"You were stating the obvious."
"I was establishing parameters."
"You were treating me like a fool who doesn't know how to handle rare books." She set down the volume she'd been holding with exaggerated care. "Shall you also explain that books have pages, or that Latin is read left to right?"
Every man in London yields before my word. She alone tosses it back at me like a gauntlet.
"You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that this is a partnership," he said coldly. "It is not. You are my employee."
"I'm your cataloguer. If you wanted someone to blindly follow orders without question, you should have hired a clerk, not a scholar."
"Perhaps I should have."
"But you didn't." She met his gaze steadily, those brown eyes holding a challenge. "You hired someone who knows the difference between order and indifference. Though clearly, Your Grace favours the latter."
Why on earth do I not dismiss her?
Because she was right, the irritating woman. Because his library was chaos and he'd been indifferent to it, just as he'd been indifferent to most things since Juliette's defection. Because she stood there in his sanctuary, this small, fierce woman with her ink-stained fingers and escaped curls, and made him feel something other than bitter ennui.
"Continue your assessment," he said, waving a hand as if bored. "Try not to destroy anything irreplaceable."
She moved through the library like a force of nature, occasionally gasping in delight or horror. She found treasures buried behind common novels, mice damage that made her actually curse in what sounded like Greek, and at one point, a family of bookworms that had her looking like she might commit murder.
"Oh, this is wonderful," she breathed, pulling out a volume with the care one might use for holy relics. "Is this Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae? Third century discussion of food and dining customs? This is extraordinary—and completely covered in dust. It deserves better than to be moldering between..." she checked the adjacent volumes, "a guide to sheep farming and what appears to be someone's personal diary from 1742."
Adrian stiffened. He owned Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae? He'd never even heard of it, let alone read it.
She has caught me unarmed. I, who have routed Parliamentarians with a phrase, undone by a slip of Greek from the lips of a woman.
"I'm sure it's thrilling," he said with studied indifference. "Ancient dining habits being such captivating reading."
"It's more than that. It's a window into daily life, into the things historians usually ignore. How people ate, what they talked about over dinner, the jokes they told." She opened it carefully, her face lighting up as she scanned the Greek text. "Listen to this; 'The Spartans dine in common, eating the same food, wearing the same clothes, so that luxury may not soften them.' Imagine, an entire culture thatbelieved comfortable dining was dangerous."
"Sounds perfectly reasonable to me."
She looked up, caught his expression, and actually laughed at him, his own employee in his own library. "You would sympathize with Spartans. All that austere dignity and emotional restraint."
"Emotional restraint?"
"What else would you call it? They weren't even allowed to express joy properly. Rather like English dukes, come to think of it."
He should have been offended. He was the Duke of Everleigh, and this nobody of a woman was comparing him to emotionally restrained ancient Greeks. Instead, he found himself watching her mouth as she spoke, the way her lips shaped the ancient words with obvious pleasure. He could not help but imagine those lips engaged in other, far more debauched activities.
He felt a stirring in his lower abdomen as his imagination took control.
Why does she have to pronounce Greek like it's a lover's endearment?
"Your linguistic enthusiasm is noted," he said dryly. "Perhaps you could channel it into actual cataloguing rather than historical commentary."
"They're the same thing, really. You can't properly catalogue books without understanding what they are, why they matter." She moved to another shelf, her movements quick and economical. "This library isn't just a collection of objects—it's a collection of ideas, of human thought across centuries. It deserves to be treated as such."
"It deserves to be organized so I can actually find things."
"That too." She pulled out a small notebook and began scribbling furiously, her entire body taut with energy and purpose. "I'll need to do a complete survey first, room by room. Create a temporary classification system while I develop something more comprehensive. We'll need proper supplies, such as boxes for the manuscripts, cotton gloves, book supports..."
"Whatever you need."
She looked up, surprised. "Just like that?"
