Monty crouches beside my table. His blond curls fall over his brow as he gives me a pleading look. He speaks in a whisper. “Can I stay in your room tonight?”
My heart leaps at the question. “What? Why?”
He gives a significant look to the chatting pair beside me. “I think we both know how tonight will end.”
I swallow hard. “You think William and Zane…”
“Look at their body language,” he whispers. “They’re more than old friends. That is the aura of two people who’ve fucked. Forgive me. Two people who’vecourted.”
He doesn’t need to watch his language on my account. I glance at the couple with fresh eyes, taking in William’s easy smile, devoid of the seductive mask he wears for his fans, the way Zane swats his arm as they tease each other. They do seem closer than university friends. Could Monty be right? Are they old lovers ready to rekindle their flame?
Am I at risk of losing a point to William tonight?
“I’m sleeping with you and Daph tonight,” Monty says, drawing my attention back to him. “Not in a sexual way, of course. Unless you ask nicely.” With a coy grin, he saunters off. Just then, a flood of chattering bodies fills the bookshop, jostling each other in their excitement to reach our tables. Daphne growls and threatens ankle bites to corral them into a line. I expect the line to extend from William’s table.
But it doesn’t.
Instead, dozens upon dozens of figures line up with mauve books in their hands, tears in their eyes, and squeals of anticipation on their lips.
For me.
The line outside the door, the buzz of excitement…
It’s all forme.
The crowd goes quiet as the leader of the line approaches my table. She’s a tall human female outfitted in a deep crimson day dress lined with black lace, her hands tucked into a fur muff. Her black hair is pinned in a low chignon, and her expression is somehow exuberant and dignified at once.
“Hello, Miss Danforth,” she says, her voice trembling slightly. “I cannot express how pleased I am to meet you.”
Something clicks in my mind, a reminder of what one of my readers said at Flight of Fancy Bookshop. I study this woman’sappearance all over again, from her elegant state of dress to the way she carries herself. How the guests who stand behind her cast awed looks her way. How they don’t seem afraid of her yet maintain a respectful distance.
“You wouldn’t happen to be…”
“Gemma Rochester.” She extends a hand for me to shake, her beautiful smile growing even wider. “I’d like to think I’m your biggest fan.”
My mouth falls open as I rise to my feet and grasp her hand with maybe even more excitement than she has for me. Gemma Rochester isn’t just any reader. She’s Queen Gemma of Queen Gemma’s Book Club. She’s the wife of the Unseelie King of Winter.
And she’s my biggest fan.
Pride flares inside me, and my eyes find William’s at once. He shrugs as if to say,Now do you get it? I lift my chin with a smirk and expect him to do the same, but there’s no arrogance in his eyes. No taunting. Just a soft smile, a tip of his chin in a subtle nod, and a strange flutter in my heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WILLIAM
Edwina glows when she’s smug. Figuratively, of course, yet she’s as blinding as the sun. Her diminutive stature takes on the commanding presence of a sunflower in a field of daisies, her petals unfurling for more praise. I’m half convinced she could subsist on adulation alone.
“Your books changed my life,” Queen Gemma says, her eyes glazing. “They consoled me during one of the hardest experiences I’ve endured and helped me weather a scandal with my head held high. I hardly have words to express the comfort your books have given me. Please know how much I—and all your readers—cherish you.”
Edwina’s jaw slackens at the queen’s praise, and the crowd visibly swoons, their expressions captivated.
Zane leans toward me and whispers in a wry tone, “Has anyone ever told you that? That your book changed their life?”
“Yes, Z,” I whisper back. “My sister.”
They smirk. Zane knows certain facts about me and my situation that few others do. “Right. You’re funding Cassie’s dreams.”
“College,” I specify. “And I’m keeping her out of the workhouses.”
