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Chapter 9
An Unforgettable Touch
The day had grown rather warm, so Clara opened the window as soon as she had entered the room. The window stuck dreadfully, but she was immediately gratified with a cool, refreshing breeze in the stuffy old library.
“Much better,” she said, feeling the air move about, teasing the long midnight-blue drapes and sending a shower of glittering dust through the ray of sunlight that poured in from the west. Clara had wondered just how so much dust could accumulate in the St. George house considering the army of maids and manservants that were employed here.
In fact, she had almost been on the verge of considering saying something to Mr Momplaisir about the dustiness of the library before her senses returned to her. She knew as well as anyone that the workload given to a maid tended to be of impossible proportions, and any domestic servant knew to focus first on the rooms that were used most often, with less-visited corners of the house being cleaned only when visitors were expected.
Clearly no one has been in here in some time apart from Sophia and I the other day, Clara reasoned. Thus, no one bothered to come in to clean.
Trying to shake off the odd conflict between her upbringing and her recent lifestyle, Clara began walking up and down between the towering bookshelves that dominated the middle of the room, her fingers running across the spines as she saw dozens of familiar friends. Fielding, Laclos, Defoe, Richardson—she had read and treasured them all, nestled in her tiny corner behind the kitchen with the candles Sophia would kindly secret away for her.
Apart from Sophia and Glenys, the characters in these books had been her only friends for some years…although now, strangely, as she flipped through a beautiful volume of the collected plays of Shakespeare, she found it odd just how different these beloved characters appeared to her now. She had spent so many lonely nights hoping a handsome Romeo might sweep into her room and rescue her from her dreary life—now she found herself sympathizing more with Mercutio, strangely, caught in the middle of a battle that she wished nothing to do with.
Or here, she thought, opening the first scene of King Lear. How different these words are, having two sisters and a father who is dead and gone:
“You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I/ Return those duties back as are right fit,/ Obey you, love you, and most honour you./ Why have my sisters’ husbands, if they say/ They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,/ That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry/ Half my love with him, half my care and duty:/ Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,/ To love my father all.”
She closed the book with a heavy sigh. Have I aged so much since the last time I read this, I wonder? Or is my situation just so very different now that I am no longer a poor maid, and a member of a noble family besides? Clara put the book back on the shelf and regarded the rest of the shelves carefully. “I wonder if a story like mine might be found in any of these books?” she murmured.
“Why? Do you want to skip ahead to the end?”
Clara jumped as the voice reached her ear, and was so startled that she dropped the copy of Justine that she had picked up right onto the carpet.
A gentle chuckle reverberated around the room as Mr Morton stepped into sight from behind the bookshelf. His face was taken up by a measure less gravity than usual, and his dark eyes twinkled handsomely as he looked upon her.
The two of them reached for the fallen volume together, their hands nearly bumping together before they each suddenly stopped. Their eyes met, and for a glorious, silent second Clara could swear she could feel Edward’s heart beating as one with her own, could feel the heat of his breath mingling with hers in the warm library air.
Was he this handsome when first I met him? was the thought that echoed in her mind, unbidden. Was I too caught up in my own problems to notice how pretty his eyes are, how lovely his smile?
Then the moment ended, and both Clara and Edward straightened amid awkward laughter.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Please, let me—”
They laughed as they both tried to offer their apologies simultaneously.
“I really am sorry, Mr Morton,” Clara said, trying to stifle a blush as Edward finally managed to pick up the book and return it to its place on the shelf. “I’m much more careful, usually—well, sometimes, at least. And I would have left the book here, not taken it with me. Or read it, even, I wouldn’t—”
Lord, what is wrong with me? I’m babbling like a fool!
Clara felt her heart beat faster still as Edward gave her a reassuring smile and waited until she had stopped prattling to say, “It’s quite all right, Miss Clara. And really, don’t make such promises. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“Really?” she said, then winced at how simple a reply this might sound.
“Of course not. This library is to be used by everyone who lives here in this house. That includes you, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“As if I could…” she muttered, then put a hand over her mouth in alarm at what she had said aloud.
Edward gave his warm chuckle once again. He glanced about, blinking in confusion. “I’m rather surprised Miss Forsythe hasn’t tracked you down in here.” He put a hand up to his mouth and asked in a conspiratorial whisper, “You haven’t been hiding from her in here, have you?”
Clara smiled. “I’ve found rather quickly that one does not have to work terribly hard to shake Miss Forsythe off your tail. On the rare occasions she does track me down, I offer to fetch her a cup of tea, she tells me I’m a wicked child, and then I don’t usually see her again for at least a few hours.”
They shared a gentle laugh. “You know,” he said, walking along the shelf and running a finger along the spines, “His Grace dearly loved to read. Every chance he had to get away from his lordly duties, he would always be found here with his nose in a novel by Defoe or Fielding.”
“I didn’t know that.” Suddenly Clara felt keenly aware of how unnaturally she was standing, her eyes fixed on the St. Georges’ guardian’s handsome face. She quickly turned away to find something more innocuous to look at.
