Read Online Pam Rosenthal by The Bookseller's Daughter - Free Book Online Page B

needed, it seemed, but she had not the slightest notion of what it could be.
    “Don’t forget to latch the door,” he said.
    She shook her head. “No. Well…”
    He opened the door slightly and then shut it again, suddenly looking very young. Quickly and in a low voice, he said, “You were right about Monsieur X, you know. About the story that happened before the book began.”
    What in the world was he talking about?
    It came to her all at once, in a rush of delicious understanding and unrestrained laughter.
    His shoulders stiffened. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know if it’s really as funny as all that .”
    She struggled to hold back her laughter.
    “Perhaps not,” she said, “but it solves one of the two riddles that puzzled me for months. The first riddle, you see, was how a mere book porter could have ordered me about in such an imperious, aristocratic fashion.”
    “And the second?”
    “Why he should have been so excessively interested in Monsieur X.”
    He smiled sheepishly. “An author’s vanity,” he murmured.
    She returned the smile. “You’re a wonderful writer, you know. And I am—or was —one of your most devoted readers.
    “I suppose I’m still a reader in spirit,” she added.
    He nodded. “Of course you are. You’re probably the most astute reader I’ve ever had.”
    “Will you tell me how you came to write the book? And what you’re writing now? And how it felt when—”
    He laughed, putting up a graceful hand to stem the torrent of demands.
    “Yes, yes, of course. But gently, one question at a time. I’ll tell you everything. Beginning tomorrow night.
    “And thank you for the compliments.”
    Swiftly, he turned on his heel, ran down the corridor, and disappeared around a corner.
    She watched the empty air that had stirred in his wake, before shrugging, latching the door, and quickly removing her clothes.
    And so it would be quite all right to visit him, she decided. It would be a literary matter and not a personal one. After all, a bookseller—and someday she would be a bookseller again—ought to know everything she could about her authors.
    But for now, how nice it was to have the bed to herself this once. And so, stretching her limbs as far over the mattress as they’d reach, she fell into a sound, happy sleep.

Chapter Seven
    She would have to get through a very long day, however, before the night’s visit.
    It would be a day of jokes and teasing; the story of last night’s bedroom farce had spread like a forest fire whipped along by the summer mistral. If she’d been confused by the night’s events, Marie-Laure thought, she seemed to be the only person who had. Everybody else in the chateau seemed to know exactly what had transpired. And everybody wanted to talk about it.
    The servants’ breakfast coffee was particularly strong and plentiful this morning. It had made them giddy and loquacious, animated by wild hilarity over the Duc’s insulting remarks to the Comte Monsieur Hubert.
    It wasn’t surprising that they’d love any story where the Gorgon got the worst of it, but Marie-Laure was nonetheless disconcerted to find that she was the story’s heroine, and that everybody “knew” the Vicomte was her lover. They were pleasant and funny about it, though—all except for the Duc’s valet, Jacques, whose advances she’d once repelled, and Arsène, who maintained his usual prudish rectitude.
    “Got to keep your strength up.” Nudging each other and grinning, they’d handed thick slices of bread and butter down the table to her. “A master who’s been plying his trade in bed all night—it’s the only trade their breed ever learns—can sleep all the following day. But a servant has to work, same as always.”
    Or—today, anyway—even harder than always. For it would be a day of unrelenting labor in preparation for the banquet.
    “Well, you’re young enough to miss a little sleep,” Nicolas told her, as he chased everybody off to work, “so