She learned to play quietly beneath her papa's desk, for it was a serious breach of trust for the head librarian of the main library to allow his tiny daughter free rein in those hallowed halls, and she learned to love books.

When she turned fourteen her mother had been gone for seven years. Gemma scarcely remembered anything but a sweet, pale face upon a pillow and the touch of a thin, weak hand upon her cheek.

Gemma had begun assisting her father at the library in the off hours, replacing books and cataloguing. A young student found her in the section on poetry and self-righteously reported her presence to the university.

Gemma knew perfectly well that had been nothing but a nasty piece of revenge, for the young man in question had tried to force a kiss from her. Gemma had slapped him with all the power of her innocent shock and fear — and also the dense volume she'd forgotten she held in her hand.

Her father had nearly lost his position and Gemma had been banished from the place that meant more to her than her actual domicile. She'd been torn from the hushed luxury of the library to go home and keep an empty house for her father.

However, she brought home the book that saved her virtue. A volume of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Not long after that, a man came to visit the librarian and his daughter. He was a student unlike any they had seen before. For one thing, he was older than the other young men. At eight and twenty, Mr. Edmund Oakes had found his calling and decided to study medicine. His social standing did not require a career and he had no need of income, but he had a fine mind and a stalwart code of ethics. He had come to apologize to Gemma and her father for the poor behavior of his younger cousin, Galen, or as Gemma thought of him, "the student in the stacks."

Gemma liked him and her papa admired him very much. Edmund Oakes became a frequent guest and family friend. One day after her nineteenth birthday, Edmund noticed that Gemma wasn’t a child anymore and Gemma noticed him noticing her.

He was Dr. Oakes by then and a marriage seemed like a fine idea to all concerned. It was not until Gemma went to Edmund’s family home to meet her new in-laws that she realized how far beneath himself Edmund had wed. The Oakes were not so much cruel as unapologetically appalled and mystified by Edmund's choice. They seemed so certain of Gemma's inferiority that for the first time in her life, she began to doubt her worth.

When Edmund told his new bride that he planned to apply his knowledge of medicine to help the war effort, Gemma had leapt at the opportunity to go with him as his nurse and assistant — and leave the imperious Oakes family far behind them.