The car comes to a halt, and I see we’re in Mayfair, parked in front of one of the Georgian Townhouses.
I wait for her to say or do something, and my heart beats up into my chest. I just hope she’s not taking me to anything like a formal event—she surely will not. I am not fit for an event like that, and she knows that. Right?
Henry gets out, walks around and opens the door on Victoria’s side. She gets out and holds out her hand for me.
I close my eyes for one tiny second before I slide over and take it. The door is closed for us, and Victoria walks me to the entrance door of the house we parked in front of.
There is no flag, no sign, nothing. Just a heavy wooden door with an ornamental knocker, which she knocks twice.
The door opens, and I am guided inside by her hand on my back.
“Victoria,” says a man in a suit who walks up to us and heartily grasps her hand. “It’s been too long,”
“I know, Harold,” she says. “Time is working against us.”
“It does indeed,” he says. “And who might the young lady accompanying you be?” he asks as he looks at me.
I say nothing and smile, as Victoria says, “A particularly delightful change from the dullness of routine.”
What a strange way to speak, and while the words said nothing, they also said everything. Hands are shaken, smiles exchanged.
“Harold, if you would be so kind as to give Miss Phillips and me here access to the King’s Vault,” Victoria says.
The King’s Vault,I repeat in my mind. I have never heard of anything by that name, and my curiosity is piqued. Is it a real vault that once belonged to a king?
“Sure,” says the man.
We walk over black-and-white tiles, framed by dark wooden walls with golden frames and landscape paintings, to a door in the back. It is opened with three different keys.
I am so excited that I hold my breath. I have always been a sucker for history.
The door opens, and I half expect to uncover some sort of treasure, but I am slightly disappointed when there is only a simple staircase leading down.
“Here,” he says, hands Victoria another key, and she descends with me alone.
“I took a lot of thought in what would be something you’d enjoy,” she says as we reach another, rather plain door. “And I do hope this will suffice.”
The lock clicks, and she opens the door.
What comes into view can’t be described with words. I do not have them. Somewhere in the middle of Mayfair, I step into a dungeon-like, arched cellar with row upon row of bookshelves and a table with chairs in the middle of the room.
The scent trails up my nose—one of old books telling all the written tales for the soul, and a warm feeling spreads through me.
“The King’s Vault is a library with books you cannot find in any library on this planet. It is a collection of first editions, royal lectures, banned and burned books reaching back hundreds of years.”
I am completely and utterly speechless. I walk into the underground room, my hand brushing over a wooden shelf.
It feels like magic pulsating through my veins.
“How?” I ask when I am able to form a word again and turn around. “How is this possible? How are we here?”
“Connections,” she says, as she walks up to me and cups my face.
She kisses me, and I am swept off my feet.
A kiss that devours me. So intensely, so longingly, my legs feel jittery, and I even forget where I am. Her tongue enters my mouth, and I can’t think anymore. I just act and play with her tongue. And although I have never done this before, it feels as natural as breathing.
Victoria slowly ends the kiss. She pushes my head slightly back and her lips over to my ear.
