First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen Read Free Page B

filled with bindings of leather and vellum and cloth that contained the library’s greatest treasures. Although she worked in a modern office downstairs, this was her favorite room in the college—second among Oxford spaces, in her opinion, only to Duke Humfrey’s Library in the Bodleian. For the past five years, through two degrees, she had come here whenever she needed a place for quiet reflection, a place to center herself before diving back into the raucous world of Oxford. Sophie had finished her master’s degree three weeks ago and was taking the Long Vacation to explore her career options. The college librarian had said she could keep her part-time job until the new term started. So, for a few more weeks, Sophie could stay connected to the world of education—a world she had been immersed in her entire life and where answers always came, if only you looked in the right place. Now she stood alone in the center of this glorious room and wondered if any of her questions—what to do about a man like Eric, how to soften her own sharp edges, and above all what to do with her life—could be answered by the priceless books that surrounded her.

Hampshire, 1796

    “I FELT THAT, as a young lady whose love of books is equaled only by my own, you would enjoy such a spot,” said Mr. Mansfield.
    “You were, as usual, correct, Mr. Mansfield,” said Jane, running her finger along a row of gleaming leather spines and sighing audibly.
    They stood, by invitation of his lordship, the Earl of Wintringham, in the library of Busbury House. Jane was overwhelmed. The trove of books in her father’s study at Steventon paled in comparison with this treasure house. Shelves seemed to stretch for miles, nearly disappearing overhead.
    “I generally prefer to keep to my own sitting room,” said Mr. Mansfield, “but as you mentioned that you had just finished reading
Camilla
, I thought you might enjoy looking for new material in his lordship’s collection.”
    “Indeed, Mr. Mansfield,” said Jane, “I feel as if I could spend my life searching for things to read in a library as grand as his lordship’s. I see it was not just the possibility of friendship with young ladies who love novels that drew you to Hampshire. I am surprised you do not
live
in this room.”
    Though their acquaintance had extended for only two weeks, Jane already felt that she and Mr. Mansfield were old friends. As she had learned at luncheon in the rectory that day when they had first spoken, Rev. Richard Mansfield was the rector of Croft-on-Tees, Yorkshire. When he had entered his ninth decade a few months earlier, his physician had encouraged him to seek warmer climes, so he had hired a curate and decamped to Hampshire, where he was now a guest of Edward Newcombe, the Earl of Wintringham, at Busbury Park. Earlier in his career, Mr. Mansfield had been a schoolteacher, and Robert and Samuel, the two sons of the earl, had come under his tutelage. He had since remained a friend of the family, and was now ensconced in a disused gatehouse at the end of the long east drive.
    “I am asked to dine with his lordship regularly,” said Mr. Mansfield as Jane pulled a lusciously bound copy of
Amelia
off the shelf, “but I prefer not to stay here. A drafty gatehouse is much more to my liking.”
    “And, I suspect, gives you an independence you might not otherwise enjoy,” said Jane. Mr. Mansfield smiled.
    “Let us say that the conversation at his lordship’s dinner table is not what I have come to expect from you, Miss Austen. It is far too much composed of gossip, especially when his lordship’s sister and her daughters are visiting from London as they are at present.”
    “And you would rather have your intrigue in the form of novels,” said Jane, holding up
Amelia
and waving it at him, “than in the form of idle speculation by his lordship’s sister concerning her neighbors.”
    “Though you jest, Miss Austen, you are correct. Why, just three nights ago,