“I’ll be toiling in the fields with the menfolk.”
It was a good thing I’d chewed and swallowed my bite of muffin because I burst out laughing.
“Why are you laughing at the thought of my doing an honest day’s labor?”
“Because I think what you’ll really be doing is drinking a lot of wine,” I said, still giggling. “Not that I have anything against that sort of toiling. But mostly I’m laughing at the way you said it, with your upper-crust British accent, so erudite and sophisticated.”
“Now why does that sound like an insult?” he asked, his lips twisting into a wry smile.
“You know it’s not,” I said, scooting my chair closer and touching his cheek. “Your erudite sophistication is just one more reason why I love you.”
“You’ve managed to save yourself this time,” he grumbled. “Pulling the ‘I love you’ card.”
I rested my head against his arm. “It’s my favorite card.”
“Mine, too.”
“So what’s going on in the fields today? They’re not starting the harvest yet, are they?”
“Not yet. We’re going to walk the fields and check the grapes. Determine which area they’ll harvest first.”
“There will be wine, I know.”
“It’s part of the job.” He stood, carried his dishes to the sink, and returned to the table. Taking hold of my hands, he lifted me from the chair and planted a delicious kiss on my lips. “I’ve got to be off. Think of me toiling under the hot sun, won’t you?”
“I will. Mm, I can already picture you with your shirt off, all tanned and hot and sweaty and—”
“You have an evil streak,” he whispered, effectively cutting me off as he kissed my neck and the back of my ear. Happy chills skittered through me as his lips made contact with my skin. I barely kept from melting into a puddle on the tile floor when he let me go.
I looked up and caught his self-satisfied smile. With a friendly stroke of my hair, he chuckled and walked out the door.
*
I brought Charlie with me to Abraham’s studio to give her an intriguing new space in which to play. She prowled and sniffed every inch of the workshop while I set myself up at the center table, spreading out my tools before studying the job before me.
My friend Ian McCullough, the head curator at the Covington Library in San Francisco, had given me a three-volume set of medical books to refurbish. The subject matter was pathological anatomy, and this set was the first English edition, published in 1772. The cloth bindings were in bad shape with tearing along the edges of the spine and joints. The front covers were rubbed down to the boards. The gilded titles on the spine had faded completely.
The set wouldn’t be put on display, but because it was historically significant to researchers, it would be available in the library. For that reason, Ian had asked me to replace the old cloth binding with sturdy leather.
I’d asked him to specify exactly how sturdy he wanted the leather to be, an important consideration when price was the main factor. Cowhide, for example, was generally the cheapest and most durable leather used in bookbinding, but it wasn’t as pretty as goatskin or calfskin. It was also a little more difficult to work with because it wasn’t quite as supple and thin as the more expensive hides. But again, because of the historical significance of the books, Ian chose to go with the high-quality, moderately priced navy blue morocco leather I’d suggested. With gold tooling on the spines, the books would be both handsome and somber, as befitted their subject matter.
Replacing cloth with leather was going to be a relatively simple job. The tricky part would be to make sure all three books remained a matched set when I was finished with the repair. The key was finding a piece of leather big enough for three books—or having two or more pieces with all the same characteristics dyed exactly the same color. Since the leather I’d chosen had come from one hide—and therefore been tanned and dyed at the same time—it wouldn’t be an issue. I’d just have to make sure the gilding and binding were perfectly matched as well. I didn’t foresee any problems.
Since volume three was the least damaged of the set, I decided to repair it first.
The cloth covering the spine was in sad shape, dangling by threads along the front joint. It was an easy job to cut away the rest of it and trim off the loose bits. I measured and cut a piece of thin cardboard to use as a spine liner, about the weight of a manila folder, and attached it to the spine with PVA glue. This would provide a more solid base for my raised bands than the original threadbare spine.