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T he Duke of Glanmore’s library was paradise.

Emily could live out the rest of her days within these four walls and she would have the happiest of lives.

There were enough books lining every available surface that she need not ever read the same one twice or even read them all.

If her imagination had ever been able to envisage such a place, she would have thought it too over the top to be real.

Perhaps marrying the duke would not be as bad as she thought, not if being his wife gave one access to this magical place.

The long lines of books were far superior to any bookshop Emily had ever stepped inside, the smell of leather so intoxicating she could almost imagine that she’d had too much wine.

So, it was utterly unfathomable to Emily that, instead of pulling books from the shelves and greedily devouring the words inside, she was thinking about Freddie Dashworth.

She could sense him move to a corner of the room, away from her, and presently she heard the sound of a heavy book being pulled from a shelf.

There was a gentle thud, suggesting he’d placed it carefully on a table, but she didn’t turn to look at him to check.

It was bad enough that he was occupying her thoughts; she did not need to see him when there were so many books to look at .

She ran her fingers along the edge of a shelf, staring unseeingly at the rigid spines in front of her.

No matter all this knowledge in front of her, all she could see was the quiet devastation in Freddie’s eyes when he’d called books boring.

She couldn’t make sense of it. Freddie, who was always teasing, always laughing and always trading gentle insults with her, had never given her any indication that he felt anything below the surface of his handsome smile.

And yet… as soon as he’d insulted books his face had dropped, the light in his eyes dying and his shoulders hitching, almost as if he were stricken about what he’d said. She could not work him out.

There was the distinct rustle of paper being turned coming from the direction in which he had disappeared, and she risked a glance in his direction.

He was turning pages in a large book, too quickly to be reading the words on the page, but he did have the air of a man absorbed in the scene before him.

They were so frequently at odds that she tended only to look at his expressive face.

He was popular with the ladies and she had always put that down to his eyes.

They were wide, framed with dark lashes and constantly appeared to be laughing.

Once he caught your gaze with them, it was very hard to turn away.

Now, objectively speaking obviously, she could see that his body was as interesting as his face.

He was tall, his long legs folded beneath the chair, his upper body leaned on the table and even in rest, she could see how strong he was.

He slowly turned a page and her attention was brought to his long fingers, and that strange sensation in her stomach took hold again.

The one that she’d put down to nerves but was perhaps something far more disturbing.

She turned back to the shelves, pulling a book down at random before she could dwell on it any longer.

Freddie, his behaviour and his body were not things she needed to ponder.

She put the book back on the shelf and moved further into the room, searching for the historical section.

She was sure the duke would have a good selection and he did not disappoint.

One entire wall was dedicated to the subject.

A title on the history of the Roman Empire held her attention.

She stood, leaning against the shelf as she read through the first few pages.

She could have stayed there all day, but she couldn’t properly relax and that had nothing to do with the wood digging into her arm and everything to do with Freddie.

Even as she scanned the information in the book, she couldn’t shake the urge to go and see what title it was that held his interest.

He had made his position on books very clear both today and in the past. He thought reading was a boring waste of time and that anyone who did it as a pastime was unbelievably dull, which, of course, included her.

And yet, he was so interested in the pages he’d been looking at that he had not noticed her perusal of him, something he would have been bound to comment on, had he known.

She had to know what it was about, had to know what held his attention.

She tucked the book she’d been reading under her arm and tiptoed over to the place where she’d last seen Freddie. She found him still at the same table, the book to one side as he moved over a large piece of paper, a fierce frown of concentration on his face.

‘Freddie,’ she whispered, stepping closer to him.

He didn’t look up, carrying on with what he was doing with an intensity she had never seen in him before.

There was something about the way he was holding himself that suggested he had forgotten she was even in the room, and she was loath to remind him.

Not because she didn’t want to engage him in conversation but because she had never seen him look like this; she wondered if anyone had.

He was intensely focused on the paper in front of him, a pencil gripped tightly in his hand as he sketched something.

She’d always assumed he was as happy-go-lucky and frivolous in his private life as he was in public, but now that she thought about it that was unfair.

She was not the person she pretended to be when amongst the Ton.

The person she became was her mother’s creation; the stiff dresses and rigid hairstyles were for show.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Freddie’s charm was the same, a persona he put on to hide his true self from the world.

Although that couldn’t be the truth either.

There was nothing for Freddie to hide; he was an open book, ironic given his dislike of reading.

The man she thought she knew would not concentrate with such focused attention.

Something unpleasant squirmed in her stomach as it dawned on her she had judged him harshly.

She was always the brunt of her mother’s criticisms and had thought that she would never do the same to another person and yet she had when it came to Freddie.

Yes, he had goaded her mercilessly, but she had been equally at fault.

As she watched him, his pencil slowed until it stopped altogether. Even though she had not made a sound since uttering his name, he had finally become aware of her watching him. Slowly, he straightened, the tips of his ears turning a bright red as he stared straight ahead.

For a long moment, she gazed at him, unsure of what to do or say.

She cleared her throat.

He cleared his throat.

She rubbed the tips of her fingers together.

He dropped the pencil, the wood clattering against the surface of the table.

She needed to say something before this became even stranger; the way they were both clearing their throats made them sound like frogs.

Even knowing that, she still did it one more time and then…

she couldn’t help it, she started to grin.

It wasn’t a ladylike smile, the one her mother told her was most becoming of a woman of her stature.

But now that it was started, she couldn’t stop.

It bloomed out of her until it was as if her whole body were the smile .

He turned and caught sight of her. Heat burned her skin, but she couldn’t stop her smile, which was now so wide, her cheeks hurt. His eyes widened and she sniggered. She clapped her hand to her mouth to stop the sound from emerging, but it was too late.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered through her fingers. ‘I don’t know what is wrong with me.’

‘Perhaps it is the sight of me doing something that resembles work,’ he said dryly.

‘Oh no, not at all.’ All her humour fled; she didn’t want to ruin this moment.

Even though she didn’t know what he was doing, she could tell that it was something precious to him and, for reasons she didn’t truly understand, she wanted to be the person with whom he shared this private side of himself.

‘I was laughing at how strange we were being. I do not understand why I suddenly could think of nothing to say. May I see what you were doing?’

She stepped forward but paused as the redness stole over his cheeks.

She’d never have thought it possible, but it appeared that Freddie was embarrassed.

She knew what it was like to be criticised for something you enjoyed.

Yes, she would tease him and poke at him in response to the way he was with her, and she would do that until the end of time, but she would not make fun of something important to him and it devastated her that he would think that she would.

So, she threw years of etiquette training to one side and walked briskly to his side.

His hand moved instinctively over the paper, as if trying to hide it; a pointless task because it was rather large.

She stood patiently, waiting in silence.

If he told her to go, she would not argue but he said nothing.

Eventually, and ever so slowly, he leaned back, his arms dragging across the table until his hands dropped into his lap.

He let out a sigh that suggested he was world-weary with the whole thing, but there was something about the way his shoulders were braced, as if he was expecting her to criticise and he was protecting himself from it.

It reminded her of herself when she was waiting for her mother’s judgements to fall.

A surge of protectiveness swept through her and she knew that whatever she saw on this paper, she was going to praise, even if it was random lines.