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She’d never intended to go. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’ll see you there, then, and I’ll finish with the Cuvier quickly.” He bowed before strolling off with the book.
Dejected, she headed into the stacks, barely aware of the rows and rows of comforting books, or how their spines formed trees in a colorful, reassuring forest. She turned at random down an aisle, hardly noticing the little cards that proclaimed the section’s subject matter.
She stopped and rested her hand on a book from the shelf. System and Methodology for Creating Algebraic Taxonomies. Despite knowing next to nothing about algebra, she pulled the volume down.
With the book absent from its place on the shelf, a small gap opened up, revealing the face of a man standing in the next aisle.
He glanced up absently from the tome he held. His gaze slid back down to the book, then moved up again before a smile bloomed.
“Lady Grace.”
“Oh!” She lowered her voice when an unseen person shushed her. She pulled herself out of her gloomy haze enough to smile at Sebastian Holloway. As always when she saw him, a little fizz of happiness rose up within her, slightly pushing aside her melancholy. “Sebastian. You know you can call me just ‘Grace.’ I promise it won’t sully your reputation to be on familiar terms with me.”
“Can you be certain? I hear such scandalous things about you.” He pushed his shaggy blond hair off his forehead, but it slid back almost immediately. Light from the window reflected off of his spectacles as he tilted his head. “You’ve developed an interest in mathematics and other numeric subjects?” His eyebrows raised.
She glanced down at the book in her hand. “Have I ever shown the slightest inclination for mathematics?”
“Considering that you still count on your fingers . . .”
She scowled at him, but without malice. “How dare you, sirrah!”
“My most abject apologies. I’m a bookish man, unaware of social niceties.”
“Here in England,” she pointed out. “When it comes to the social customs of villages in the Azores during Lent, you’re an expert.”
He bowed. “Madam, you flatter me.”
They shared sly smiles, and a shard of her unhappiness worked its way free from her mood. Being with Sebastian was always so easy, so comfortable. They didn’t have the same disciplines, but that hardly mattered when they both loved the pursuit of knowledge.
Four years ago, they’d met in this very library. She never would have expected the tall, fair man with a rather strapping frame to be one of England’s most devoted anthropologists—but then, she should know better than believing there was a direct correlation between how someone looked and who they truly were.
Since then, they’d become friends. A handful of times each month, they would attend a lecture together, or visit a museum, or go on some other excursion. Grace always looked forward to these outings. She and Sebastian enjoyed each other’s company, and though they didn’t share a subject of study, they both loved to observe the world around them, often with a slightly wry perspective, and shared their observations over cake and cups of tea at Catton’s.
Over the years, she’d come to know things about him. His love for anthropology and the study of rituals, customs, and cultures stemmed from his perspective as a perennial outsider—a feeling with which she could empathize.
“How did the conversation with your father go?” she asked.
He gave her a wry grin. “Oh, it was as delightful as expected. I stammered for fifteen minutes, he glared at me, and then we both retreated to opposite sides of the study.”
“Oh, no.”
Sebastian exhaled. “It’s a consistent disappointment, trying to get my father to understand that his youngest son has any actual significance.” He undercut this statement with another flash of ironic smile, but Grace saw the hurt beneath it.
“It’s just one man’s opinion,” she offered.
“I know.” His brow furrowed. “I know. But . . .”
“Knowing that your own parent doesn’t understand you . . . I imagine it’s an injury that never quite heals.”
