The Queen's Librarian by Carole Cummings Page A

kept that bit of enlightenment to himself. He’d rather gotten over his snit of this morning, but had yet to get over the sexy flash of Alex’s eyes, and a private room shared only with Alex—and for which Alex was paying—sounded quite good to Lucas.
    Lucas did, however, have cause to know that Alex snored. Alex refused to believe it.
    “Why do I have to pay for a room of my own when I don’t necessarily want a room of my own?” Laurie groused as he dug into various pockets and came up with rolls of notes and handfuls of coins. “Seven tepins for the room, and that’ll only leave me….” He smoothed out the notes into one wad and squinted at the mound of coins. “A hundred and sixty three notifs and twelve tepins.” And even though it was probably enough to keep Rolling Green going for an entire month, Laurie’s shoulders drooped. “I’ll never make it to next allowance.”
    Lucas’s teeth were clenched, so his “When is next allowance?” came out rather low and gravelly.
    “Lucas,” Alex sighed, “you’re just asking for it now.”
    Laurie didn’t notice. “Not ’til Mid’s Day!” he told Lucas, aggrieved. “In four whole days !”
    Lucas peered very calmly—he thought—at Alex. “I’m going to have to kill him. He’s giving me no choice. And no court in the land will convict me. Not even his mother.”
    “That one was your own fault,” Alex chided and signed the register for the room, pointedly shifting the ledger over to Laurie when he was through. Alex smiled brightly at the innkeeper and stuck out his hand. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t catch your name.”
    “Rhys Hensley,” the man told him and shook with Alex then Lucas. Laurie was still brooding over the register.
    “So Mister Hensley,” Lucas said, “do you know the Slades?”
    “Slades?” Hensley frowned. “I know of Mister Kolton Slade. He owns the mill.” He gestured vaguely at the door and, presumably, the mill that sat downriver and at the eastern end of the village.
    “And his wife, Adela?” Lucas pressed, surreptitiously swatting at Laurie as Laurie tugged at Lucas’s sleeve and muttered something at him while he pointed at the window behind Mister Hensley’s desk. “His nephew, Declan Slade?
    Hensley’s bushy brown eyebrows slid up his shiny high forehead. “If there’s a wife or nephew, I don’t know of them,” he told Lucas, turning his mouth up bemusedly as Laurie tugged at Lucas hard enough to make his glasses skew to the side.
    “ Lucas ,” Laurie hissed.
    Lucas jerked his sleeve from Laurie’s grip with a subtle growl and a not so subtle glare. “I saw lots of good places to hide a body on the way here,” he hissed back then elbowed Laurie in the ribs and smiled at Mister Hensley.
    Mister Hensley smiled back, though his eyebrows were still riding rather high. “Mister Slade hasn’t actually lived in Red Bridge for years,” he went on, “and there was no wife I knew of back then, but that’s not to say he hasn’t found himself one since. Though I doubt it. Not one for the ladies, him, and I don’t think his partner would apprec—”
    “Then who runs the mill?” Alex asked.
    Mister Hensley shrugged. “Mister Owen. Or rather I should say Mister Owen’s brother and his sons, since Mister Owen is more often traveling back and forth to Cantula to visit Mister Slade. Mister Owen is Mister Slade’s partner, you see. That’s what I was trying to tell you. And by partner, I mean—”
    “Yes, yes, I get your meaning,” Alex cut in, frowning and leaning in to prop himself up on Mister Hensley’s desk. “So Mister Owen is Mister Slade’s partner in both the business and personal senses, and Mister Slade has no other family you know of? No young man claiming to be a nephew who came from Ashwater to help run the mill this past summer?”
    “I doubt they need more nephews about the place. And I’m quite certain they need no more help. Mister Owen’s brother remarked last time he came