Élise watched him, her curiosity piqued. He ran his fingers along the spines, his brow furrowed in frustration. He pulled out a book, glanced at it, and shoved it back with a quiet, muttered curse.
Her librarian instincts, and something else, something more personal, kicked in. She smoothed her simple navy dress and walked over, her footsteps silent on the worn rug.
"Puis-je vous aider, monsieur?" she asked, her voice calm, a counterpoint to his visible agitation.
He turned, and those stormy eyes landed on her, really seeing her for the first time. They were the color of a winter sky, and just as unsettling. For a moment, he just stared, and Élise felt an inexplicable flush rise to her cheeks.
"Oui," he said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that seemed to vibrate in the quiet space. "I'm looking for a book. A specific copy of Baudelaire. Crimson binding. I was... I was here yesterday. I think I left something inside it."
Élise’s heart hammered against her ribs. The artist. The poet. It was him. This brooding, impatient man had created that delicate, observant sketch. The contradiction was jarring.
She kept her expression neutral, the perfect, composed librarian. "I believe I found it this morning. One moment."
She walked to the returns cart, her back to him, intensely aware of his gaze on her. She picked up the crimson volume, the sketch safely tucked inside. When she turned and held it out to him, their fingers brushed.
A jolt, swift and electric, passed between them. It was just the static from the dry air, she told herself. Of course it was.
He took the book, his eyes never leaving hers. He opened it, found the sketch, and a visible tension drained from his shoulders. He looked back at her, and for a fleeting second, the storm in his eyes cleared, replaced by something warmer, more appreciative.
"Merci," he said, the word softer than his previous ones. "I... I would have been lost without this."
"It is no trouble," Élise replied, her voice thankfully steady. "We ask that all books are returned to the cart, however. To avoid them being misplaced."
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. "Noted. My apologies."
He gave her a curt nod, tucked the book under his arm, and turned to leave. He was a whirlwind, disrupting her peaceful morning and leaving just as abruptly.
At the door, he paused and glanced back, his gaze sweeping over her one last time before settling on her name tag.
"Merci, Mademoiselle Élise."
And then he was gone, the oak door swinging shut behind him, the bell jingling in his wake.
The library was silent once more, but the silence felt different now. It was no longer just the holding of breath. It was the echo of a question. Élise stood rooted to the spot, the phantom sensation of his touch still tingling on her skin, the image of his stormy eyes burned into her mind.
She looked down at the space on the returns cart where the crimson book had been. It was empty. But for the first time in a long time, so did the library.
Chapter 2:
The Echo of a Whirlwind
The rest of Élise’s Tuesday passed with a strange, muffled quality, as if the stranger’s brief visit had thrown a sound-dampening blanket over her usual world. She processed a new shipment of memoirs from a local historian, her hands moving by rote while her mind replayed the encounter on a loop. The gravelly timbre of his voice. The intensity of his gaze. The startling contrast between the man’s rough, impatient exterior and the delicate, observant soul revealed in his sketch.
Who was he?
The question became a persistent hum beneath the quiet tasks of her day. A poet? An artist? He didn’t have the weary, scholarly air of the academics who frequented Lafleur. He had the energy of someone who wrestled with ideas physically, a man more likely to pace than to ponder seated.
At half-past four, Monsieur Deschamps emerged from his back-office sanctuary, a small, bird-like man with spectacles perched on the end of his nose and a cardigan perpetually sprinkled with the dust of centuries. He blinked in the soft light of the reading room.
“Everything is tranquil, Élise?” he asked, his voice a dry rustle of pages.
“Perfectly, monsieur,” she replied, perhaps a little too quickly. She found herself straightening a stack of bookplates that was already perfectly aligned.
He nodded, his eyes, magnified by his glasses, sweeping the room with a proprietor’s satisfaction.“Good, good. The silence is our most precious commodity. It is the soil in which thought grows.” He paused, his head tilting.“We had a visitor earlier. I heard the door.”
Élise’s heart did that ridiculous little thump again.“Just one. A gentleman looking for a book of Baudelaire. He found it.”
“Ah, Baudelaire. The flowers of evil. Not for the faint of heart.” Monsieur Deschamps gave a small, knowing smile.“He was… memorable?”
