. I wake up in fogs, and my mind...it feels like a book with missing pages, like I’m constantly trying to piece an incomplete story together. There’s something wrong, I don’t know how I know, but there is.”

His eyes dropped to her hand on his sleeve, as if he was momentarily entranced by her fingers. “It’s no use. You’ll forget I said anything about it in any case. It’s for the best.”

Openmouthed, Ivy stared at the man who only moments ago she had thought was going to kiss her. Then realization dawned on her. “This is about Sir Arthur, isn’t it? Someone told me there was a history between his family and the Hayworths, and you don’t want me to associate with him. Though why a brooding chauffeur would care about my personal life is beyond me.”

Ralph drew back, a flash of hurt deep within his eyes that almost knocked the breath out of her. She expected him to put up some pretense of denial, but all he said was, “There you have it.”

His words fell flat between them.

“So I should leave my home because of some bad blood between a distant relation and the man with whom I choose to spend my time?”

It was a small room, but it felt downright claustrophobic now. Ralph had a controlled sort of energy, like a hound waiting for a command before the attack. She shivered with anticipation. “He’s only interested in the library, Ivy,” he said. “It’s no secret that his father is insolvent, that they’re holding on to their estate by a thread. The Mabrys will bleed you dry in more ways than one. He doesn’t care about you. Not like I—”

Ralph broke off, but her retort was already pouring out of her, fast and desperate. “You think that Arthur is only spending time with me because he’s using me to get to the library?” Heat climbed her body. The idea was insulting beyond belief, yet she couldn’t help remember the look on Arthur’s face when he first set foot in the library, how entranced he had been, as if he had finally found Elysium. “Isn’t it possible that he finds my company enjoyable? That he wants to be with me for me?”

Arthur had been her one friend here, someone who had sought her out. But then the doubts came crawling out of the wall like hungry little rats. Whywouldsomeone like Arthur Mabry be interested in her? She was attractive enough, and she was clever and possessed a title and estate. But she didn’t speak the right way, carry herself the right way, and she hadn’t come by her money in the right way either. Hadn’t her mother faced the same predicament when she’d set out from America, a rich heiress looking to pair her wealth with the title of an Englishman? And hadn’t her mother told her a thousand times that such matches were sure to flounder and result in misery?

“Ivy, please, listen to me. I’ll drive you to the train station, today.”

Crossing her arms, Ivy stared past Ralph’s shoulder. “I’m not leaving.” Even if she wanted to, where would she go? Back to barely scraping by in London? Back to living a half life? Blackwood might have been a strange, dreary place, but it was her birthright. It was the only place she made sense, and she would not admit defeat and go running.

“Ivy—” he started.

“And that’s another thing—you can’t keep calling me that. It’s Lady Hayworth. Think me a snob if you will, but this is my home, my birthright, and I’m staying.”

The pause that followed was only heightened by their closeness, the stillness of the room. When Ivy chanced a look at Ralph, he didn’t just look upset or disappointed, he looked...heartbroken. His large body seemed to shrink in on itself, a little of the quicksilver light in his eyes dimming. It did something to her, an uncomfortable fissure opening deep within her chest, and she wished it were as simple as going to him, putting her head on his shoulder and telling him that she didn’t mean it. But there was nothing simple about their situation, and the threads of her feelings for Ralph and Arthur were getting all tangled up. She needed space, needed to get out.

Ralph shook his head, his soulful gray eyes awash in sadness. “You’re making a terrible mistake.”

“But it’s my mistake to make,” Ivy said, shouldering past him, leaving him to the cobwebs and forgotten manuscript.

17

Breathe, Ivy, breathe.

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