Kissing the Enemy by Leighann Dobbs & Harmony Williams

Author:Leighann Dobbs & Harmony Williams [Dobbs, Leighann & Williams, Harmony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leighann Dobbs Publishing

Chapter Fifteen

The cooler air of the corridor granted Freddie clarity. Without Tristan nearby to muddle her senses, she was able to focus on his real aim in lavishing attention upon her. To distract her from her mission, to thwart her from finding the code book.

She clenched her hands. “Not today.”

Instead of making her way toward the wide marble steps leading to the guest wing, she turned toward the library. With Tristan occupied, this might be the only chance she would find to search it without being subjected to his scrutiny.

By now, the path was imprinted on her mind like rote. She kept to the center of the runner, her footsteps muffled as she avoided the fragile items on pedestals along the hall. She held her breath, for fear of drawing someone’s attention if she exhaled too hard. Although she passed several servants as she walked, they each stepped to the side to let her pass without comment.

At last, she reached the library door. She ran her fingers over the wood for a moment before grasping the handle. If this journey had been different, she might have been able to lose herself in one of the many magnificent books beyond this door.

She gritted her teeth and chided herself. Stop it. You can’t afford to be fanciful. If she was wishing her life to be different, she might as well wish Harker out of it. And she knew exactly how to do that.

Inside the library, a fire burned in the wide hearth. The air was stale with cheroot smoke, a bit bitter of a smell. The armchairs, facing the fire, were vacant. All around the room, shelf after shelf of books soared as far as her eye could see.

“How am I supposed to find the book in here?”

That would be the point, a clever way of concealing the sensitive code book in plain sight. She squared her shoulders and decided to start to the left of the door. The two stories of wall-to-wall bookcases taunted her, but she refused to shy away from a bit of hard work.

Harker had told her that the book she sought was encased in red-dyed leather, the size of a pocket book with a gold seal on the front. She hadn’t thought to ask what the seal would depict. Hopefully, she didn’t find two books that met that description.

Looking around the room, filled with books primarily brown, she laughed. It was a low, bitter sound. She would be lucky if she found one book meeting that description, let alone two.

You’ll never find it if you don’t search. She crouched to start on the lowest shelf, running her fingers over the spines as she searched for a slim red volume. As she found no such volume, she moved her way up the shelves to the top, beneath the shadow of the balcony ringing the room. Although she was tall, the topmost books eluded her. She needed the ladder. She dropped the ladder on her foot and nearly toppled one of the shelves, but eventually wrestled it into place beside the door.

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