Shadows and Light

Chapter Nine

Liam stared with dismay at the empty spaces on the bookshelves. Nolan’s Book Salon was smaller than the other establishments in Durham that sold books, but Nolan was a man who clearly loved books, and there was almost nothing that couldn’t be found in his store.

Something’s happened here, he thought, feeling a chill run down his spine as he walked over to the shelves. He scanned titles for a few minutes, looking for Moira’s new book. He didn’t find her new book. He didn’t find any of her books.

He started scanning names instead of titles. All men. Where were the women authors? Was Nolan in the process of rearranging shelves? Why would he move the female novelists and leave the males here?

“Ah, Master Liam. Have you returned to add to your own library?”

Liam turned at the sound of Nolan’s voice. The man hastily closed the door that led to the small office and storeroom, then stepped up to one side of the counter.

Liam studied Nolan for a moment before walking over to stand on the other side of the counter. The man’s smile was forced, brittle. His eyes were grief-weary.

He’s been drinking, Liam thought.

“Perhaps I’ve come at a bad time,” Liam said.

Nolan waved a hand. “Not at all. What can I do for you, Master— I beg your pardon. It’s Baron Liam now, isn’t it?”

There was fear in Nolan’s eyes now as well as grief.

“I came to see if you had a copy of Moira Wythbrook’s new book.” Liam tried a smile. “My mother requested that I ask for it particularly.”

Nolan pulled himself up to his full height, which barely brought his head equal to Liam’s chin. Patrons of Nolan’s Book Salon good-naturedly teased the small man, saying the reason there were so many step stools for customers to sit on while they perused books was that Nolan wouldn’t be able to reach his beloved books without them.

“I am an upstanding citizen of our beautiful land,” Nolan said with chilled dignity. “As such, I obey the dictates of the baron in whose county I live.”

“What does that have to do with Moira Wythbrook’s books?” Liam asked.

“The barons have decreed that it is harmful to carry the work of female scribblers.”

“Female what?”

“Females are of weak intellect, and it is harmful to indulge them by publishing or selling their work, which is inferior to the books written by men. It produces immodest feelings in ladies that make it difficult for them to fill then-place in society. Therefore, their books are no longer sold, and no further books by female scribblers will be published.”

Liam took a step back from the counter. Maybe Nolan was drunker than he seemed. Why else would the man be spouting such horse muck?

“What happened to the books that were already published?” he asked. “You still have copies of those.”

Nolan shook his head. A sheen of tears filled his eyes. “They were collected by the magistrate’s guards ... and burned.”

Burned.

As Master Liam, he could have staggered over to one of the step stools and collapsed to give himself time to absorb what Nolan had said. Baron Liam could not permit himself that kind of luxury.

“Just here in Durham?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Nolan shook his head. “The barons who rule the eastern counties have all made the same decree. If it is accepted at the next council of barons, that decree will hold true for all of Sylvalan.”

Not in the county I rule. Liam stepped up to the counter, put his hands on it, then leaned forward. “Forget I’ve become a baron,” he said with quiet urgency. “I’ve been buying books from you for years—for my mother and younger sister as well as for myself. You must have known the magistrate’s guards were coming. I’ve seen that warren you call a storeroom. If you wanted to hide some books in there, no one would be able to find them. You wouldn’t have let them burn all the copies. You wouldn’t.”

“Do you want me to lose everything?” Nolan cried, but he, too, kept his voice down.

“You would have kept at least one copy of each of those books so that the work wouldn’t be completely lost when the fools who made that decree came to their senses.”

“I have nothing. I swear to you—”

“Give the copies to me. I’ll make sure they get back to my estate safely. I’ll hide them until this ... situation ... is settled.”

Liam reined in impatience while Nolan studied him for too long.

“I have nothing,” Nolan finally said. “I— I already packed the copies and sent them away.”

“Where—?”

The bell above the shop door tinkled.

Liam looked over his shoulder at the blond-haired, blue-eyed man who stepped into the shop. A cold uneasiness settled over him as the man met his eyes for a moment before turning to scan the shelves.

He’s looking to make sure nothing is here that shouldn’t be. Liam glanced at Nolan, noticed how pale the man had become. How would someone else, someone suspicious, view this close conversation?

Pushing back from the counter, Liam said, “Since that book isn’t in stock, perhaps you could suggest another? Reading before I retire is a habit of long-standing.”

“Of course,” Nolan said, bustling over to one of the shelves.

Liam followed, aware that the blue-eyed stranger had turned to watch them.

“This one is excellent,” Nolan said, pulling a book off the shelf.

His back to the stranger, Liam made a face. He recognized the author, had tried to get through one of the man’s books once before. Prosy old bore. Well, it wouldn’t keep him up late. He’d be asleep ten minutes after he opened the book.

“And this one,” Nolan said, going over to the far-too-empty shelves and selecting another book. “This one has been recently published. A book of instructional essays. Very popular. I’m told that it’s one of the few books most heads of families consider suitable material for the females in their families and have consented to permit the ladies to read.”

Consented to permit the ladies to read? Liam could imagine what Elinore—or even Brooke—would say if he tried to dictate what they could or couldn’t read.

Which made him wonder what happened to women in the eastern part of Sylvalan who did express such opinions.

Feeling numb, Liam paid for the books and waited while Nolan carefully wrapped them in brown paper and string.

As he turned to leave the store, he noticed the stranger was still watching him.

There was no reason for the animosity he felt toward a man he didn’t know and hadn’t even seen before. But the feeling was there, and he wasn’t going to dismiss it.

He spent the rest of the day wandering, feeling oddly off balance. The streets of Durham were familiar, and he recognized the buildings. But it felt as if he kept turning down familiar streets and finding himself in a strange place. The women in the shopping district were all dressed in plain gowns with high necks and long sleeves. Drab clothing— grays, browns, dark greens and blues. Not the kind of garment worn to catch a man’s eye. They wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t even acknowledge his “good day” when he passed them.

He stopped at a shop where he’d often picked up a new shawl for his mother. The woman who owned the shop stood behind her counter. When he asked about shawls, she laid out a selection on the counter, offering none of the assistance she used to give him in order to make the right choice. Every move said plainly she no longer cared if anyone bought anything at her shop, which made him wonder how she expected to remain in business.

His last stop in the afternoon was an art gallery. By then, his mind was prepared for what he’d find. His heart wasn’t.

The empty places on the walls seemed like a terrible accusation. All the paintings by female artists were gone. When he asked the owner, he was told that women were capable of creating pleasing little sketches for the amusement of their families, but they weren’t capable of creating art. Never mind that the women whose work no longer hung on the walls had been hailed, just a few months ago, as some of the finest artists of their generation.

Feeling unsettled and a little sick, Liam passed a group of men his age standing before a painting, loudly proclaiming its brilliance. He stopped for a moment to look at the painting, then shook his head and left the gallery. If his stable hands had slung soiled straw at a white sheet and then framed the result, it wouldn’t have looked much different from the “brilliant” painting.

When he returned to the family town house, he ate the evening meal because his body needed food, and because he couldn’t afford any physical weakness when he sat at his place in the barons’ council tomorrow.

Maybe there was an explanation for all of this. Maybe.

And maybe there was another explanation for the straight bruises on the shop owner’s cheeks. Faint bruises. Faint enough that, at first, he’d thought it was a trick of the light. But when he closed his eyes, he could see the straps of the scold’s bridle that Elinore had flung between them when she’d given him the ultimatum of accepting the witches as her kin or losing his family. Straight straps that could bruise tender skin if they were cinched too tight.

Alone in his room, too uneasy to even try to sleep, he unwrapped the books he’d bought. He set the prosy old bore aside, then opened the other book. Perhaps having some knowledge of what was now considered suitable reading material for females would prepare him for whatever he was going to face in the barons’ council in the morning.