Finally she stuttered, “Yes. Yes. It was quite good.”
Booth laughed, a reassuring deep sound, as he clasped her kindly on the back. “Quite good. That’s one way to describe it. I like you, Wendy. Would you like to see the rest of the store?”
She smiled. “Yes.”
Booth carefully took the books from her arms and set them on a shelf behind him. “Don’t worry; no one will steal them here. No one ever comes back to this corner of the store.” Then he took her hand, curling his fingers around her small palm. “C’mon!”
Looking around the store now, almost a woman, Wendy remembered that long-ago moment when Booth had taken her hand. Maybe she was just imagining it, but even then, she had felt her senses shudder, as if someone had turned a key inside of her.
Mr. Whitfield returned to her now, dragging one leg behind him slightly. Wendy frowned. “Is your leg bothering you again?”
“Ah. It’s nothing. It’s just the autumn coming nearer; it always gets stiff this time of year.”
Wendy knew from Booth that Mr. Whitfield’s leg was prone to infection and spasms. “I’ll have Mama send you over some ointment.”
“Nonsense, child! I’m fine. Here, take this book.” He put the novel into Wendy’s palms. “Well, knowing you, you will need to have a long conversation with Booth about what book he recommends, although may I remind you that your parents are probably missing you.” Wendy heard the slightest bit of reprimand in his voice.
“I’d like to see Booth if that’s all right, sir.”
Mr. Whitfield shook his head. “You two spend too much time together. I tell you, that boy. He insists on taking over the accounting for the store, even though I’m perfectly capable, and just this week he reorganized the travel atlases without asking me. I’ve had it, I tell you!”
Wendy couldn’t hide her smile. Mr. Whitfield had probably never been cross with Booth in his life. Both father and son were loving and bighearted, and their arguments tended to last seconds, unlike the time Wendy had pulled out a clump of John’s hair, or John had bit Wendy on her upper arm. Wendy longed to belong to both Whitfields, but in very different ways.
“I’ll see myself up. Is he in his room?”
The bookseller stared at her for a long moment before nodding and heading over to greet another customer. Wendy squinted toward the door, making sure it wasn’t her parents, or any of her parents’ many friends, before making her way to the steep staircase in the middle of the store. Gripping the wood railings on both sides, she climbed the precipitous ladder that vaulted her up into the storage area of the bookstore, a dusty attic that housed crates of books, journals, and the bookkeeping records. Wendy ducked her way past the cobwebs, their location so familiar to her now, past the cutouts of Father Christmas and his woodland creatures that decorated the store every Christmas, past bins of unused journals and fountain pens, their ostrich feathers caked in dust. She stopped when she came to his door, willing herself to breathe, the words of his letter echoing in her head. She knew that once she crossed this threshold, everything would be different. Beyond that door was something so unfamiliar to her, a desire, something that she had always wanted but never dared to express, for how could she? Booth looking at her with those knowing eyes made her heart race. When had he turned from a boy who chased her through stacks of books into this, a man who seemed to peer right through her? Who was this boy to make her feel such desperation to be near him? Wendy was sure she knew who she was—she was a Darling, proud and privileged, a good girl and a good Catholic, Michael’s older sister, her father’s second-favorite child, a lover of the stars. She raised her gloved palms and laid them against the door, centering herself for just a second more . . .
The door flew open, and Booth stood before her.
A long exhale escaped his full lips as he looked at her with surprise. “You came.”
“I did.”
Wendy had to duck her head down to enter his room, which was little more than a bed between two slanted eaves of the roof. She looked down at his unmade bed and felt a blush rise to her face. “Booth, I . . .”
“Wait.”