Page 34 of Consort's Glory
Margot stoodin front of a heavy wood door and smoothed her trembling hands down her thighs. Andy quickly procured several pieces of borrowed, very elvish clothing for her, but only a handful fit her significantly shorter-than-the-average-elf frame. A soft, fitted gray dress with a high cowl collar and black tights weren’t exactly exciting, but Margot was happy to have them. Anything was better than her bloody dress.
But the change of clothes and second, scalding shower didn’t wipe away the nerves she felt when confronted with the door to Theodore’s study.
Margot finger-combed her hair back behind her ears self-consciously, her throat bobbing. It was impossible, but she swore she could feel him just beyond the wood, his energy buzzing against her hypersensitive nerves.
She wanted to go in. Desperately. She wanted to open that door and see him behind some fancy glass desk, his head bent over a file or a tablet, and…
And what?
She didn’t have the answer. Margot didn’t have the answers to anything anymore. Her whole world went up in smoke with the Healing House. Now nothing made sense, and the only thing that felt right was being near Theodore — even when she wanted nothing more than to snap her teeth at him.
It was an impulse she didn’t understand, but Margot was smart enough to know that instinct had a mind of its own. Perhaps, under all the trappings of his position, her instincts understood what she didn’t: that Theodore truly didn’t wish her any harm.
Either way, she needed to knock on the door.
Sucking a deep breath, Margot straightened her spine and gave the door two sharp knocks.
“You’re always welcome, darling.”
Darling. The endearment made her flush to the roots of her hair. People had given her nicknames before, of course, but she usually endured them with a stiff smile. Short-stuff. Pixie. Sunshine. All of them cute, but with the edge of something patronizing that she couldn’t quite get past.
But darling…
Darling was old-world. Classy. It was what a besotted husband called his wife in one of those ancient entertainment feeds, and for reasons she couldn’t parse, it made her want to bite her lip and hold her breath until the butterflies in her stomach stopped their flapping.
Margot wasn’t about to let him see that, though. Who knew what havoc a man like Theodore Solbourne could wreak with that kind of knowledge?
The door opened silently, its hinges perfectly oiled, and revealed a room that made her forget all about butterflies.
“Oh,” she breathed, stepping inside. The toes of her flats nudged a thick, expensive carpet as she admired the floor to ceiling bookshelves that framed the room. They were crammed full of rare printed books — not the recycled kind that everyone else had, but the real, virgin-paper kind. The kinds with old-school leather and thread bindings, too. All of them were lovingly encased in glass panels, keeping out anything that might damage their delicate and infinitely precious contents.
“I should have guessed you like books.”
Theodore’s voice drew her attention to the far end of the room, where a behemoth, live edge desk dominated. It stood out sharply against the massive windows. Outside, a gloom had settled over the choppy waters.
Theodore cut an imposing figure against the backdrop of dark clouds and white-capped waves. His hair was mussed, disheveled in ways that spoke of fingers and frustration, but a smile lingered around his lush mouth as he leaned back in his chair to watch her take in all his treasures.
“Of course I like books,” she replied, for the moment ignoring the way his gaze made every bit of magic in her veins buzz. “Who doesn’t?”
“Only fools.” Theodore rested his chin on one of his palms. His expression was warm, indulgent. “Do you want to look at some of them?”
Margot took half a step toward the nearest shelf before she managed to stop herself. “No, I couldn’t. They’re too delicate. I’d hate to damage them.”
“You won’t.”
He rose from behind his desk slowly. The wheels of his luxurious office chair made soft clicking noises over the hardwood floor as he pushed it backwards and circled the huge, polished desk. “This is a small part of the Solbourne Archives, you know,” he told her. “Just the stuff that has sentimental value to me. If you’d like, I can show you the whole collection.”
If she’d like? Margot would have killed to see that collection — and she took an oath to never do that sort of thing!
Heartbeat stuttering with excitement, she crept closer to one wall, her eyes darting as she tried to read every title at once. “That’d be a dream come true. I swear I’ve read everything in the Collective’s library, and I’ve never had the chance to go to any of the big collections before, so if you could…”
The sentence died on her lips as she felt Theodore’s heat radiating behind her. One huge, dangerous hand settled on the curve of her lower spine. His voice was pitched low when he said, “You cannot imagine the satisfaction it would give me to make one of your dreams a reality.”
Margot swayed backward into his hand as she tried to breathe past the sudden constriction of her lungs. “You said these were the books that had sentimental value to you. What’s special about them?”
Theodore bent slightly, putting them nearly cheek to cheek when he answered, “They were my mother’s.”
Margot’s eyes widened. Oh.
