Wild Desire
‘Have you been training this morning, Miss Heyward?
‘No, sir. I did T’ai Chi. I came here to practise, but it doesn’t matter.’
‘Too right it doesn’t,’ he rapped out smartly. ‘I’ve important things to discuss with you. Are you fit?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The library was dim, a warm, dawn-pink dimness. The perfume of roses mingled with the spice of leather — Persian, Russian, Moroccan calf — and with the pungency of old parchment and old print on ancient pages. The air was filled with the breath of ages, the room enfolding them in dusty, spangled intimate silence.