What the Lady Wants. Jennifer Crusie

aged, but she was still stunning.

      Harold came in from the pantry and dropped a trayful of plates on the table with a clatter, glaring at Mitch in a definitely unbutlerlike manner. “Mae’s hungry,” he said pointedly to June, and she smiled one last time at Mitch and went to the refrigerator.

      Mitch leaned toward her automatically as she went, and then caught himself as a midsize, sloppily spotted dog of no particular breed joined them from the pantry and collapsed by the counter. Harold ignored the dog and stomped away while June began to haul out food: a leftover roast, two fat tomatoes, a slab of cheese, a plastic bag full of greens, a gallon of milk.

      Suddenly, Mitch was starving.

      Mae caught his attention by bringing the wet towel over from the sink, nudging the dog away with her foot to get to him. “Get away from the counter, Bob.” Bob immediately returned to his place by the cabinet.

      Mitch opened his mouth to ask Bob about the diary, but then Mae bent over to see his face, and he looked directly down the front of her jacket to the pink lace bra she was wearing. There was a lot of lace, and a lot more of Mae. “My God.”

      Mae put her hand under his chin and yanked it up. “First June and now me. Stop ogling or I’ll tell Carlo.”

      “It’ll be worth it. Ouch!”

      Mae dabbed at the cut on his lip. “Don’t be such a baby.”

      “Be careful, Mae.” June looked up from the cutting board where she was slicing minislabs off the roast and dimpled at Mitch while Mae used a lot more force than he thought was necessary to clean his lip. Then June caught sight of Bob and patted her hip. “Come here, Bob. Get away from the counter.”

      Bob blinked at her and yawned.

      Mae dabbed at Mitch’s mouth again, gentler this time, and he looked up into her eyes. “Sorry about Carlo,” she said softly, and pressed the towel against his lip for a moment, and Mitch forgot she’d been nasty. In fact, as far as he was concerned, she could hold that towel there forever, her face tipped close to his, her scent drifting to him, her jacket gaping open. It was the best he’d felt in a long time. A few more hours with Mae, and he might even get back his enthusiasm for life.

      Then she stepped back and surveyed her handiwork, and the mood was broken. “That’ll do it. You’re fine. He barely tapped you.”

      “Thank you for the sympathy.” Mitch scowled at her.

      Harold came back from the pantry with a loaf of homemade bread on a breadboard and a huge knife. “Get away from that counter, you dumb dog.”

      A bird chirped outside, and Bob swung his head around and smacked it sharply into the cabinet.

      “I told you to move,” Mae said to him, but Bob just blinked at her.

      “He does this a lot?” Mitch asked.

      “Daily,” Mae said. “He’s male. Like you. He never learns.”

      “Be nice, Mae,” June said.

      “Food in the library in five minutes,” Harold said. “Take Bob before he brains himself again.”

      THE LIBRARY was like the rest of the house, full of dark paneling and heavy furniture upholstered in rich, dark colors, this time complemented by shelves of leather-bound books in dark brown, blood red and deep green, some protected by locking glass doors, all looking as if they’d never been read. Mitch had to fight the urge to shove the heavy velvet drapes back from the windows and let in a little light. “Nice place,” he said to Mae as he sat at the massive table in the middle of the room. Bob collapsed next to him, laying his head across Mitch’s shoe.

      Mae looked at him as if he were demented. “You think so? It makes me want to scream. I always want to open the drapes. Now, about the diary—”

      Mitch leaned back in his chair. “I like libraries. Mostly because I’ve dated a lot of librarians. Some of the best experiences in my life have been in libraries.” He gazed around, noting for the first time that some of the brocade inserts in the paneling had dark squares where the fabric had faded around something that no longer hung there. He opened his mouth to ask Mae about it, but she interrupted him.

      “About the diary,” she said pointedly.

      Mitch thought about insisting on following his own train of thought and then looked at the stubborn set of her mouth and gave up. “All right,” he said. “Tell me about the diary.”

      Mae walked over to one of the glass-fronted bookcases while Mitch watched her in appreciation. If he got nothing else out of this case, at least he got to watch Mae Belle Sullivan move. She turned the key to open the door, and pulled down the last leather-bound volume from several rows of identical volumes.

      “These are all Armand’s diaries,” she told him as she turned back to him. “There were fifty-eight of them, one for every year since he turned eighteen. He had these bound specially for him, and he kept them locked in this case. This is last year’s diary.” She handed it to him.

      The book was thick and heavy, about five by seven inches, bound in hand-tooled leather and stamped on the spine with “Lewis” and the date. Mitch flipped it open to the middle and began to read Armand’s account of the evening at the opera followed by a night with Stormy. Three pages later, he looked up to see Harold delivering a tray loaded with thick sandwiches, tankards of milk, and chocolate-chip cookies the size of small Frisbees.

      Mae surveyed him across the table. “Found a good part, did you?”

      “I can’t wait to meet Stormy.” Mitch closed the book and dropped it on the table, startling Bob, who raised his head and smacked it on the underside of the tabletop. Mitch winced, and then turned his attention to the butler. “Harold, how long have you worked here?”

      Harold straightened. “Twenty-eight years. If you need anything else, ring.” He nodded toward the small brass bell on the table, but his tone implied that Mitch could ring until the millennium and still not get service.

      When Harold was gone, Mitch picked up a sandwich and said to Mae, “He came when you did?”

      “Yes. Uncle Gio sent him. Now, about the diary…”

      Mitch listened to Mae with one ear as he bit into the sandwich. It was full of slabs of roast beef, tomato and cheese, and he felt even more kindly toward June than he had before. She was pretty, she was warm, and she could make sandwiches. Men had gotten married for less. Not him, of course, but some men. He chewed and swallowed, then broke into Mae’s explanation of how Armand had written daily in his diaries to ask her, “Why did Uncle Gio send Harold?”

      “He didn’t trust Uncle Armand.” Mae peeled the bread off the top of a sandwich and picked up a piece of cheese. “Can we talk about the diary?”

      “Look, Mabel. You can argue with me and waste time, or you can answer my questions. Why didn’t Gio trust Armand?”

      Mae put down her cheese, exasperated. “This is ridiculous. Uncle Gio did not kill Uncle Armand.”

      “I didn’t say he did. Why didn’t he trust Armand?”

      Mae glared at him. “All right. Fine. This is just a guess, but I don’t think Uncle Gio thought that Uncle Armand wanted me because he wanted a child of his own.”

      “Why?”

      “Because he was never much interested in me once I got here.” Mae calmed down. “I think one reason he fought for me was because he liked taking me away from Uncle Claud and Uncle Gio.”

      “And what else?”

      Mae shrugged. “Nothing else.”

      “There’s got to be something else. You said one reason. That implies another reason.”

      “Well. I have a theory, but…” Mae picked up a slice of roast beef and began to nibble on it. “I read the diary from 1967 last night.