Her feet carried her toward the nearest wall, her hand lifting to run along the spines, and she found that they were arranged not randomly, not alphabetically, but by something else, something that required a moment to decode.
By what she had mentioned.
She could see it. The poets she had quoted, the historians she had referenced in passing, the novels she had described, the philosophers she had mentioned at the supper table during a conversation that had gone in seventeen directions before landing on nothing in particular. All of it was here, gathered and given space.
She turned.
James was leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded, watching her with quiet amusement. Her heart immediately forgot how to behave.
“Oh, this is more beautiful than I imagined,” she whispered.
“I started it when I told you I would,” he said. “I finished it when you were at Blackmoor.” He paused. “I had a great deal of time in the evenings.”
“The books,” she said. “These are…”
“From the shops on Charing Cross Road, mostly. Some from a dealer Henderson knows.” He looked at the shelves. “I may have been… thorough.”
“James.” She looked at the room. At the window seats. At the chair placed at exactly the angle she would have placed it. “This is…”
“I know it’s not what you had at Blackmoor. The collection there is older and?—”
“It’s better than Blackmoor,” she gushed. “It’s better than Blackmoor because someone built it thinking about me.” She turned back to him, looking at him as though seeing him anew. “You built this thinking about me.”
“Yes, there wasn’t much else on my mind.” He smiled.
Her lips curved, and he looked at her with the steady, smitten, entirely unguarded attention he had been giving her since the carriage.
Her smile softened with every passing second.
“Come here.”
James did not ask why. He crossed the room without hesitation until only a breath separated them.
“What is it?”
She reached up and rested a hand against his cheek. “Nothing.” Her thumb brushed lightly across his skin. “I simply wished to look at you a little more closely.”
“Somewhere along the way,” he said quietly, “you stopped being my responsibility, Isadora.”
Her eyes stung again, and a tear spilled down her cheek. He caught it with his thumb, gently. His expression softened with aching tenderness.
“Don’t cry. I’ve seen enough of your tears to last me a lifetime,” he murmured.
“I’m not crying,” she protested.
“You are.”
“It’s only one tear.”
“It is,” he agreed, entirely serious. “A very small and entirely unnecessary tear.”
“It is your fault.” She tapped his chest.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“I’m not sorry,” he agreed, the corner of his mouth lifting.
