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𝐄𝐃𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐀 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌 that he'd pointed out as Carlisle's office. He paused outside the door for an instant.
"Come in," Carlisle's voice invited.
Edward opened the door to a high -- ceilinged room with tall, west-facing windows. The walls were paneled again, in a darker wood - where they were visible. Most of the wall space was taken up by towering bookshelves that reached high above her head and held more books than she'd ever seen outside a library.
Carlisle sat behind a huge mahogany desk in a leather chair. He was just placing a bookmark in the pages of the thick volume he held. The room was how she'd always imagined a college dean would look - only Carlisle looked too young to fit the part.
"What can I do for you?" he asked them pleasantly, rising from his seat.
"I wanted to show Athena some of our history," Edward said. "Well, your history, actually."
"We didn't mean to disturb you," The girl apologized.
"Not at all. Where are you going to start?"
"The Waggoner," Edward replied, placing one hand lightly on her shoulder and spinning her around to look back toward the door they've just come through. Every time he touched her, in even the most casual way, her heart had an audible reaction. It was more embarrassing with his father there.
The wall they faced now was different from the others. Instead of bookshelves, this wall was crowded with framed pictures of all sizes, some in vibrant colors, others in dull monochromes. Athena searched for some logic, some binding motif the collection had in common, but she found nothing in her hasty examination.
Edward pulled her toward the far left side, standing her in front of a small square oil painting in a plain wooden frame. This one did not stand out among the bigger and brighter pieces; painted in varying tones of sepia, it depicted a miniature city full of steeply slanted roofs, with thin spires atop a few scattered towers. A wide river filled the foreground, crossed by a bridge covered with structures that looked like tiny cathedrals.
"London in the sixteen-fifties," Edward said.
"The London of my youth," Carlisle added, from a few feet behind them. The girl flinched; she hadn't heard him approach. Edward squeezed her hand.
"Will you tell the story?" Edward asked. Athena twisted a little to see Carlisle's reaction.
He met her glance and smiled. "I would," he replied. "But I'm actually running a bit late. The hospital called this morning - Dr. Snow is taking a sick day. Besides, you know the stories as well as I do," he added, grinning at Edward now.
It was a strange combination to absorb - the everyday concerns of the town doctor stuck in the middle of a discussion of his early days in seventeenth-century London.
