“Fine. Disappointed as I am, I applaud your discretion. However, I do ask one favor of you before you go.”
Miss Browning merely looked at him expectantly.
“Show me a title here that you enjoy. I should like to read it myself.”
He did not know what she’d expected him to say, but clearly this was not it. Her brows shot up in surprise and her lips parted slightly, losing herself again. She was prettier for it.
“I am sorry?”
“I am merely asking for a book recommendation.”
The woman glanced over her shoulder at the door, as though afraid that someone might step through at any moment. Then, turning back around, she eyed the shelves behind Sebastian cautiously.
“Alright, then, if that is what it takes. Give me a moment to look.”
Giving him a wide berth, she swept around to one of the shelves and disappeared behind it. For the briefest second, he caught sight of her sucking at her teeth in annoyance. It was so…discomposedof her, so clearly meant to not be for his eyes. It made him want her to do it again.
It was this urge which led him onward into the same aisle in which she now stood, looking over the spines of books. He wondered how she could read their titles in the darkness, but it appeared that she could, for she reached up and plucked one off of the shelf with confidence.
“Here,” she said stiffly, passing it to him.
He held the book up close, reading its title.
Of The Mindby one Leonard Braithwaite.
“What is this?”
“It’s a book on psychotherapy. Some great findings have been discovered these past years. Perhaps it will be most illuminating to you. Now, may I please take my leave, Lord Brightwater?”
He stared down at the book for a while, trying to understand why she might have chosen it. He’d expected a gothic or a romance. Not a medical book.
After a long silence, he looked up to see her expectant expression.
“Yes, of course,” he said quickly. “But please…will you let me call on you again tomorrow? Chaperone and all?”
She hesitated, glancing once more toward the door as though she wished desperately to escape through it. “Alright, if you insist. But please, Lord Brightwater, banish any notions you might have of pursuing me. You will only find yourself happierfor it, I promise.”
She did not know how untrue that was. Hopefully, she would never know.
“I do not plan on banishing anything at this moment. However, I promise you that all of my pursuits will remain proper henceforth. Is that enough for you?”
Augusta glanced back at the door again. “For now.” Voices sounded, distant, but growing closer. “I must leave.”
She disappeared, shutting the door softly with asnick. Sebastian stood in the dark library a while longer, smiling to himself, feeling strongly that the tide had indeed turned.
Chapter Seven
The weather was dreadful, and Augusta was terribly happy for it, for it only served to match the storm clouds within her mind.
As she paced Ginny’s music room, listening to her friend pluck away at a harp, she felt as though her very skin vibrated with annoyed energy. When soft thunder rolled outside, she was half tempted to nod along in agreement with it.
“And then - you won’t believe this - he had the nerve to ask me if I’ve ever been pursued before. Oh Ginny, he was positively transparent. The man has more looks than sense.”
“He certainly does have looks,” Ginny agreed.
Augusta scoffed. “That is not the point in the least. For all I know of Lord Brightwater, he might be some philandering wasteabout. I tell you, until last week I hadn’t seen the man since I was practically in leading strings. He was part of that gaggle of boys up north who played together and all went to Oxford at the same time. I hardly knew a thing about any of them, except that they were little bullies. Now he’s gone out of his way to see me three days in a row.”
That finally earned a furrow of Ginny’s brow. “Thatisrather sudden. What do you think piqued his interest?”
