“My secret is that I’ve been worried about you, too,” she whispered.
Her breath was unnaturally cold against my cheek. My leg muscles twitched. I knew I should demand that she leave, right away. But instead I inched closer to her.
“Really?” I whispered.
“Yes,” Katherine murmured, looking deep into my eyes. “You need to forget Rosalyn.”
I shivered and glanced away from Katherine’s dark-brown eyes toward the window, watching a fast-moving summer storm sweep in.
Katherine took my chin in her ice-cold hands and turned my eyes back to hers. “Rosalyn is dead,” she continued, her face full of sorrow and kindness. “But you aren’t. Rosalyn wouldn’t have wanted you to shut yourself away like a criminal.
No one would want that for their betrothed, don’t you agree?”
I nodded slowly. Even though Damon had told me the same thing, the words made infinitely more sense when coming from Katherine’s mouth.
Her lips curved in a small smile. “You’ll find happiness again,” she said. “I want to help you.
But you have to let me, sweet Stefan.” Katherine laid her hand against my forehead. I felt a surge of heat and ice converging at my temple. I flinched from the force of it, disappointment welling in my chest as Katherine’s hand dropped back into her lap.
“Are those the flowers I picked for you?”
Katherine asked suddenly, looking across the room. “You’ve shoved them into the corner without any light!”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She imperiously swung her legs off the bed and bent to take the basket from under my desk.
She drew the shades, then stared at me, her arms crossed over her chest. My breath caught in my throat. Her light-blue crepe dress highlighted her tiny waist, and her necklace lay at the hollow of her neck. She was undeniably beautiful.
She plucked a daisy from the bunch, removing the petals one by one. “Yesterday I saw a servant child play a silly game—he loves me, he loves me not.” She laughed, but then her smile abruptly turned solemn. “What do you think the answer would be?”
And suddenly, she stood above me, her hands on my shoulders. I inhaled her scent of ginger and lemon, unsure what to say, knowing only that I wanted to feel her hands on my shoulders forever.
“Would the answer be he loves me … or he loves me not?” Katherine asked, leaning toward me. My body began quivering with a desire I didn’t know I possessed. My lips were mere inches away from hers.
“What’s the answer?” Katherine asked, biting her lip in the impression of a shy maiden. I laughed despite myself. I felt as if I were watching the scene unfold, powerless to stop what I was about to do. I knew this was wrong. Sinful. But how could it be sinful if every fiber of my being wanted it more than anything? Rosalyn was dead.
Katherine was alive. And I was alive, too, and I needed to start acting like it.
If what Father said was true, and I was about to fight the battle of my life between good and evil, then I needed to learn to have confidence in myself and my choices. I needed to stop thinking and start believing in myself, in my convictions, in my desires.
“Do you really need me to answer?” I asked, reaching for her waist. I grabbed her and pulled her onto the bed with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. She shrieked in delight and tumbled onto the bed next to me. Her breath was sweet, and her hands were cold and holding mine, and suddenly, nothing else—not Rosalyn, not my father’s demons, not even Damon—mattered.
I woke the next morning and stretched my arms outward, dejected when I touched nothing but goose-down pillows. A slight indentation in the mattress next to me was the only proof that what had happened had been real, and not one of the fever dreams I’d been having since Rosalyn’s death.
Of course, I couldn’t expect Katherine to have spent the night with me. Not with her maid waiting at the carriage house, and not with the way the servants talked. She’d told me herself that this had to be our secret, that she couldn’t risk ruining her reputation. Not that she had to worry about that. I wanted us to have our own secret world, together.
I wondered when she’d slipped away, remembering the feeling of her in my arms, a warmth and lightness I’d never felt before. I felt whole, and at peace, and the thoughtof Rosalyn was just a vague memory, a character in an unpleasant story that I’d simply put out of my mind.
Now my mind was consumed with thoughts of Katherine: how she pulled the curtains closed as the summer storm pelted hail on the windows, how she’d allowed my hands to explore her exquisite body. At one point, I was caressing her neck when my hands fell on the clasp of the ornate blue cameo necklace she always wore. I began to unclasp it when Katherine had roughly pushed me away.
“Don’t!” she’d said sharply, her hands flying to the clasp, making sure nothing had been disturbed. But then, once she patted the charm into place on the hollow of her neck, she’d resumed kissing me.
I blushed as I remembered all the other places she did allow me to touch.
I swung my legs out of bed, walked toward the hand basin, and splashed water on my face. I looked in the mirror and smiled. The dark circles were gone from my eyes, and it no longer felt like an effort to walk from one side of the room to the other. I changed into my waistcoat and dark-blue breeches and left the chambers humming.
“Sir?” Alfred asked on the stairs. He was holding a silver-domed platter—my breakfast. My lip curled in disgust. How could I have lain in bed for an entire week when there was a whole world to discover with Katherine?
“I’m quite well, thank you, Alfred,” I said as I took the stairs two at a time. The storm from last night had disappeared as quickly as it came. In the sunroom, the early-morning light was sparkling through the floor-to- ceiling windows, and the table was decorated with freshly cut daisies. Damon was already there, drinking a mug of coffee while flipping through the morning paper from Richmond.
“Hello, brother!” Damon said, holding up his coffee mug as if he were toasting me. “My, you look well. Did our afternoon ride do you some good, after all?”
I nodded and sat opposite him, glancing at the headlines on the paper. The Union had taken Fort Morgan. I wondered where exactly that was.
“I don’t know why we even get the paper. It’s not like Father cares about anything except the stories he makes up in his head,” Damon said disgustedly.
“If you hate it here so much, why don’t you just leave?” I asked, suddenly annoyed with Damon’s constant grumbling. Maybe it would be better if he were gone, so that Father wouldn’t be so frustrated. An odious voice in the back of my mind silently added, And so I don’t have to think about you and Katherine, swinging on the porch swing together.
Damon raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say things were interesting here.”
His lips curved in a private sort of smile that made me suddenly want to grab his shoulders and shake him.
The force of my emotions surprised me, so much so that I had to sit down and shove into my mouth a muffin from the overflowing basket on the table. I’d never felt jealous of my brother before, but suddenly I was dying to know: Had Katherine ever snuck up to his bedroom? She couldn’t have. Last night, she’d seemed so nervous about getting caught, having me promise over and over again that I’d never breathe a word to anybody about what we’d done.
Betsy, the cook, came in, her arms laden with plates of grits, bacon, and eggs. My stomach rumbled, and I realized I was starving. I quickly tucked in, reveling in the saltiness of the eggs combined with the sweet bitterness of my coffee. It was as if I’d never tasted breakfast before and my senses were finally awakened. I sighed in contentment, and Damon looked up in amusement.
“I knew all you needed was some fresh air and good food,” Damon said.
And Katherine, I thought.
“Now let’s go outside and cause some trouble.” Damon smiled wickedly. “Father’s in his study, doing his demon studies. Do you know he even has Robert in on it?” Damon shook his head in disgust.
