Page 11

Chapter eleven

Beatrice

Beatrice spent the rest of the day happily ensconced in her new library, a purring dragon on her lap and a book in her hands.

She could hardly believe that it belonged to her, that this was her new home, that she was now Lady Dunham. But she wasn't going to question it at the moment—not when she had a room full of hundreds, if not thousands, of books to explore.

It was dinnertime before Guinevere came and fetched her, and she reluctantly left the room to join Alexander for the meal. But she hurried back to the library as soon as the meal was over, curling up in the large chair in the corner—perfectly situated for tearing into a good book—and picking up the romance novel she'd found.

Maybe her first choice of a book to read, out of all the options in this huge library, should not have been a romance. But at the same time, she didn’t think anyone else was going to care what she read, and reading a romance made her happy. So why wouldn’t she?

Her life as Lady Dunham was beginning to feel like a fairytale romance of her own, despite how it had begun.

So surely there was no harm in reading a romance novel.

It wasn’t long before she looked up to find Guinevere smiling at her with an indulgent smile and a candlestick in her hand. The windows were no longer letting in much light, and she had been reading in near darkness for far too long.

“Hello,” she said to the maid with an unrepentant grin.