CHAPTER 7
Sleep proved a fickle companion. Alice lay in her chamber, watching moonlight trace patterns across the ceiling, her mind replaying the evening's events. The musicale had passed in a blur of candlelight and conversation, but the waltz refused to settle into memory's distance. She could still feel the pressure of Crewe's hand at her waist, the strength of his lead, and the way his grey eyes had held hers for three measures too long before he looked away.
She sat up, abandoning the pretense of rest.
Her wrapper lay across the foot of the bed, and she pulled it over her nightgown, moving with the efficiency of someone who had learned long ago that sleeplessness was best managed by motion. The silkwhispered against her skin as she moved toward the door, her feet finding the carpet's edge, the cool floorboards, and the brass handle worn smooth by generations of Oakfords.
The corridor stretched before her in shades of grey, the wall sconces extinguished. Only moonlight from the tall windows provided guidance. Alice glided through the darkness, her bare feet silent on the runner that muffled her progress. The house lay silent save for the distant tick of a clock, the creak of settling timbers, and the faint whisper of wind against leaded glass.
She had no destination in mind. Or rather, she had several. The conservatory with its sleeping plants, the gallery where portraits kept their vigil, the library with its promise of distraction. Her feet chose the library without consulting her mind, carrying her down the main staircase and along the ground-floor passage, where ancestral disapproval watched from gilded frames.
Light glowed beneath the library door.
Alice paused, her hand hovering over the doorknob, caught between curiosity and the realization she was wandering the house in her nightclothes. The sensible choice would be to retreat to her chamber and wait for dawn.
However, there was little relief in being sensible, so she pushed open the door.
The library of Oakford Hall was filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves of leather-bound volumes, their spines glinting gold in the firelight. A rolling ladder positioned along the eastern wall hinted at adventures waiting on higher shelves. A fire crackled in the massive hearth, casting shadows across the Persian carpet and the heavy mahogany furniture. The scent of old paper and wood smoke lingered in the air, comforting and familiar.
In a wingback chair angled toward the flames sat Viscount Crewe.
He looked up at her entrance, surprise flickering across his features. He was still dressed in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, his cravat loosened, and his coat discarded somewhere in the shadows. A book lay open in his lap, and a glass of amber liquid rested on the table beside him, catching the firelight.
For a moment, neither spoke.
"Forgive the intrusion," Alice said at last, her voice breaking the midnight quiet. "I did not expect to find the library occupied."
Crewe rose with the automatic courtesy of a man trained in proper manners. "Lady Alice. I can..." He gestured toward the door, indicating he could leave. "If you wish for privacy..."
"Please." She raised a hand to stop him. "Stay. I am merely restless, and misery loves company. Or so I have been told."
He hesitated, caught between propriety and something else. Curiosity, perhaps, or the reluctance to abandon his sanctuary. Then he inclined his head and resumed his seat, though his posture stiffened, his spine no longer relaxed toward the fire.
Alice moved further into the room, drawn by the fire's warmth and the need for something to occupy her hands. The book in his lap caught her attention. She recognized the binding and the particular shade of burgundy leather that marked the library's poetry collection.
"Poetry," she observed, settling into the chair opposite him. The leather was warm from the fire, and she tucked her feet beneath her. "I had not imagined you the type."
"Had you not?" His tone was dry. "What type had you imagined?"
"Philosophy, perhaps. Political economy. Something with charts and figures, preferably in Latin, requiring concentration and offering no pleasure."
The corner of his mouth twitched in that almost-smile she had begun to recognize as evidence that her barbs had landed. "I find poetry requires considerable concentration. The best of it, at least."
"The best of it?" Alice leaned forward, genuinely curious. "And who, in your estimation, constitutes the best?"
He lifted the book from his lap, displaying its cover. Alexander Pope. Of course. Ordered couplets, rational wit, everything balanced and contained. She should have known.
"You would prefer Byron to Pope, I imagine," he said, a challenge wrapped in observation.
Alice’s spine straightened. "And you would choose order over passion every time."
"Order creates the structure within which meaning can exist." He set the book aside, his grey eyes meeting hers across the fire-lit space. "Without form, passion becomes noise."
"Without passion, form becomes decoration." She gestured toward the shelves surrounding them. "What is the purpose of perfect meter if the words contain no feeling? One might as well admire a well-constructed cage while the bird within it dies of boredom."
"The bird," Crewe said, "might have flown directly into a window without the cage to provide boundaries."
"Better to risk the window than never to fly at all."
