Page 117 of Summer of Sacrifice

But the hope in his eyes squeezed her heart.

“All right.” She looked at him, forlorn. “With your father gone, you are the Earl of Bellvary now. And betrothed to Catherine.” She shook her head, hair swaying. “I can only do this if I am your friend alone.”

She watched the pain and resolve flit across his features. After a long moment, he looked up, deep sadness in his eyes. “All right.”

“What are you smiling about?” Seleste teased Cal where they looked out over the sea from the bow of a ship.

“Pardon me, madame, but I will be thoroughly enjoying this journey.”

Unable to help it, Seleste’s lips turned up, too. She watched as the hot sun glinted on her ring, her hand on the ship’s railing.

It wouldn’t have been the realm’s greatest scandal, but Cal didn’t want to be on the ship’s register under his own name, nor did he want Seleste seen accompanied by a man, unchaperoned. Though it was chivalrous, Seleste found it unnecessary.

Alas, she’d finally relented, allowing him to book passage from Bowery to Merveille as Monsieur and Madame LaRue.

Cal had found a simple gold band in her jewellery box and slipped it on her finger. That marked the beginning of their bittersweet sleuthing fairytale.

The real scandal resided in all the stares the two of them received for the flaunting of their interracial ‘marriage.’ That, Cal particularly delighted in. See, he’d whispered in her ear as the ship set sail, we could change the realm, the two of us.

Perhaps in a different life. One where she was not a witch, and he was not betrothed to someone else.

Salty air kissed her cheeks, and as much as she’d enjoy standing on the ship’s deck all day, soaking up the sun and her fabricated marriage to Cal, they had work to do. “We should go to our cabin, dearest husband.” The way his eyes sparked at her words sent a pang of grief shooting through her.

Love could be so cruel.

Cruel is as cruel does, Winnie would say.

You must be cruel to be kind, Sorscha would say.

Life is cruelty, Aggie would say.

Seleste and Cal walked to their cabin hand in hand, a distinct drop in euphoria occurring when the door shut behind them and they moved to opposite sides of the room. Seleste peered out the small, circular window at the glittering sea.

It was easier if she didn’t look at him.

Cal dropped into a chair, but Seleste could feel his eyes still pinned on her.

“We need to go over details,” she said quietly, moving toward the table and her notebook lying there.

They’d left her hut immediately, leaving Litha sadly behind, and booked passage on the first ship out of Bowery. In their haste, they’d not spoken at length about the circumstances which they were headed into. She’d wanted to begin immediately, pulling her notes out of her bag before Cal had even set his down, but he’d pulled her away to the deck. I need just a few more moments to pretend you’re mine, he’d said.

The hardest part was that she would always be his. And he would never be hers.

Clearing her throat, Seleste sat across from him at the table, charcoal pencil at the ready. “How did you know these deaths weren’t accidental or mere illness?” A small part of her had to consider the sheer unlikelihood of such an occurrence without anyone else detecting it, but she trusted Cal’s judgement.

When she looked up from her notebook, Seleste was taken aback by the familiarity of him sitting across from her, prepared to discuss important matters just as they had done all Summer long the year before. The light in his eyes had dimmed some, though.

“At first, I didn’t recognise it. We mourned my father, of course, but everything about his death lined up with having a serious ailment of the liver, which we knew. It could have potentially been rectified with surgery, but everything advanced so quickly around Hearthmas.”

Yuletide, Seleste corrected inwardly, then chastised herself for thinking of such a trivial thing when he was discussing his deceased father.

“He was much improved when I—” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. When I left Whitehall.

Cal’s eyes dimmed further as if she’d said it after all. “That was short-lived,” he continued. “My mother continued to insist he was dying, that his recovery was all show or a dying man’s last wind.”

He reached out carelessly, taking one of her hands in his as he always had when they conversed that Summer. It was as if no time had passed between them. No Lady Catherine had passed between them. Seleste tensed and Cal realised what he’d done, snatching his hands back and folding them together in front of him, thumbs twiddling.

“Apologies,” he murmured half-heartedly.

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