Page 10 of Half Agony, Half Hope

A laugh burst out of Corvus before he could help himself.

Pearl’s hand immediately flew to her hip as she prepared to express her affront. Then she took in the sight of Corvus with a stack of books up to his eyeballs, and she joined in with a laugh of her own. “Perhaps I may have gotten a tiny bit carried away…”

Setting the books down on a nearby table, Corvus replied “I’ll admit I don’t do much leisure reading. Why don’t you just show me your favorite, and I’ll start there?”

But rather than this question lighting a fire within her, Pearl’s expression turned shy. Something he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen on her face before. She led him slowly back through the shelves and placed a book in his hands. He recognized the author’s name although he’d never heard of this title. It appeared to be an old Regency Era book.

Confused, Corvus asked, “Why didn’t you show me this one before?”

“Because reading is so personal, and while I adore this book you might hate it, and that would break my heart. I could bear it if you hated all the other ones I recommended.”

“And why do you love this one?”

Pearl took the book back and pulled it to her chest as though shielding herself from censure. “Because it’s beautiful. It’s about love and second chances and growing as a person beyond the circumstances and prejudices in which you’ve been raised and it has the most beautiful love letter ever written. I’m convinced that if it doesn’t make you swoon, you don’t have a heart.”

“Doesn’t she have another one that’s more famous than this?”

Corvus could swear he saw Pearl shiver. “This is why it’s so hard to talk about books with people who don’t read. They don’t know anything.”

Now it was Corvus’ turn to be affronted. “I read! It’s not like I’m some unwashed cretin who just crawled out of a cave.”

All that earned him was an eye roll. “Excuse me. This is why it’s so hard to talk about books with people who ‘don’t do much leisure reading.’” She mimicked his accent, and Corvus prayed that he didn’t sound quite that posh. “Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s most famous work, and it is incredibly good, but Persuasion is by far my favorite, which again goes back to preferences. While most people love Pride and Prejudice, and I adore Persuasion, you might like Mansfield Park best, but I will warn you, I would judge you most severely if you did.”

“Maybe I’ll read that one instead.” Corvus scanned the shelf quickly so he could pick the book up and wave it about.

Pearl wrinkled her nose in disgust as it came near her, and Corvus was almost embarrassed by how endearing he found it. It made him want to tease her incessantly to see it again. “No, please don’t. I shouldn’t have given you the idea. The main character falls madly in love with her first cousin, who is frankly useless as a love interest even if he weren’t her cousin, judges everyone from her moral high horse, complains incessantly about everything, is just generally insufferable, and you have the great misfortune of living inside her head for several hundred pages. It’s the only Austen I haven’t finished.”

Hand to his chest in mock affront, Corvus teased, “Well, now I must read it. This is why I don’t talk to people who haven’t finished reading all of Jane Austen’s works. Just no taste whatsoever.”

Smiling indulgently, Pearl plucked the book out of Corvus’ hands. “I won’t stop you, but you’ll get no sympathy when you come crying to me about how Fanny Price is the limpest dishrag of a protagonist you’ve ever encountered.”

Corvus could never have imagined getting turned on in a bookstore, and yet here he was watching this beautiful woman gesticulating wildly about a book character who was a limp dishrag with fire in her eyes, and he wanted to push her against a book shelf and kiss her senseless.

“You can, you know.”

Pearl’s words pulled Corvus out of his daydream, and he was sure he must have missed something she said. “Can what?”

A mischievous smile spread over her face. “Kiss me.”

Mouth dropping open in shock, Corvus could only think of one explanation for her prescience. “Are you a mind reader?” It was an incredibly rare ability about which little was known, and it was a disconcerting thought to think she might have known every stupid thought that passed through his brain.

“You were practically licking your lips just now - it didn’t take magic to figure it out.”

Corvus made a hasty attempt to salvage the situation. “Well, perhaps you interpreted my expressions incorrectly. I am a gentleman after all. I was merely listening to what you were saying with great attention.”

“What if what I was saying was ‘Kiss me, Corvus. Right here in this bookstore. It’s one of the most romantic things I can think of, and it just might earn you a second date.’”

Affronted by the idea he needed to earn anything, Corvus' response was out of his mouth without much thought behind it. “I don’t need to earn anything.”

Pearl just laughed as she walked away. “Suit yourself.” And as he followed her, he cursed his stupid pride.

They wandered through the store for a couple of hours. They went to the children’s section, and picked out their favorite books from their childhoods and read them to each other. Corvus felt a bit silly until Pearl held his hand and smiled up at him like there was nowhere she’d rather be. That was worth feeling a bit silly. She then further impressed upon him her complete disregard for what anyone thought when she proceeded to do voices as she read him some horror story she claimed was a children’s book about millions of cats fighting to the death and eating each other. When he pointed out the fact that perhaps this was too dark for children, she argued it was a masterpiece and the oldest children’s picture book still in print. Then Corvus somehow found himself waxing lyrical about Paddington Bear, as Pearl had never read any of them as a child. Soon thereafter, he found himself pulled along through other parts of the bookstore, and every time Pearl touched a book or mentioned one she had been wanting to read, Corvus tucked it under his arm with Persuasion. When she finally realized what he was doing, Pearl chastised him. “Corvus, you don’t have to buy me anything - and certainly not that many things.”

Affronted, he answered with fervor. “What kind of man would I be if I took a woman on a date to a bookstore and didn’t buy her any books? What a ridiculous notion. Like taking someone to a cake shop and not buying them any cake.” Pearl didn’t argue, and as she turned away, Corvus caught her smiling from ear to ear.

However, as time went on, Corvus caught Pearl looking at him more and more. “If I have something on my face, please just put me out of my misery and tell me.”

Caught red handed, Pearl laughed nervously. “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just - we can go somewhere else. I know following me around a bookstore is not usually most people’s idea of a good time.”