Chapter 20 #2
“Ye ask too many questions,” he drawled, his teasing tone slightly aggravating.
Emma shot him a glare. “Ye think ye are so smug, do ye nae?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Was that another question?”
He opened the door and stood aside, then watched her as she entered, the rustle of her skirts disturbing the stillness in the room. A lone lamp threw a steady pool of light across his desk, and she watched him cross that pool without pause.
The scent of faint beeswax and ink filled her nostrils as she continued to watch him move rather slowly. One hand was tucked in his pocket, and the other hung at his side. Her eyes strayed to his leather trousers, the way they seemed to perfectly hug his behind.
She ground her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut for a minute.
Focus, Emma. Focus.
“Are ye coming?” His voice brought her back to the present.
She snapped her eyes open and watched him pause by another door at the far end of the study. Her eyes narrowed.
Another door.
How had she never seen it before? But then she had never been in his study long enough to examine the room.
Her eyes settled on him as he reached the door set in the paneling. He pressed down on the knob and pushed it open. The hinges gave a small creak as dust and leather rose at the first breath of air, clean and old.
He turned to her, a faint smile on his lips as she moved closer. “After ye.”
She stepped through, her eyes peeled as she moved further into the room. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, packed with books in brown and dark red, a few with thin lines of gold along their spines. A ladder stood in the corner, and a small fire burned low in the grate across the far wall.
Her eyes widened with each step she took, studying the books. There was enough here to read for a lifetime if she did nothing else. She inhaled the smell of old paper as she ran her hands over the spines, the shock on her face plain.
“This is all yers?” Her voice came small.
“Aye,” Jack responded, his hands tucked behind his back. “It was me faither’s and grandfaither’s. The rest I added when I had the money to acquire it.”
She swallowed, taking in more of the room as she walked. Her disbelief, for some reason, refused to fade. There was no way. There was no way a man like Jack Barkley had a library the size of a village square hidden in his castle.
Something about all of this felt too good to be true.
She turned to him, wide-eyed, as if a door had opened in him as well. “This was where ye wanted me to come?”
His left eye twitched. “Do ye nae like it?”
“Ye brought me to a library.”
“Aye. I ken.”
“Do ye? Do ye truly?”
A smile crossed his face as he leaned forward. He seemed to understand her surprise for what it truly was now. Unadulterated surprise.
“I thought ye might find some poetry ye’d enjoy,” he said.
The words sounded simple, yet they shifted the atmosphere.
She turned her head back toward him. “Ye thought I might—”
“At the very least, a book or two should give ye some inspiration. Ye write wonderfully, Emma. The last thing I want ye to think is that marrying me would stop that in any way.”
An intense wave of emotions suddenly washed over her, almost overwhelming.
Not once did that thought ever cross her mind. Yet, for some reason, Jack had thought ahead. He had anticipated what she might need and decided to move one step ahead.
Without thinking, she stepped toward him and wrapped her arms around him. It was quick, and it was real. A grunt escaped his lips as she buried her face in his neck, letting the scent of sandalwood and something else soothe her.
There it was again, the smell that she could never place.
“That was very thoughtful,” she murmured.
Then, she realized what she had done. She released him and turned back to the shelves as if they had called her by her name. Her fingers slid along the row once again until they stopped at a title in faded gold.
“William Drummond,” she murmured. “Of Hawthornden.”
“Aye,” Jack said, nearer now. “The Flowers of Sion sits two shelves up. The Cypress Grove is there as well.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Ye ken the names.”
“I ken more than names,” he said. He tapped another spine.
“Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid, though I daenae read that one very often.
Montgomerie’s sonnets are there, and Sir Robert Aytoun is close by.
If ye want something more recent, Allan Ramsay lies on the second shelf, and The Gentle Shepherd sits with his songs. ”
She moved to the next case. “And these?”
“Gaelic,” he explained. “I have a copy of Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. The Birlinn of Clanranald sits on that higher shelf. Duncan Bàn MacIntyre as well, Moladh Beinn Dóbhrainn, in both tongue and translation. Iain Lom’s verse on Inverlochy.
Sìleas na Ceapaich has a place, though the pages are thin as old leaves.
There is Macpherson too if ye want tales of Fingal, though men argue over them. ”
Emma turned around fully, shock plain on her face. “Ye have read them.”
He smirked. “Ye seem shocked.”
Emma swallowed. She must have been wearing all her emotions on her face at that moment. “I daenae ken what ye’re talking about.”
He held her eyes. “I can see it on yer face, lass. Do ye think I buy what I daenae use?”
“I just… wouldnae have thought that someone like ye—”
He stepped closer, close enough that she felt the heat of him, yet not quite touching. “Someone like me?”
Emma rolled her eyes, swallowing down the thrill at his proximity. “Ye ken what I mean.”
“Nae in the slightest,” he responded, the usual smirk tugging at his lips as he folded his arms. “What do ye mean, someone like me?”
She looked at the shelf almost as if to keep herself steady. “A warrior. A man with little time for words, especially ones on a page.”
His voice dropped until it was almost a whisper. “Nay, explain it true.”
She drew a small breath. “Men who carry steel daenae often carry books.”
“Then they should,” he said. “Books are a weight a man can use.”
She felt a laugh bubble up her throat and swallowed it. “And do ye use them much, me Laird?”
She saw the surprise on his face at the mention of his title, but it was gone almost as quickly as it had come.
“When there is need,” he responded. “Winter nights are long around these parts, and when ye havenae much to do than sit by the fire, ye read a good book.”
She traced the rim of a leather spine. “So ye read a lot. Is that what ye’re telling me?”
“Ye daenae rule a castle by being dumb. Plus, I read some of these books for Stella.”
Emma’s lungs seized. “Daenae tell me ye read these books for yer child.”
“Nae all of them,” he responded. “Sometimes I read Ramsay’s songs first, then the gentler pieces, though she likes the sound more than the sense. When she hears the line repeat, she laughs and tries to say it back.”
Emma turned her head a little at that, trying to imagine him reading to Stella by the fire in the Great Hall. The picture was so breathtaking that she couldn’t speak for a beat.
He stepped around her and took down a small, worn book.
“Here,” he said. “Drummond. Read the first line.”
She opened it at a marked page and found the line he meant. Her voice stayed low, careful not to push too deep into the silence.
The poem was about sleep and mercy and how the two of them can be intertwined. She could feel Jack’s eyes on her the entire time as she read, and it unsettled her. Eventually, she closed the book and met his gaze.
“Ye ken these better than I do.”
“I ken what I have needed.” He shrugged. “Some men keep hounds to cool their tempers. I keep pages.”
She tried a smile and found it held. “Ye surprise me.”
He placed the book in her hand again, this time letting his fingers touch hers a breath longer than necessary. “Good,” he said. “I wouldnae like to be plain.”
She swallowed. “And what is it ye expect me to do here, exactly?”
“Choose something,” he suggested. “Show me what ye love. Or what ye think ye might love one day.”
She let out a laugh, quiet and short. “That is a trick question.”
“It is a fair one,” he said.
She turned back to the shelves to hide the heat on her face. Then she moved along the wood and stopped at a thin volume with no title on the back. When she eased it out, she found a small collection of Sìleas na Ceapaich in a careful hand, the Scots on one page and the Gaelic on the other.
She ran a finger over the neat letters. “Who made this copy?”
“Me maither’s nurse,” he replied. “Her braither wrote the Gaelic down. She wrote the Scots beside it for the castle.”
“It is fine work,” Emma said. “A lullaby here.”
“Aye,” he said. “We sing that one to Stella as well.”
Silence fell over them for a moment, and at that point, Emma could almost hear her own heartbeat.
She knew Jack had moved closer because the air shifted.
She did not step away. She told herself she did not need to turn, and she did not.
She kept her eyes on the page and felt him in the small space at her shoulder.
He was there. Like an angel on her shoulder. Or the devil, depending on how the night went.
“I suppose I have underestimated ye a lot.”
“Ye thought I had little time for words,” he said softly.
“I did,” she admitted. “And I suppose I was wrong.”
He let that hang between them. “Could ye be wrong about anything else, Emma?”
She let the book close in her palm. “Perhaps.”
“What else will I need to prove?” he asked.
She kept her eyes steady on him. “Ye are really serious about this, are ye nae?”
He nodded. “More than anything.”
A slow breath escaped her lips as she replaced the book on the shelf. For the next half a minute, there was nothing but silence. Nothing but the light dancing across his shirt, the outline of his body, and his hands tucked in his fitted pockets.
Emma swallowed and cleared her throat, feeling the heat return to her face.
“Shall we move on?” she asked, her throat burning.