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“Ah, the rite of passage for every teenager.”
“Precisely. Although why his mother ever thought he was sleeping at my house, I’ll never know. He’s done it a few times, but not as often as she thinks he has. Most recently, it was when he was stupid and smoked weed and his friends called me to take him home.” I rolled my eyes, checking my phone. “Wait, is this the library?”
He laughed, stepping to the side. “I wondered when you’d realise we were here.”
I swatted his arm. “You could have said!”
“And miss hearing you delight in tormenting your stepmother? Never, Cinderella.”
“Is that your new nickname for me?”
“As long as you call me Lord Kinkirk, yes.”
“What a fairy-tale we’re living,” I replied dryly, taking a couple of steps further into the library and looking around.
William flicked the light on, illuminating the whole room. It washuge. The ceilings were high and ornately carved, history seeping out of every millimetre. Bookshelves reached high up towards the ceiling, towering over us in every direction. They gave way only for the tall windows that I imagined flooded this place with light during a sunny day, and the sofas were a mix of wing back Queen Anne style sofas and regular Chesterfields, all of which somehow managed to look simultaneously comfortable and hideous to sit on at the same time.
It was quite something.
Ornate chandeliers hung from the ceiling in more than one spot, and when I turned, I realised this library was far bigger than I’d first realisedrealised—at least twice as big. It stretched on for what seemed like ever, and part of the way down another set of shelves stood in the middle of the room, back-to-back, creating a wall.
“Yep,” I muttered. “I think I just had an orgasm.”
William laughed, closing the doors behind us. “If I knew it would do that to you, I’d have brought you here as soon as we arrived.”
I turned around and swatted his arm, then skipped forwards, tightening my dressing gown around me. It was pleasantly warm in here, and I noted two fireplaces happily burning away at each end of the room. “Two fireplaces? Oh, you’re fancy.”
His lips tugged to one side, eyes twinkling with amusement. “What? This room needs fireplaces to be fancy?”
“No, but they do add a certain ambience.”
“Very true.”
“Where are the history books?” I looked around hopefully.
“Is that all you care about?”
“No. I’m also a prolific romance and murder mystery reader, so I’d watch your step.”
“Why? Are you going to seduce me before you murder me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said airily, running a fingertip across a shelf of leather-bound classic novels. “I’ll just skip straight to murdering you. Not that seducing you would be terribly difficult, but more a waste of my time.”
“Seducing me would be a waste of your time?”
Turning, I swept out my arms in a,look at all these booksmotion. “When I could be reading the history of your family instead? Absolutely.”
“Then you won’t find it by examining the complete first edition collection of the Sherlock Holmes books.”
“Ugh. Talk dirty to me,” I muttered, eyeing the books, then pulling outHound of the Baskervilles.
Yep.
It was right there.
First edition.
“If you tell me there’s a first edition Jane Austen in this place, I might just seduce you before I murder you, if only to get my hands on it.” I carefully put the Sherlock book back on the shelf, taking care not to scuff the cover.
