“Oh,” she exclaimed.
“What have you found?”
“Northanger Abbey.”
“Another of your Gothic novels?” He liked her choice in the unusual and the dark macabre, rather than an insipid novel of manners. When he did read for entertainment, he tended toward travel stories but had run into a few Gothic tales.
She pulled the book out and ran a hand over its cover before opening it and flipping its pages.
“Not strictly. It has all the elements, but Miss Austen was writing a parody. Still, it’s a very interesting story.”
“Then you’ve already read it.”
“Only once, and it was so enjoyable, I look forward to reading it again.” She placed it on the round, polished library table before going back to the shelves.
“Here’s one I’ve never read at all.The Necromancerby Flammenberg. He’s German, and it’s supposed to be very scary.”
He watched her do an exaggerated little shiver.
“And this one,” she said. “Mrs. Radcliffe’sA Sicilian Romance.In an essay, she said she tried to evoke terror, not horror, which she looked down upon as causing one to freeze, thereby stunting the reader’s faculties. On the other hand, terror, she said, stimulated the reader with imagination. I agree with her, and she so superbly causes one to feel terror in her stories. Do you agree with the distinction?”
“Yes, I think I do,” Grayson said, reminded of a literature class from boarding school. “Though I am not sure, Professor Blackwood, if I could make the distinction myself.”
She offered him her lovely smile.
All at once, he thought of a gift—perhaps the perfect birthday gift for her.
“The other evening you said you hadn’t yet read Edgar Allan Poe, is that right?”
“I haven’t yet come across one of his tales in any bookshop. Just bad luck, I suppose. I take it you’ve read him.”
“I have read some of his stories and even some of his poetry. I believe you would enjoy him, though he tends a little more toward the horror.”
“That’s no matter. I would welcome the chance to read someone new to me. He only died a few years ago, I believe.”
“Yes, would you go light the extra lamp, and then we’ll see if we can find anything by him.”
“But it’s broad daylight,” she pointed out.
“Then maybe you could open the other curtains. You know I am old enough to be your father, and my eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
She laughed. “I’m sorry I said that. You know I didn’t mean it.” But she got up and did what he asked.
When her back was turned, Grayson slipped a slim volume off the shelf and tucked it into his pocket, confident it was the only copy in the library.
“Is that better?” she asked.
“Yes, what little sunlight we have can now stream in. Come, help me look for something by Poe.”
After a few minutes, when their search turned up nothing, he said, “I give up. How about we go riding before lunch and then dine with my mother? She will be thrilled.”
“All right,” Eleanor agreed, rising from where she’d ended up on the floor and then stretching.
He could not take his gaze from her as her lithe form bent this way and that, her lush curves visible through the cotton of her gown. Suddenly, his mouth had grown dry.
“If we are riding, I guess I had better change again,” she said. “I’ll take these books upstairs, too. If you pick out a good horse for me, I’ll meet you down at the stables.”
“With your antics around here,” Grayson told her, “I think you should wear your riding habit at all times.”
