Page 53 of Those Fatal Flowers

I come close to finding out one evening after Margery retires. Thomas is off with the other Council members, and Agnes has locked herself in her chambers, leaving me free to revel in the warmth of the hearth fire unbothered. But a knock on the back door shatters the calm. I open it to find Cora before me, body trembling with cold.

“Cora.” Her name is so sweet on my tongue, and I move tolet her inside. “Come, let me make you some tea. It’s freezing out there.”

I find the small cast-iron kettle and hang it on its hook over the fire. Cora closes the door behind her, then moves to rub her hands up and down her arms to generate heat.

“What are you doing here? It’s late.”

“Is Will here? He didn’t come home for supper.”

“The Council met earlier this evening,” I reply, unable to hide the disdain in my voice.

“So they’re at the tavern, then.” Cora sighs. It’s no secret that’s where most of the meetings are held, making them more social gathering than civic duty.

“Will usually stops by to wish me good night. It’s not too late yet. Want to wait here with me?”

“Thank you, Thelia. I hate being home alone with my father at night.” Cora unclasps her cape, preparing to slide it off her slender shoulders, and I force my attention back to the kettle. I’ve learned the hard way that if I watch her peel one layer of clothing off, I’ll be plagued the rest of the night by visions of removing the rest. Of her fingers teasing my gown’s laces, of my thumb brushing against her lips. “His coughing fits grow worse once darkness falls—they rattle the whole house. It’s hard to listen to.”

I place a hand on her shoulder sympathetically, careful not to let it linger too long, then pull a mug from the shelf to mix herbs for her, red clover and lavender, the same concoction I prepared for Pisinoe more times than there are words for the numbers.

“Here, this will help soothe your nerves”—I hand her the cup, and she smiles gratefully—“and tomorrow I’ll stop by to make your father a tisane to help with the coughing.”

She steps deeper into the kitchen, putting more distancebetween us. Despite all the time we spend together, it’s not often that we find ourselves with idle hands. She raps her fingers along the edge of the mug, and her attention flits across the room. A charged energy radiates between us. It makes my stomach flutter.

“Let’s wait in my room. It’s more comfortable there,” I say, not adding that it’s also more private. She nods.

We wander out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Her shoes click against the wooden floor, while my steps are padded by my stockings. The closer we get to my quarters, the faster my heart beats. When I finally close us in together, my hands are trembling.

“Do you think they’ll be much later?” she asks, her skirts sweeping toward the small fireplace as she moves to add another log. The flames accept it hungrily, and she watches with her back to me.

“You know how they are.” My voice is breathy, and I cough to clear it. “It depends on how much ale they’ve already had.”

“How should we pass the time?”

My pulse throbs in my ears, an unbearablethump-thump thump-thumpthat counts the length of my silence. There are no words to describe how I’d like to pass the time, only images that flash in rapid succession before me. Cora’s delicate eyelashes fluttering against my skin, her salty taste on my lips, the ties of her dress unfurling beneath my fingertips. I’m frozen by these thoughts, made silent by my own desires.

I let myself laze over her features: the graceful arch of her neck, the curves of her hips. The wisps of raven curls that fall free from the knot she’s pinned them in, begging me to release the rest. How badly my fingers itch to run through them, gently at first, and then harder. I want to use this moment to devour her, to sink my teeth into her skin. Would Cora, even with her strength, become a crushable flowerbetween my hands? I don’t remember the tenderness of love, its softness.

I only remember its bite.

She looks back at me when I don’t answer. The flames crackle as they consume the fresh piece of oak, their reflection dancing in her eyes. The moon in Proserpina’s and a conflagration in Cora’s—I’m cursed to love women made of light. It’s strange to remember believing that Cora was her exact mirror; our months together have given their differences time to make themselves known: Cora’s calloused hands, her gaunter frame, realities of a mortal life. The kind of beauty that can be found only in a life so fleeting.

“I don’t know,” I lie, my voice catching in my throat, painfully aware that one wrong move could send her running to the tavern alone, propriety be damned. “Will you read me something?”

Her face pinches into a strange expression. “You want to hear a Bible story now?”

I exaggerate a groan, using the levity to draw in closer. “Oh, please, no! Surely there must be one other book in this house. Do you think the Bailies are fans of poetry?”

“Poetry?” Her voice is incredulous, but a smile appears on those pretty lips.

“Yes, or do the English not believe in such things?”

This makes her laugh. “Of course we do, but we don’t exactly have the latest sonnets available here.”

“All right, fine. You can’t read me a poem, but surely you must know one.”

A blush creeps along her cheeks, and her eyes fall back to the fire. I’m close enough now to see the reds and oranges of the flames reflected in them, layering atop the green, all sprinkled with the spark of embers—an entire universe inside her stare.

“Ah, so you do.” I grin. “And it looks like it’s a good one.”

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