“Have you found something entertaining?”
The book left her hands.
It did not slip. It left with the full conviction of an object that had decided the situation called for independent action. She caught it against her knee by pure reflex before it could reach thefloor, which was the only dignified thing about the subsequent five seconds, and turned it face-down in the same movement, which was absolutely not the gesture of someone with a clear conscience.
William was standing in the doorway. Shirtsleeves, cravat loosened, the look of a man who had finished his evening and followed some old habit in the direction of books.
His gaze went to her face first, then to her hands, then to the book pressed flat and face-down against her knee with both her palms over it. His expression was not helping matters at all.
He said nothing.
“I was looking for books for the girls,” Cecily explained.
“Were you?”
“That is what I came for.” She reached toward the side table with the intention of setting the book down casually and standing up all in one smooth movement. The book slipped. She caught it. The cover flashed upward for a full second before she set it face down on the table. “I found several good options. On the table. The other table.”
He looked at the reading table. Cowper, the essays, the letters—all present and correct. Then he looked at the book on the side table, face down, with both her hands still on it.
“I see them.” He moved further into the room. Not toward her, simply further in, and stopped at the nearest shelf, running his eyes along the spines. “What are you reading?”
“Nothing. A book I found on the shelf. I was just–”
She picked it up with the intention of returning it to the shelf before he could read the title, which required crossing the room, which required moving toward him, which she had already begun to do before she noticed that he had also moved further into the room and they were now closer together than her plan had accounted for.
“It was already there, behind the sermons. I was simply curious, and I–”
“What are you reading?”
She stopped.
He tilted his head, waiting.
She held out the book. It seemed simpler than evading his questions.
He took it. Read the cover. Read it again, in the specific way of someone making sure they have read correctly. Then looked up at her. His expression was not what she had prepared herself for, which had been something between amusement and thecomposed archness he wore when he was about to be effortlessly superior about something.
It wasn’t that.
It was simply amused. Genuinely, warmly amused, without any performance.
“The sermons,” he said.
“Behind them, yes.”
“I see.” He turned the book once in his hand. “And how far did you get?”
“I was looking for books for Isadora and Letitia,” she replied, with great dignity.
“You mentioned that.” He glanced at the reading table. “Those three are for the girls?”
“Yes.”
“And this one?”
“I found it by accident.”
“On page–” He glanced at the spine. “–forty-three.”
