Fiona (11 page)

It's the first time he's used my full name. His arm is wrapped
firmly around my waist as he smooths down my hair with his other hand. Over and over again, as if I'm a wild animal he's soothing. No one's held me like this, not since Mom. Gradually, finally, the tears stop. That familiar feeling of calm and peace settles over me, the way it always does when I'm with him.

I breathe a few shaky breaths before I find the strength to push myself up and look him in the eye. I'm about to apologize, but he places a finger against my lips and shakes his head.

“You don't have to explain,” he says. “Let's just get you inside.”

He's still touching my lips. He realizes it at the same time I do, and he drops his hand back on his lap.

I open the car door and stumble out onto the driveway on shaky legs. The rain has let up, and I take a deep breath of fresh air before turning back to the castle.

Blair is standing in the doorway, watching us. How much did she see?

I can't look at her as I pass her, but I can feel her eyes on me.

“What's wrong with her?” she whispers, and Charlie whips his head around to glare at her.

“Nothing. She's fine,” he says in a warning tone.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. “If there's anything I can do, Fee . . .” she says, her words trailing after me as I head for the kitchen
and the servants' staircase. I need to hide away for a while, wash my face, get myself under control.

Charlie's making to follow me, so I turn suddenly to face him, nearly causing him to collide with me. Part of me—most of me—wishes he had. That I were brave enough to wrap my arms around him and let him hold me some more.

I make myself look up into those warm green eyes. “I'm okay,” I tell him. “I just need some time alone.”

For a second, it seems like he might argue. But instead he presses his lips together and nods. “Of course,” he says before walking away.

“Thank you,” I call after him, but I don't know if he hears me. I can't help but feel like I hurt his feelings when all I did was let him off the hook so that he didn't have to comfort the crazy crying girl. I decide he's probably grateful but is too polite to let me see it. I decide I didn't hurt him at all.

I go through the motions
for the rest of the day. I leave with Albert to pick Poppy up from school then help her with her homework before dinner, but I don't speak to anyone else. As soon as it's finally acceptable for me to return to my room, I take up a mug of tea, put in my earplugs, and immediately fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The next morning I wake up embarrassed but energized. When I go down for breakfast, Charlie says hello to me like he does every morning, and I'm grateful for it. He's offering me the chance to sweep yesterday under the rug and to let everything go back to normal, and that's exactly what I need.

After I drop Poppy off at school, I come back to the castle to find Alice wheeling her cleaning cart into the master bedroom.

“You okay?” she asks, assessing me frankly, momentarily
reminding me of Hex. Blunt, no nonsense. I used to complain to Hex about my aunt—how she insisted that I pay her rent as soon as I turned sixteen, how she made me eat in my room and never in the kitchen with her, how she refused to do the dishes or laundry or anything else that she could make me do instead. Hex would always listen for a while and then tell me to shut up and work harder, so that I could get out of Mulespur as soon as I turned eighteen.

“I'm fine,” I say, my words quick and clipped.

“You want to talk about it?” she asks anyway.

“No.”

She nods. “Fine.” She unhooks the broom from her cart and begins sweeping the floor in quick, practiced arcs.

I look over at the locked desk drawer in Lily's office, tempted, but then tell myself to forget it. I wander to the table in the middle of the room. There are family photographs in every room of the house, but none have more than this one.

“What was Lady Lillian like?” I ask, looking at a photo of her and Poppy that must have been taken only a few years earlier. They're standing on a busy street, their arms laden with shopping bags. Poppy looks so different in the photo, but not because she was younger. It's the smile that stretches from ear to ear, carefree and innocent, that I don't know if she'll ever have again.

Lily wears a more guarded expression, her eyes covered by dark sunglasses.

“She loved her children,” Alice says after a moment. “That was the first thing you learned about her. Poppy always had an au pair, but Lady Lillian mostly took care of her herself, with Mabel's help. And Charlie, even when he messed up or came home drunk or whatever—he could do no wrong. She doted on them both.”

“What was she like with everyone else?”

Alice considers the question. “She wasn't mean or anything. She just sort of . . . ignored us. Everyone but Mabel, at least.”

“Mabel? Really?” I ask, surprised.

“Yeah,” Alice says. “Strange, right? The two of them were almost . . . I don't know if ‘friends' is the right word, but they spent a lot of time together. Mabel had been with the lady since she was a baby. She helped raise her, so they were very close.”

“Wow,” I say, pulling a bucket of dust rags out of Alice's cart and delicately dusting the tops of the frames. “I can't picture Mabel as the mothering type.” Then again, I couldn't picture her as the tree-worshiping type either. Apparently she contains multitudes. I remember that first time I met Poppy, how Mabel squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, like a mother would.

“I know,” Alice says with a snort. “But she was devoted to Lady Lillian. Just like she's devoted to Charlie and Poppy now.
That's why they call her ‘Mabs,' what Lady Lillian called her when she was a little girl, and not ‘Mabel' or ‘Ms. Faraday,' because she's like one of the family.”

Huh. Maybe she isn't so bad after all
, I think, lingering over a photo of Charlie and Poppy posing in front of a waterfall, Charlie holding on to his baby sister with a huge smile on his face.

The door behind me opens, and I jump back like I've just been caught doing something wrong. Blair sticks her head in, then purses her lips ever so slightly.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” she says, her eyes flicking from me to Alice and back again. “I didn't mean to interrupt you. I was looking for Charlie.”

“In his parents' room?” I ask before I can stop myself.

She raises an eyebrow at me, and I feel the sudden urge to duck my head. Instead I keep my eyes fixed on hers until they water.

“If you see Charlie,” she says finally, “would you please remind him that we're going out for dinner tonight, and Albert will have the car ready at eight.”

“Of course,” Alice says when it's clear I'm not going to respond.

Blair shoots her a faint smile before turning and gliding out the door.

“What was that about?” Alice asks, her tone almost amused.

“Right?” I ask with a huff. “It was like she was challenging me.”

“Not her, I meant you,” Alice says, pointing at me with the broom. “You were completely icy to her.”

“Just matching her,” I say with a shrug, but a flush of embarrassment and confusion rises to my cheeks.

“She seemed perfectly fine to me,” Alice says, her brow furrowed. “You were the weird one.”

I shrug again, staring out the door. Was that true? Was I imagining her strange behavior?

Of course I was. Why would Blair need to challenge me? I don't pose any threat to her. It's not like I stand any chance of getting between her and Charlie, especially not after yesterday's mortifying meltdown. I can still hear her words in my head.
What's wrong with her?

It's all in my head. A paranoid delusion. The thought makes the room spin.

I put the dust rag down and hand the bucket back to Alice, suddenly craving the quiet and solitude of my own room.

I'm imagining things
, I tell myself as I trudge up the stairs. I want Blair to be awful and evil, so I'm projecting that onto her, just like any stupid girl with a crush would do. It's not a sign of anything more . . . serious. I can fix this. I have to start being nice to Blair if I want to stay here.

If I want to stay near him.

I bury my head in my pillow. How did everything get so completely screwed up?

• • •

I'm reading on the windowsill in the library a few days later when Charlie finds me again. He stalks toward me as if he expects me to run from him. His bright green eyes draw me in, as they always do, and I couldn't run even if I wanted to.

“Hi. I haven't had a chance to see you alone since—” He stops himself. “I know you probably don't want to talk about it. But if you ever do, you know . . . you can. With me.”

I nod.
He's just trying to be nice
, I remind myself.
Don't read too much into it.
“Thank you for the other day,” I say lightly, trying to put on a bright, carefree expression. “That was really nice of you.”

He stares at me, the real me, hidden underneath this ridiculous mask. How does he do that? Strip away every ounce of pretense until he can truly see me? Why do I let him?

“Play me a song, Fiona,” he says, using my full name again. Back in Mulespur, people would overpronounce “Fiona,” stretching out its syllables to make fun of its fanciness. I started introducing myself as Fee quickly enough. But somehow, on his lips, my name sounds like a caress.

“A song for a secret?” I ask, dropping the cheerful act.

He nods, and I can't resist. I make my way to the piano,
settling onto the bench and straightening my shoulders like Mom taught me, then place my fingers on the keys, wrists up.

The notes of Franz Liszt's Liebestraum no. 3 glide between us. I spent a month learning this piece in Mrs. Alvarez's lime green bungalow. Mom told me the title meant “Dreams of Love” in German, and I remember thinking, when she played it for me for the first time, that it was the most beautiful, true thing I had ever heard. I could picture myself dancing in the arms of a man I loved one day, the two of us floating above the earth, happy and complete. I had to master it.

I lose myself in the ethereal melody, not returning to reality until the song is over and I lift my fingers from the keys.

I can feel Charlie breathing behind me, but I can't find the courage to turn around and face him. If I do, he'll see the want and longing that I know is etched on my face.

“What secret do you want me to tell?” he asks softly.

I don't want a secret
, a voice screams in my head.
I just want you
.

This is so much more than just a crush.

The realization scares the hell out of me. I get up, still not looking at him, and go back to the window seat, settling into it with my eyes firmly on my hands in my lap.

“Fiona?” he says. He can tell something's wrong; I have to look at him.

I take a deep breath and lift my chin until my eyes meet
his, knowing he can see the secrets they hold. “Tell me who you used to be,” I demand, surprising myself with the strength in my voice.

He swallows, then clears his throat. This question is my attempt to distance myself from him, and I wonder if he knows it. I need to remind myself of who he was, of why I shouldn't feel this much for him.

“I was nothing,” he says, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “I was worse than nothing. I hurt people, I disappointed people, and I didn't care. I spent money like it was nothing, on parties and stupid things I didn't need. I surrounded myself with friends who were as reckless and selfish as I was.” He pauses, shaking his head. “I cheated on Blair. I used everybody I ever met.”

I hate this. Watching him confess all this to me—I can feel how much it hurts him. I wish I could take back my stupid question, snatch it right from the air.

But this is what I need to hear. Just a few months ago, he was an entirely different person. One I wouldn't have even liked.

Charlie steps closer to me and continues. “And then I got this call in the middle of the night, from Mabs, telling me that both of my parents had died in a car crash. And I knew instantly that I was now responsible for my sister. So I changed. In that moment, I changed everything.” He steps closer again, and
suddenly it feels as if there's less oxygen in the room. “Fiona, I'm not that guy. Not anymore. At least, I'm trying like hell not to be.”

“I know,” I whisper.

“Why don't you come to dinner with us anymore?” he asks. He's standing so close that I can see the flecks of blue in his green eyes, and every single dark lash that frames them.

I scoot back on the seat until my back touches the window, trying to create some distance between us. “I figured I'd leave you be so you could all eat together. Just the family.”

“Family?” he says, and I nearly wince. He steps forward once more, closing the distance I've tried to create between us, his knee brushing against mine. I stifle a gasp. His touch is agony. I think about the two of us in the car: his arms around me, his hand in my hair, his lips next to my ear, letting me cry. I barely hear him when he asks, “You know, don't you?”

I consider playing dumb, but only for a moment. “Congratulations,” I say instead, trying to make my tone as bright as possible. “You'll be a wonderful father.”

It's as if a curtain falls over his face, and his inscrutable expression is back. “Thank you,” he says blandly. He opens his mouth slightly, as if there's something more he wants to say, but then closes it again and stalks out of the room without another word.

I close my eyes and try to ignore the tears that threaten to form. I spring off the window seat and shut the door behind him, hoping to block out most of the sound. I throw myself into a furiously happy rendition of Vivaldi's “Spring” from
The Four Seasons
, but it comes out sounding like a dirge.

I stop, resting my hands on the keys and my forehead on the smooth wood of the upturned fall.

I need air. I tiptoe down the hall and out the back door into the bracing chill of the autumn night. I start to jog toward the lights of the stables and the warmth I know I'll find there.

I unlatch the door and open it with a warning creak. “Hello?”

I open the door further to see Gareth standing in a stall opposite. “Bit late for a ride, isn't it?” he says.

“I needed some fresh air.”

He raises his eyebrows and looks around, and I pick up on the warm scent of horses and hay. Not exactly fresh.

So I add, “But it was cold outside, so I came here.”

He steps out of the stall and peels off his heavy work gloves. “Come on, then,” he says. He brushes past me and out the door, and I follow.

He leads me to a cottage behind the barn, pulling the unlocked door open and gesturing me inside. He flips on a lamp. In its dim light, I see a bed covered in rumpled white
sheets, a desk with nothing on it, and a kitchen equipped with a tiny fridge, oven, and sink. There's an overstuffed armchair drawn close to the fireplace.

“This is where you live?” I say.

He nods. With a small smile, he crouches in front of the fireplace, striking a match and setting bits of newspaper on fire until it catches on the wooden logs stacked on top. We huddle close to the flames until we both stop shivering.

We stay standing side by side, facing the fire. After a few minutes, I shift so that my shoulder rests against his arm. That touch makes my heartbeat speed up until I grow a bit dizzy. And then I press closer to him.

Slowly, he turns to face me, a daring look in his eyes.

We pivot toward each other. He locks his arms around my waist, and my hands tangle in his soft hair, his lips on mine.
God, his lips on mine.
We kiss like we're fighting for our last breath. As if we'll die if we stop.

He pushes me backward, gently, until my back meets the wooden slats of the wall. But nothing else about his kiss or the hands running down my body is gentle. And it feels so. Damn. Good.