Then she remembered why she had come, and the illusion slipped away.
She crossed to the shelves where she had found her borrowed books and slid them back into their places with practised care. She had memorised their exact positions. No trace must remain.
She ought to leave at once. She ought to return to the servants’ corridor and forget that this room existed.
Instead, she lingered.
Her fingers drifted along the spines—titles familiar, titles unknown. So many books. A lifetime’s worth of thinking, gathered in one room. She could spend years here and never exhaust its possibilities.
Her hand paused on a volume she had long wished to examine: a recent work on the economics of rural improvement,spoken of but never seen. She hesitated, glanced towards the door, weighed the risk against the reward.
A small theft. A tiny rebellion.
She drew the book free and opened it, scanning the first pages. The prose was dense but clear; the arguments promised substance. She would take it back to her room, read it by candlelight, return it on the morrow—
The main door opened.
Cecilia’s heart seized. She had been so absorbed that she had forgotten to listen—forgotten every rule of survival she had learned over five years of navigating hostile territory.
She looked up, already shaping an apology, already arranging her features into the blank composure that invited dismissal.
And found herself face-to-face with the Duke of Ashworth.
***
He had not expected to find anyone in the library.
The morning’s walking tour had been everything Sebastian anticipated: pretty gardens, prettier young ladies, and conversation that skimmed the surface of subjects without ever daring depth. He had escaped at the first acceptable moment, claimed correspondence, and sought refuge in the one room where he was least likely to be pursued.
The library; a place where he could be alone with his thoughts without anyone demanding he perform.
Except he was not alone.
A woman stood near the shelves at the far end of the room, a book clasped to her chest, her expression arrested in startled guilt. She wore a plain grey dress—the same he had noticed from the window on the day of her arrival—and her dark hair was arranged simply, without ornament.
Miss Cecilia Ashwood. The cousin.
For a moment, neither spoke. He could almost see the calculation in her eyes—the swift weighing of risk, the instinct to apologise, retreat, vanish.
He ought to let her go. It would be kinder. Safer. Appropriate.
Instead, he said quietly, “You need not be alarmed.”
She blinked. “Your Grace—I beg your pardon. I did not expect— I will withdraw at once.”
He moved a fraction closer. “You needn’t flee on my account.”
Her fingers tightened on the book. “I ought not to be here.”
His gaze dropped—unintentionally—to the volume she held. A familiar title. One of the works he had noticed set aside on the small table days earlier—marked, annotated, studied.
His heart gave a small, inexplicable jolt.
“May I ask,” he said gently, “whether that is a volume you have borrowed before?”
She hesitated. It was answer enough.
“I thought as much,” he continued, with care. “Some of the books in that section bear marginal notes. Intelligent ones. I wondered… whose hand they belonged to.”
