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“No. Why, are you offering?”
Oh my God. DidIreally just say that?
My heart is beating triple time, the air so thick I can barely draw a breath. My lungs are burning.
“I think”—Jack watches me for a moment; then he visibly swallows and finishes—“I’d better head downstairs and prep dinner.”
The scent of him lingers in my room well after he’s gone. Taunting me.
9
AFTER CLASSESMONDAY AFTERNOON, IMAKE MY FIRST VISIT TOPembridge’s historic Talbot Library. Although it only formally became part of the university in the late nineteenth century, the building itself has stood for more than six centuries. It was once a church, featuring Gothic windows and towering ceilings, polished stone floors and flying buttresses. The wooden shelves and railings are dark and smooth from generations of hands leaving them almost shiny, like river stones or a petrified branch on a beach. It’s breathtaking. Seems almost preposterous I should belong here. Part of me expected to be tackled by security at the threshold.
And the smell.
Old books.
Paper and binding glue.
Embedded deep in the grain.
I haven’t been this turned on since last Thursday when Jack’s towel almost slipped as he padded past me down the hallway.
Passing the glossy wooden tables where students study in silence, I seek out a computer terminal to search the catalog for any references to an English painter named Dyce. To my surprise, I get a hit.
Franklin Astor Dyce.
But there’s a snag. A big yellow RESTRICTEDbanner across the top of the result. The book I need is housed in the special collectionsarchive. I’m not sure what that means in this instance or if it’s even accessible. The listing does give me a room number, though. So I go hunting until I see the small placard above the doorway to a separate wing of the library. In front of that doorway is a circular help desk, inside which sits a stone-faced man with graying hair at his temples. He scowls at a table of girls hunched over open books and tablets.
I approach the desk. “Excuse me, sir?”
When he doesn’t respond, I step around to his sight line.
“Sir? I had a question about a book.”
His answering sigh and impatient expression suggest that part was obvious.
“I need to see this book.” I slide him the piece of scratch paper I used to scribble down the decimal number. “It says it’s restricted. How do I— ”
Before I can finish, he pulls out a clipboard and shoves it in front of me. “Fill this out.”
The simple form asks for name, student ID number, the title requested, and the reason. While I complete it, the man glowers at me with arms crossed.
“Guess they haven’t gotten around to digitizing this process yet, huh?”
He doesn’t appreciate my comment as he snatches the clipboard out from under the lastyin my signature. The warden inside his fortress scrutinizes my form. Then his hawklike brown eyes lift to mine, and his intense examination somehow gets me feeling guilty, like I’m smuggling produce and livestock through customs. He’s got cop stare.
“Go on then,” he grumbles.
I look at the diverging hallways behind him with uncertainty.
The man jerks his head. “Take the number, pull the volume, you read it in one of the open booths, you put it back. Nothing leaves the archives.”
“Right, thank you.” It’s then I notice the nameplate on the desk. “Mr. Baxley.”
He huffs and looks away, unamused by my usually charming disposition. We’re bound to be famous friends, the two of us.
The book I’m looking for is a huge leather-bound slab. I lug it to one of several small rooms with a tiny cubicle and chair. Within the study of the history of English portraiture is a collection of artists representing various eras and illustrations of their respective styles and artistic movements. In the early twentieth century, Franklin Astor Dyce painted for a number of prominent noble British families and was the preferred artist of the Tulleys— when they still held a place of privilege and admiration.
