She clutched the book to her chest and as she did so a folded note fell onto the desktop.She picked it up and read her name in an efficient, masculine hand.She swallowed hard.Her first guess at the gifter could not be correct.
But when she unfolded the brief note, she found she was.The books were from Callum and he had written,
Valaria,
I recalled your love of reading and I hope that these will help pass the hours.I especially enjoyedGuy Mannering.It is worth the excitement around it.Perhaps we can speak about it when next we meet.
BLACKVALE
She stared at the words and then the books.She could not think of a time that Silas had ever engaged in her love of reading.He only grumbled when she had her mind in the worlds that words created, but he wouldneverhave thought to give her a book.That Callumhadfelt…intimate in some way.Like he knew something about her, even though he didn’t, not really.Plenty of people liked books.
“Still, it was very generous,” she murmured, and let her finger run along the length of the silky ribbon that had once bound the package.It meant he was thinking about her, perhaps not with the same intrusive fervor that she occasionally found herself thinking of him.But she still shivered at the thought.
Slowly she took the new book over to the fire and sat down to read.The letters could wait, and so could her continued confusion over Callum.For now she would do as he suggested and escape into the world of adventure.
She would just have to decide later how to respond to his gift if and when she saw him again.And decide if she had to see it as a potential danger, or just a kindness that she hadn’t had to earn, but had been given openly.
As dangerous as that idea was.
