“My lord.”
“I beg your pardon. I did not mean to alarm you.”
“You did not alarm me,” she replied, which was not entirely true. “I was only not expecting to find anyone here.”
“In a library?”
“Yes, and also, in this part of it.”
His gaze moved briefly over the shelves, then returned to her face. “Then I must confess myself equally guilty of trespass. I had thought this one of the safer corners of London.”
“Safer from what?”
“Acquaintance.”
Despite herself, Aurelia almost smiled. “Then I am sorry to have spoiled your refuge.”
“You have not spoiled it.”
The answer came too simply. It unsettled her more than a compliment would have done.
Aurelia looked away first and pushed the book back into place. She was aware, suddenly and inconveniently, of how narrow theaisle was, and of the hush that seemed to gather between shelves more closely than in a ballroom.
“Do you come here often?” she asked, because silence had become more dangerous than speech.
“Lately, yes. It is useful when one wishes to appear occupied without being socially useful.”
“That is a very particular skill.”
“I am improving.”
This time she did smile, though faintly.
His eyes rested on her with quiet attention. “And you? Are you hiding from acquaintance as well?”
Aurelia lowered her gaze to the books before her. “Something of the kind.”
He did not answer at once. She could feel him decide not to press her, and that restraint, so unexpected, made something in her chest loosen with painful gratitude.
“I have found books more discreet than people,” he admitted.
“That depends upon the book.”
“True. Some are shamelessly indiscreet.”
She glanced at him, hiding her amusement. “You speak as if you have been ill-used by literature.”
“By several histories, certainly. They have a habit of making disaster appear orderly after the fact.”
Aurelia’s fingers paused on the spine of another volume.
“That is because the dead cannot object to the arrangement.”
He looked at her then, more closely. She regretted the words almost as soon as they were spoken. They had come from some place still raw from Lady Renwick’s drawing room, from Langley’s smooth warning, from her mother’s pale endurance across years of being misremembered by others.
But he did not laugh. He did not offer one of those easy remarks with which gentlemen dismissed seriousness when it inconvenienced them.
“No,” he agreed quietly. “They cannot.”
