Any Duchess Will Do (Spindle Cove #4)(22)

“Very well.” His grip tightened on her arm as he led her down the corridor. “If it’s the library you’re searching out, I’ll take you there myself.”

This wasn’t working how Griff had planned. He thought he’d girded himself against temptation.

He hadn’t counted on temptation herself materializing in a darkened corridor just outside his rooms, well after the hour of midnight. Her hair unbound yet again. Cloaked in her bedclothes, like a woman freshly tumbled. Skulking around his private chambers and looking even more fetching by lamplight than she had in afternoon sun.

Surely it was a trick of the shadows. Her eyelashes could not measure the length of his thumbnail. It was an impossibility.

Perhaps they grew longer with every lie she told.

Really. The library.

Of all the trite, clichéd excuses to pull out of her ear.

He marched her counterpane-swaddled self down the corridor, then down the staircase and around a bend. When they reached the correct set of doors, he flung them both open wide for effect.

“There you are. The library.” He handed her the lamp.

Blinking, she moved forward into the room, using the light to lead the way.

“Have your choice of books,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

She stood in the center of the room, turning slowly. Awestruck, no doubt. Even he would admit it was an impressive collection. As it ought to be, having been amassed over a dozen generations. The room was two stories high and hexagonal in shape, due to some fit of whimsy on the fifth duke’s part. He’d been an amateur architect, in addition to a naturalist and several other lofty things. One side of the hexagon served as the entryway, but bookshelves covered each of the other five, from floor to soaring ceiling.

“Go on, then,” he prodded.

“Am I truly allowed to touch them?” she whispered.

“But of course. Someone ought to.”

Still, she stood huddled in that twisted counterpane, face tilted to the rafters. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“What sort of books are your preference?” he asked, not bothering to hide the smugness in his tone. “Are you a great reader of philosophy? History? The sciences?”

“I like verses mostly. But I make no claims of being a great reader at all, your grace.”

So. She admitted it that easily.

He crossed his arms. “Yet you claimed to be looking for the library.”

“Yes. I wanted to see the books, not read them. I hoped to have a look through the collection. Perhaps make a list.”

At last she ventured forward and ran her finger down the spine of a slender leather volume. She didn’t even take it from the shelf, just touched it—gingerly, as though it might disappear into mist.

“How are they organized, do you know?”

“Not really. I suspect it’s loosely by subject. My grandfather invented some system of classification and made a catalogue, but I’ve never troubled to understand it. I don’t use the library often.”

She raised the lamp and turned to him, blinking in disbelief. “You mean you live in this house, with all these books”—she waved the lamp in an arc—“and you never read them?”

He shrugged with nonchalance, belying the sore spot she’d poked. “I am an embarrassment to my forebears. I know this well.”

“How much do books cost, anyhow?”

He gave up on drawing connections between these questions of hers. The hour was too damned late. “That would depend on many factors, I suppose. The nature of the book, the quality of the binding. Novels might be had for a crown or two, whereas a nine-volume set on the history of Rome . . .”

She waved off his answer. “I don’t believe I want histories of Rome.”

“The Romans weren’t as boring as you’d think.” History lectures were one of the few parts of his schooling he’d enjoyed.

“If you say so. But I doubt even the most bookish of Spindle Cove ladies will want to read nine volumes about it on holiday.”

Griff watched as she nimbly climbed the rolling book stair, lamp in hand. She hung the lamp on a hook created for just that purpose and tilted her head to peruse the titles of the shelved books. Her hair fell to one side in a shimmering cascade, like poured brandy. She had a lovely neck—a smooth, graceful ivory slope.

“You mean to take books back to Spindle Cove?” he asked.

“As many as I can. You see, that’s how I mean to spend my thousand pounds—or part of it, anyway. I’m going to . . . Well, never mind.”

“What do you mean, never mind? You’re going to spend your money on books and then . . . ?”

She sighed. “If I tell you, you’ll laugh. And if you laugh, I’ll hate you forever.”

“I won’t laugh.”

She gave him a dubious look.

“Very well, I might laugh. But you’ll only hate me for a day or two.”

“I plan to take books home and open a circulating library.”

“A circulating library,” he repeated—without laughing . . . noticeably.

“Yes. I’ll rent out books to ladies visiting on holiday. And since I’ve little experience with libraries myself, I hoped to glean some ideas from yours. Do you believe me now, that I was out of bed with honest purpose—not with snooping or thievery in mind?”