“Where are the novels?” she asked, matter-of-factly propping her elbow on the ladder’s nearest rung.
An insidious thought occurred to him. If she didn’t realize why he was staring, he could safely stare as long as he liked. He could drink in every bit of her, store up enough glimpses to fuel his fantasies for months.
“I think the novels are there,” he answered brusquely.
He motioned to the wall in question. Then he positioned the dismantled clock like a shield, blocking her from his view. Behind it, he briefly rolled his eyes heavenward. Someone up there had better be adding a hash mark to his “Good Deeds” tally. Perhaps now his lifetime total came to five or six.
“Do you have any favorites to recommend?” she asked.
“No.” He sighed with gruff impatience. He wished she would cease being so blasted friendly when he was striving to stop mentally undressing her. In his mind’s eye she was two buttons from complete ruination.
“I don’t read many novels, either,” she said. “The few I’ve tried were like forests to me—I got lost. I prefer verses, when I can find them. Little posies of pretty words, easy to grasp and keep with you. There was a woman in Spindle Cove one summer who fancied herself a poetess. Her own poems were horrid, but I liked the books she left lying about. I committed my favorites to memory, so I could share them with my sister.”
“And which ones were your favorites?” he asked, happy to let her speak so she’d cease asking questions.
She was silent for a moment. “I like this one. ‘The maiden caught me in the wild, where I was dancing merrily. She put me into her cabinet and locked me up with a golden key.’ ”
Griff had the panel almost freed now, but his fingers slowed.
She went on, her voice gaining a dreamy, velvet texture. “ ‘The cabinet was formed of gold, and pearl and crystal shining bright. And within, it opens into a world, and a little lovely moony night. Another England there I saw. Another London with its Tower. Another Thames and other hills. And another pleasant Surrey bower.’ ”
He stared at the gutted clock before him. It didn’t seem to be a clock anymore, but a cabinet. One with a secret window onto a little lovely moony night. A different London, a different England. An entirely different world.
He was enchanted, just a little.
“The story goes all wrong from there,” she said regretfully, “but I loved that bit. A cabinet of gold and pearl and crystal, with a little secret world inside. It’s something beautiful to picture when I’m washing up glassware at the tavern. Or, you know, when I’m elbow-deep in a mare.”
He looked up from the clock a fraction. Just enough to receive the mischievous, fetching smile she cast his way.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Could it ever work?”
No.
No, you bewitching creature. It could never, ever work.
“You mean the circulating library, I assume.”
She nodded. “I have it all planned out, you see. There’s an empty shop front on the village square where the old apothecary used to be. It’s all shelves already, with a sturdy counter. Only needs a bit of sunlight and wood polish. Lace curtains maybe, and a chair or two for those who’d like to sit.” Her mouth pulled to the side. “But the prettiness is all for naught, if it isn’t a sound business idea.”
“And you want my opinion?”
“If you’re paying me a thousand pounds, I’d think you wouldn’t want to see it squandered.”
He chuckled. “You can’t know how many thousands I’ve squandered on my own.”
“Just give me your honest judgment. Please.”
He squinted, easing a bit of clockwork loose. “Honestly, I’m the wrong person to ask. No doubt the spinsters will queue up for your verses and novels. The only books I ever went looking for were the naughty ones.”
She clutched the ladder rung. “Oh, your grace. You’re brilliant.”
Griff sat back in his chair, amazed. Never in his life had anyone said that to him. Not outside of a bed, anyway. “What’s so brilliant about me, precisely?”
“A lending library full of naughty books. That’s exactly what I need. I mean, not every book would necessarily be scandalous. But a good many of them should be. At home, the ladies can acquire all the boring, proper books they like, can’t they? They come to Spindle Cove to break the rules.”
Griff had a memory of the young ladies in that tavern, merrily ripping pages from an etiquette book to make tea trays. Yes, he could imagine torrid novels and radical pamphlets would do a brisk business in such a place.
And in making the inadvertent suggestion, he’d now be responsible for debauching-by-proxy an entire village of spinsters. This surely represented some sort of zenith or nadir of his life. He wasn’t sure which.
“Where are the naughty ones?” She tilted her head back, peering into the farthest upper recesses of the room. “I suppose they’d be on a high shelf. Or did you have a locked cabinet somewhere?”
He laughed. “If I did possess a secret section of my library that consists entirely of books inappropriate for young ladies, you could hardly expect me to direct you to it.”
“Why not? I’m no lady. Not that innocent, either.”
Don’t say that.
“It’s very late, Simms.”
“Very early, more like.”
“Suffice it to say, it’s very dark. And you’re very unclothed, and we’re much too alone.” For the two of them to begin a perusal of erotic literature atop it . . . ? That fragile shift of hers wouldn’t survive the hour. “I’ve no noble impulses, remember?”
Her cheeks flushed. “At least help me make a list?”
He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Moll Flanders, Fanny Hill, The Monk, a good translation of L’École des Filles. Those are a start.”
She closed her eyes. “Done.”
“You don’t want to write them down?”
“I don’t need to. I have a good memory.”
She leaned heavily to one side as she scanned the shelf, seeming to float above him. Griff was nearly reduced to panting by the nubile shadow of her silhouette and the swirled-brandy fall of her hair. Yes, he’d perused his share of naughty books. None of them had affected him like this. He was hard as the mahogany desktop.
“Aha. Here’s one I’ll take to bed with me.” She plucked a book from the shelf. “Methods of Accounting and Bookkeeping.”