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“We don’t do any of that,” I add.
“Is that a yes or a no?” he asks. “I can’t pause this game.” He points at the screen, where a man in ridiculous armour crouches behind a wall while hawks with knives attached to their talons fly threateningly around. “Decide.”
“It’s a no.” I roll my eyes, set my book aside and stand. “You stay and do”—I point at the screen—“whatever it is you’re doing. I’ll show Theodora to her room.”
He grunts and resumes his game. When I reach Theodora, I stretch out my hand between us, palm up. She glances back at Iakov, who’s staring at the screen, where his character is now getting brutally assaulted by the beknived hawks, and then back to me.
A tiny smile appears on her face, and her entire posture softens as if the ice that was keeping her encased suddenly melted.
She places her hand in mine, and I lead her out of the room.
Chapter 32
First Edition
Theodora
SeeingZacharyinhisown home is simultaneously a complete surprise while making perfect sense. His family home—his family estate, more accurately—is a perfect representation of what one imagines when one thinks of the British aristocracy. A beautiful stately home, well-kept and comfortable, yet with a certain old-world glamour to it.
I don’t meet his parents straight away, but he wastes no time introducing me to his sister.
She looks exactly like him. Tall, elegant, her skin the same smooth, creamy brown, a sharp intelligence in her brown eyes. Her hair is long, almost to her waist, an explosion of curls black at the roots then threaded through with warm gold strands.
Where Zachary’s style is old-fashioned and scholarly, her style seems to be a more elevated, feminine version of his. When I meet her, she’s wearing a knitted top in a pale shade of brown, a dark plaid skirt and thigh-high black socks.
“Theodora, this is my little sister, Zahara.” He gestures from me to her.
“Oh, it’s Zahara all of a sudden, not ungrateful brat?” she asks, but her tone is more teasing than accusatory.
He rolls his eyes and continues as if no interruption had occurred. “Zahara, this is—”
“Don’t be such an idiot—I know exactly who this is!” She fixes me with a look of utter delight. “The famous, the revered, the one and only Theodora Dorokhova.” Without waiting for me to say anything, she launches into me with a hug. “I could not possibly be more excited to meet you at last!”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you too,” I answer, my voice muffled by the faceful of fragrant curls I get when she hugs me.
“Can I show her the library?” Zahara asks her brother as she frees me from her hug. “Please, Zach? You can show her the rest of the house, and I already know for a fact you’re going to hoard her for yourself, not to mention how Mum and Dad are probably going to be obsessed with her the moment they get back home—and it’s not like I’ll be here all holiday anyway, so you’ll get to—”
“You can show her the library,” Zach says, removing his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Zaro. It’s not like she’s your girlfriend.”
“I’m sorry—is sheyours?” his sister replies with the speed of a striking eagle. Then her eyes widen, and she turns to look at me. “Oh—you’re not, are you?”
I shake my head, but my eyes meet Zach’s, and there’s a defiant expression in his eyes.
“I’m… not,” I answer cautiously, tearing my gaze from his.
“The word ‘girlfriend’ could never accurately describe what she is to me,” Zachary says in a tone of such complete earnestness that his sister and I can do nothing but stare at him, taken aback.
“If you say so.” Zahara shrugs, and then she takes my elbow and leads me away.
The Blackwood library is exactly as I would have expected from Zachary’s childhood library. A long, rectangular chamber, glossy floorboards, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound collections. No pulp fiction or colourful covers are to be found in the Blackwood collection.
As I slowly walk along the shelves, tracing the gold-engraved spines, my fingertips brush over encyclopaedias, classics of English and French literature, volumes of poetry and an impressive collection of non-fiction books ranging from philosophy and politics to astrophysics and theoretical mathematics.
If the Blackwoods ever partake in thrillers or the occasional Regency romance, they must keep those particular books in a different part of their estate.
At the head of the room, a set of three French windows cast thick columns of light over an enormous pedestal desk that looks straight out of Victorian England. A leather seat stands like a throne by the desk, which is tidy apart from a closed laptop and a small pile of books.
“It’s not the Spearcrest library, of course,” Zach’s sister is saying, hopping onto a corner of the pedestal desk and crossing her legs. “But it’s not too shabby.”
