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William didn’t say anything.
I turned with a jerk. “William.”
“I think Grandma has them in a lockbox to protect them,” he said slowly, almost frowning. “Along with a few others.”
I blinked at him. “William!”
“At least one Dickens, a couple Brontës.” He paused. “And I want to say there’s a Mark Twain in there.”
I pressed my hand to my chest and drew in a deep breath. “How about we skip the seduction and go straight to marriage?”
He stared at me for a second before he burst out laughing, walking over to me. “Hey, I’m game if you are. We can always pretend your father is a French nobleman or something.”
I laughed nervously. “Maybe. Where’s the history books?”
“You flipped that quickly.”
“I’m a book lover in an old library. I’m going to get distracted easily.” I stepped away from the bookshelf and looked around. “It’s like throwing a kid into a toy shop and not expecting them to run around like a hooligan.”
“You’re not running around like a hooligan.”
“Of course not. I don’t want to hurt the books.”
“They’re books, Grace. You can’t hurt them.”
I pressed my finger to his lips, glaring. “Shh. They’ll hear you.”
He playfully nipped my fingertip before I pulled it away, then spun me around by the shoulders. “The history books are this way.” He proceeded to march me to the other end of the library, proving that my assumption was correct, and it was, in fact, the never-ending room.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“If I can’t find you when it’s time to leave, at least I’ll know where to look,” he teased, stopping me in front of a glass-fronted bookshelf.
“This one is different,” I said.
“Yep.” He dropped his hands from my shoulders and reached into his pocket, retrieving a key. “You can’t touch them all—a couple of them are old diaries that Grandpa only allows us to touch wearing gloves, but some of the newer ones are fine.” He put the small, gold key into the lock and turned it. The tiny click was satisfying, and William slowly opened one of the glass doors.
“They’re really that old?”
“Yes and no. Over the past two hundred or so years, our ancestors have kept personal diaries. They detail both the mundane and the interesting. I don’t think it’s so much that they’re old, but more he doesn’t want to damage them if he doesn’t have to.”
“Are they the diaries?” I pointed at the shelf that held a myriad of books, all in different shapes and sizes.
“Yep.”
“One looks like it was dropped in coffee.”
“That’s why he won’t let anyone touch them without gloves,” he replied dryly. “To stop such a thing happening again.”
“Is there a diary from the crazy uncle?”
With a small laugh, he handed me one of the books. “No, but my great-whatsit-Grandma did keep a log of all his antics, which is how we know what happened.”
“Great-whatsit-Grandma,” I mused, taking the book he was offering. “Interesting.”
“I can’t be arsed to count the greats. I’ll just mess it up.”
I laughed. “What’s this book?”
