“Mr. Vanderbilt always wanted them nearby because he loved them so well.”
Her pink bottom lip dropped. “Do you mean he loved fairy tales too?”
“Oh yes, he had one of the best imaginations of all, even though you couldn’t always tell it from his very proper behavior. Sometimes, my mother said, he’d get a far-off look in his eyes as if he was dreaming something wonderful, and we knew he was likely thinking about one of his very own fairy tales filled with these mountains he loved so much.”
“You know a lot about books.” She sighed as if I’d won some sort of award in her mind.
This little girl and I would get along quite well. “It’s my job to know about the books at Biltmore. I tend them.” I leaned close, lowering my voice. “And I love books too.”
Her dimples emerged again and she studied me quite intently. “Who are you?”
“My name is Sadie Blackwell and I tend the library.”
She studied my uniform. “You don’t act like a servant.”
“Don’t I?”
She shook her head. “All of our servants are either sad all the time or have nothing to say. I’ve tried to talk to them for years and they barely answer with one word.”
“Ah, well, not all servants know what to say to people.”
“How come you do?”
“You and I are kindred spirits, so I think we understand one another better. And, I daresay, we both believe in magic.” I offered her a wink. “What do you think?”
Her grin emerged again and she turned to the bookshelf. “My name is Victoria, like the queen, but my brother calls me Vicky.”
“You have a very special name then, don’t you?”
She nodded and reached for two of the books, both with the most elaborately decorated spines. My lips twitched into another smile. Yes, I would have chosen those exact ones for her. The illustrations were unparalleled.
“My brother says I am the princess of the house.”
“It sounds as though your brother has an imagination too.” I closed the glass door and tapped the top book in her hands. “This one happens to be my favorite because it holds twenty entire fairy tales, all with some of the best colored illustrations I’ve ever seen. You can practically feel the ocean breeze blow off the page in the story of The Little Mermaid.”
Victoria’s wide eyes sparkled. “Oh, I can’t wait to read it straightaway. It looks very magical.”
“I should like to see that book too, I think.”
The male voice, soft to match our whispers, emerged from behind me and sent a wave of warm tingles up my spine. I squeezed my eyes closed. Being “seen” by a child was one thing, but by an adult?
“Sadie helped me find the best books in the whole house.” Victoria’s exaggeration kept to a whisper. “With color illustrations. She knows everything about all the books because they are her special work.”
“Are they now?”
I stood from my crouched position and readied my rebuttal, but when I turned, I stood face-to-face with Oliver Camden, the Book Goblin.
My throat closed around my breath. Victoria was his little sister? Oh dear, how much had he heard of our conversation?
“Perfect books are difficult to find.” His eyes narrowed, slightly. “It takes a special sort to uncover them.”
I attempted a retreating step but my body failed to comply, so I stood frozen like one of the marble statues in the Italian garden outside. Guests rarely spoke to me. Male guests even less. And young, handsome ones? Never. My mind went blank.
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you helped my sister locate one.” He took a few steps forward, his gaze searching mine, his smile slipping from his lips. “It’s easy for young ones to feel left out in a party such as this.”
His words failed to match his expression, as if he meant to convey something else, something unspoken. I lowered my gaze, my face aflame at how long I’d stared at him. “It is my pleasure, sir.” I slid my attention to Victoria. “Our conversation was delightful.”
“She loves fairy tales too. Just like you and me, Ollie.”
I felt his gaze on me. My throat burned with awareness.
“And what are her thoughts on Sherlock Holmes?”
My attention came up at the question, which was a mistake, because those ghostly blue eyes, so much like his sister’s, captured mine. His lips crooked into a grin and, for some reason, my breathing squeezed to a stop all over again. Look away. Look down.
The dinner bell rang in the distance and voices murmured from the sitting room in response.
“Come, Vicky, run on to dinner.” Oliver Camden nudged his sister ahead of him, but his feet didn’t move. He stood so close, I caught scents of vanilla. “I think we deserve a proper introduction, don’t you?”
My gaze rose against my will, curiosity overriding propriety. One of his brows rose. “Oliver Camden, The Book Goblin.” He offered a hand, and when I didn’t immediately move, he took my limp fingers into his own. “And you are?”
Should I answer? Victoria could tell him, but the entreaty in his gaze pulled against my sensibilities. “Sadie Blackwell.”
His teeth flashed with his smile before he returned to a more neutral expression. The little hint of his delight inspired something beautiful and deep to awaken in my heart. “Sadie Blackwell,” he repeated and offered a slight bow. “It truly is a pleasure to meet another…kindred spirit.”
And with that, he disappeared around the corner of the hall and I collapsed back against the bookshelf, only noting a few minutes later that his comment about kindred spirits was a parrot of my conversation with Victoria near the very beginning of our discourse. So the clever Book Goblin had been following our conversation for longer than a few seconds.
I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that.
About any of it.
And what exactly I was supposed to do with the feelings I wasn’t supposed to feel…especially when I was trying to help Miss Lorraine
