He looked well enough, she supposed. But there was something behind his eyes that had not been there that morning, something she couldn’t name and couldn’t quite account for, and the sight of it pulled at her heart.
"Your Grace," Mr. Atherton began jovially. "We have commandeered your billiard room, I'm afraid."
"So, I see," James’ voice was even, like the most perfectly pleasant host. "I was passing. I didn’t mean to intrude."
"You could never intrude, Linthorpe,” the duchess said as though she was the utmost authority on the matter. “Corinna was about to demonstrate her superiority over the rest of us. She’s magnificent. Hythe would have enjoyed watching her play."
James’ gaze moved briefly to Cori. He seemed completely indifferent to her, almost like they’d never met, almost like he’d never said her name when it was just the two of them.
"Miss Beckett," he said.
"Your Grace," she returned in the same even manner.
"Enjoy your evening," he said to the room. And then he was gone.
The room carried on around Cori. Mr. Atherton said something. The duchess replied. Lucien made some dry observation that earned a sound from Emma that might have been a laugh. Cori heard them almost like she was much further away. But she wasn’t. She was still there, looking at the door James had just walked through.
She picked up her cue. She looked at the table.
That morning, James had crossed the great hall and said her name as though it cost him something to say it. This evening, he had said it the way he might say anyone's name in any room he happened to pass through.
What in the world had changed? It was almost like he wasn’t the same man.
Cori lined up her shot. And she missed it, spectacularly.
Step Four
Chapter 10
Linthorpe Library
Acklan Castle
The spine read Shakespeare's Sonnets. The little book was so worn it fell open naturally in Cori's hands.
She pulled her wrapper more tightly against the cold and tilted the volume toward the candle. The pages were soft with use, the margins of several sonnets marked in a small, careful hand as though the passages had held a special interest for the reader. The ink was faded but still visible. Whoever had held this book, once upon a time, had held it often.
The library was dark beyond the small circle of her candle. The castle settled around her the way old stone settles, not silence exactly, but something older and steadier than silence, walls that had absorbed centuries of weather and were entirely unmoved by yet another cold August night. A draft moved through from somewhere she couldn't identify and she shivered, tucking the book against her chest with one arm and pulling her wrapper closed with the other.
Cori should go back to her chambers and try to get some sleep, but her mind was not at rest and it hadn’t been all day. She crossed to the nearest chair, claimed it and read by candlelight in the darkness.
She’d been absorbed enough in the page that the first she knew of him was a creak somewhere in the corridor, and then a voice in the doorway.
"Cori?"
She startled, nearly dropping the book, and looked up. Linthorpe stood in the open doorway, candle in hand, still dressed. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn't read in the uncertain light.
"Forgive me," he said, at once. "I didn’t mean to startle you. I didn’t know anyone was here."
Her heart was still pounding when she found her voice. "Nor I," she managed. "I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d find something to read."
He came further into the room, his candle adding its small circle of light to hers, and his gaze dropped to the book in her lap.
"That was my wife's," he said quietly. There was no accusation in his voice, just something old and carefully maintained.
Cori looked down at the volume, seeing it differently now. The worn spine. The soft pages. The small careful marks in the margins. "I’m so sorry," she said. "I didn’t know. I’ll put it back."
"No." He said it quickly, and then seemed to consider the quickness of it. "No, please. She would’ve..." He paused. "Alice loved the sonnets. She’d read them aloud sometimes in the evenings. She had a good voice for it."
