This was why he'd been hedging defensive already; presumably most people didn't need books on their honeymoon, but Ford was not most people. Miss Farley seemed nice enough, from the one conversation they'd had, but he still didn't really know her... and the idea of being left in her company for an entire week, with no distractions or breaks of any kind, left him feeling vaguely nauseated. He hadn't even had that sort of uninterrupted contact with people he actually liked, and now he was being faced with it with a girl he hardly knew. Actually, what was the longest stretch of time he'd spent in one person's company in the past? Maybe when Macnair had taken him to Paris, but actually that had only been less than a day all told before Ford broke things off and came back. Was it Billy Darrow, in the last blizzard? Merlin's ghost.

He hesitated in response to her question. He didn't know what she liked to read (or if she even liked to read; some people didn't). He didn't want to admit that to Grace. It seemed like such a basic thing to not understand that he was worried it would cause the whole facade, the idea that he had ever been even remotely fond of Miss Farley, to come crashing down around them. And he sometimes thought it was more important for Grace to believe that than anyone else.

"I don't have any novels," he pointed out. It seemed like a safe bet to imagine that if Miss Farley read, whatever she liked might fall into the broad category of novels. "And it's a little late to run to the bookstore."

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