Yes, I’m sitting in the back. Meet me here.
I have a table on the third floor. Just come up the stairs and go to the right.
I have a great table. Why don’t you come back down here? she replied. She’d been hoping to arrive before he did.
We can’t eat down there and I brought a late lunch, he countered. As her stomach rumbled, she realized she’d forgotten to eat again. Food sounded fantastic. Even if she went up to the third floor, they wouldn’t be in any less of a public place. She’d still be fine.
Picking up her bag, she didn’t bother responding but made her way up the stairs. On the second level, she found the children’s section, and she smiled as she watched a man with a circle of kids around him while he read. The boys and girls were fascinated with the variety of his storytelling voices. If only she could play her different parts as well when dealing with Rafe.
Continuing over to the next flight of stairs, she went upward, then frowned as she realized she was in the stacks section, the part of the library her classmates had said they would go to when they wanted to make out with their boyfriends.
Well, this wasn’t a college campus, and if Rafe thought they were going to be doing any touching, then he had another thing coming. She was there to pore over the pages of his ancestor’s journal, take notes, and learn all that she could. She wasn’t there to get screwed on a hard table — both literally and figuratively.
When she rounded the corner and found Rafe sitting at a covered table with an elegantly presented lunch, she felt her heart speed up.
A smile crossed her face without her even thinking about it. Of course, Rafe couldn’t just bring a sandwich in a brown paper bag. That would be too pedestrian of him. And too plebeian for that dyed-in-the-cashmere aristocrat.
“You look lovely, Ari,” he said as he stood and moved to her chair, holding it out for her.
“Isn’t this a bit much for lunch in a library?” she asked while trying not to enjoy his compliment.
“Nothing is too much for you. Not ever,” he whispered against her ear, sending shivers down her spine.
“We’re here for the journal and nothing else, Rafe,” she reminded him in a breathy whisper.
“That’s what you’re here for. I have…other plans,” he said mysteriously.
“Well, put those plans away…and anything else you might be thinking about taking out that should remain hidden. We’re in public,” she reminded him as she looked at the food — an out-of-the-ordinary chicken salad, artisan rolls, exotic fruit, and small appetizers. Yum. He’d even managed to bring in a bottle of wine.
She knew she shouldn’t accept the wine, but she couldn’t resist, knowing that because he’d chosen it, it would be spectacular. How her tastes had changed since meeting him. She used to despise alcohol, and with good reason, considering the trouble it had gotten her into on more than one occasion. She still avoided anything other than wine, and she now knew how to distinguish between good wine and rotgut. This definitely wasn’t rotgut.
“We’ll have lunch, and then I’ll leave you alone for a while to study the journal,” he said, and she looked at him with suspicion. What was he up to now?
“Hey, I’m trying to compromise,” he told her as he held up his hands.
“I don’t know if I trust you, Rafe. Scratch that. I know I don’t trust you,” she said, though the lifting of her lips took away some of the sting.
“You’ll just have to learn how to trust me again,” he said, then took a bite of lunch.
“Again? I never trusted you,” she said.
He looked wounded and was slow in answering.
“I will just have to earn your trust, then. I want to earn it, and your respect, too. I want to be with you. You will soon realize how important this is to me. You will soon know I want only the best for you — for us.”
“We can’t turn back time, Rafe. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but there isn’t a magic wand available that you can just wave and — abracadabra! — the past is forgotten,” she said, and the hurt in his eyes made her feel like a heel. She was close to apologizing when he looked down and the moment was over.
They finished their lunch, keeping the topics on anything but the two of them, and Ari found herself relaxing. When they were done, a man came in and quietly removed all traces of the meal, and then Rafe pulled out the journal.
Ari gladly took it, excited to get started again. Soon she was lost in the world of William and Saphronia, and she didn’t notice when Rafe got up and left.
She also didn’t notice when the floor was closed off and she was left all alone with Rafe.
Hours passed without Ari’s notice. When most of the lights downstairs in the library went out, and they dimmed on the floor she was on, she kept on reading. She was oblivious to the rest of the world as she sank into the tragic love story between William and Saphronia.
The days creep by with an agonizing slowness, and now two full months are lost in uncertainty, nay, in terror. No word from you has reached my eager hands, and I do not know whether you are still among the living or — I cannot force my pen to write such words. Without you, my life is all confusion and woe. My father has demanded that I marry another, a man who is twenty years my senior, a man whose habits and tastes are utterly uncongenial, a man whom I could never love — even if you had not appropriated that most tender of feelings all to yourself. Father declares that this man will be able to take care of me and provide a secure life for my future children. I have expressed my love for you and you alone, but he says he would never sanction a marriage with a man who is a mere soldier and one who has cast his lot in with the North, among people who, in his words, would deprive his family and those around us of their rights and their freedom. He adds, so cruelly, that you will likely die on the field of battle or find another helpmeet with whom to spend your life, and that I am giving into silly and girlish ideas. Oh, if only a letter from you would reach me and tell me how you are and whether I am still the object of your devotion, just as you are of mine! I will never give up — not even with my dying breath.
Our rigid system of social laws should not allow me, a mere girl, even to ponder such an act as I am pondering — to leave one’s home and one’s connections is against all maidenly training. But should I come to you? Despite all the dangers of war, whither thou goest, I will go. If I hear nothing from you, then I must do just that.