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There, hiding behind a hideously monstrous hearth that he used for cooking, was a little nook with an oak door. He took a key hanging on the wall and unlocked the door.
Victoria peeked inside the dark space and glanced at William. He waved his hand. “Please, proceed.”
She walked into the narrow corridor, only to realize it was a stairwell leading downstairs.
The sound of a striking tinderbox was followed by the faint light of a candle. William held the lantern out before Victoria and tilted his chin. “Go on now.”
Victoria followed a winding staircase downstairs until she stopped by the large wooden door. She pushed it forward and was welcomed by a gust of cool air. Victoria stepped inside and looked around. The room was small and empty of any furniture save for some shelves and chests. He opened some of them and showed off his collection of cheeses and butter. A couple of loaves of bread were wrapped in a cloth as well. And there were some other things wrapped and stored that Victoria didn’t have the mettle to explore.
William puffed out his chest. “So, if there’s a time you are hungry, you can go down here and use whatever you want. There’s bread and cheese, jam and pickled vegetables, dried and smoked meat on this side and…” He paused. “This section contains raw foods that, unless you know how to cook, are better avoided.”
Victoria glanced at the food briefly, but her eyes were on her husband. Something had changed when he’d entered the room, as if his eyes lit up with, dare she say, pride? He looked so smug as if he was showing off a room full of gold. And a part of Victoria, that part in the middle of her body, warmed and tumbled at this look in his eyes.
That twinkle in his eyes was almost boyish. It wasn’t arrogant or self-satisfied. It was like a window that briefly opened into his soul, and to Victoria’s surprise, that soul wasn’t pitch black and full of anger.
And that little realization tipped her off-balance. Unwilling to decipher her feelings further, she opted to change the direction of her thoughts. “So,” she asked instead with a raised brow. “Never?”
He looked at her with evident confusion on his face. “Never, what?”
“You have never lived with anyone before?”
William frowned. “Well, no. I suppose not. Obviously, I lived with a…” He cleared his throat. “With my mother as a child. And then with a friend. But that was a long time ago.”
His face became grave, and Victoria had an inexplicable urge to pull him back into a lighter mood, to a mood where he was boyishly proud of himself—or if not that, then at least to his regular flirtatious charm. Victoria placed her hands on her hips. “Really? You were a child? You didn’t just sprout into adulthood forged out of hellfire?”
Luckily, her ploy worked, and William chuckled. “Sometimes I wish I had. Come. Let’s continue with the tour.”
Victoria gave him a sidelong glance as he waved his hand for her to proceed. “There’s more?”
That’s when his smug facial expression returned. “Of course, there’s more. Do you think I brought you here just to showcase bread and cheese?”
Victoria smiled and trotted in front of him. “I was hoping for more bread and cheese.”
William placed his hand on the small of her back as she passed him, guiding her toward yet another door. His hand burned her skin through the layers of her gown, and yet shivers covered her body. Only William ever had that effect on her. A part of her hated it, but another part of her… felt comfortable with the familiarity of this feeling.
He led her through a heavy wooden door into a room she’d never expected to see in this little tower. A library!
The room brimmed with shelves from top to bottom, filled with books of various sizes and colors. The room was small, like every room in this place, and there was barely enough space to walk between the shelves, let alone sit and read. But that didn’t matter to Victoria.
She had a library!
The air carried the intoxicating scent of aged paper and leather bindings, a smell that never failed to bring her back to the memory of her childhood.
“Here.” William handed her a lantern. “Feel free to explore.”
As Victoria stepped into the room, her eyes widened in awe. She couldn’t help but smile, her fingers running over the spines of the books as she walked through the shelves. Some books were familiar, others were not, and some were—she paused and made sure she wasn’t dreaming—some of the tomes were in Russian!
Her heart skipped a beat.
She had missed the language dearly. Ever since she had left Russia, the only source of the language was the books she had carried with her and the letters her sister had sent her.
Victoria missed her childhood language so much that tears burned in the back of her eyes.
She reached out and ran her fingers gently over the titles in Cyrillic script, tracing the familiar characters with a smile.
Victoria felt as though she had been given a precious gift, a sanctuary where she could reconnect with her roots, even if just for a brief moment. She turned to her husband, gratitude, and joy dancing in her eyes. “Spasibo,” she whispered, her voice filled with emotion, thanking him in the language she cherished.
William shrugged in his nonchalant way. “You’re welcome.”
