Page 46 of Betraying Korth

“Do you think anyone heard?” I asked in alarm, staring around at the broken splinters of wood scattered around the dumbwaiter’s floor.

“Probably. Better hurry.” With a slight grunt of effort, he pulled the dumbwaiter back to my room and snapped the brake into place. We looked at each other, then both began to laugh nervously, smothering the sound with our hands.

“Nothing like a near-death experience to end a romantic date,” I told him. “Thank you for tonight. I’m glad you decided to be an honorable escapee and escort me.” I clambered out of the dumbwaiter while Korth hastily swept all the cracked bits of wood from the cabinet back into the dumbwaiter to remove any evidence of wrongdoing from my room. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I love you,” Korth quietly called out as he began lowering himself to his own room, the splintered remains of the dumbwaiter’s door swinging sadly. “So much.”

That night when I crawled into bed, I realized I’d never given Korth his jacket back. I buried my nose into the sleeves, much too long for me, and breathed deeply, inhaling the masculine scent that always lingered around Korth. I kept the jacket wrapped around me as I pulled the blankets over myself. If I closed my eyes and focused on the smell, I was able to imagine that it was Korth lying next to me.

Once we were married, it would be. I would like that, I decided. Korth had a way about him that always left me feeling safe and secure. It would be a wonderful change to sleep next to someone whom I knew I could trust implicitly. I dozed off to sleep imagining a future in which Korth was always at my side and had never felt happier.

Wakingup the next morning brought none of the transcendent happiness I’d felt the night before. What had possessed me to toy with the affections of a man who was so honest and trusting? The murmurs of my maids had roused me. “Broken to bits; His Highness said he forgot to close the doors when he called for a late-night meal. Rubbish, if you ask me.That man never forgets a thing, everyone knows he never eats at night, and the bell never rang to call someone to the dumbwaiter.”

The memory of Korth’s momentary distraction in setting the brake that caused the dumbwaiter doors to splinter burst back into my mind in full color. My chest seized with anxiety. Did they know?

“Covering for Tess again, no doubt. She’s been disappearing from time to time in the last week and it would be just like him to take the blame. Godfrey said he was going to ask.”

“Did you see that rope burn on his hand? It wasn’t there yesterday, then he just happens to have it today when the dumbwaiter is broken?” One of the maids tsked, and there was the sharp snap of sheets being shaken out.

“You don’t think he wasinthere, do you?” another gasped in an undertone.

“There doesn’t seem to be any other explanation; his guards said he didn’t leave his room all night and the dumbwaiter is large enough for him to fit into.”

“You don’t suppose he came here to see…” Their voices became so hushed that I couldn’t decipher their words anymore. As discreetly as possible, I tried to shove Korth’s jacket toward my feet, under the blankets and out of sight. Had they noticed? I would have to dispose of it as soon as possible; I didn’t want his reputation sullied.

If the members of the rebellion knew about it, they would undoubtedly want to spread the rumors and urge the marriage date forward. Korth said he loved me, and I had no doubt that he would do the honorable thing and marry me if my reputation was called into question, but now that the prospect was at hand, I couldn’t imagine subjecting Korth to such a life. Even if our marriage was inevitably annulled after my true identity was discovered, I couldn’t do that to him. We both were alreadyemotionally invested, whatever I had tried to convince myself of otherwise. Even though the ships hadn’t been sent yet, perhaps the time to confess had finally come. I owed Korth the truth.

CHAPTER 21

In an attempt to cover up for our late-night escapade, Korth claimed that he had been testing the dumbwaiter’s load-bearing capacity the previous evening when he couldn’t sleep and broke it during one of his experiments. It took him so long to explain to the staff that by the time he would have been free to take me on our regular walk, his meetings for the day had already begun.

“He said he will take you on a walk this afternoon,” Tess said, dragging her feet as she flopped down in an armchair with a stack of papers in her lap. Her forehead was creased with lines as she reviewed some of the written testimonies given as evidence for the trial. She was too young to have been exposed to the harsh realities of the world already. Tess should have had many more years of a carefree childhood, but no. Just as I had been, she was thrust into the dark world’s underbelly. Just as I had been born to help instigate a civil war, she had been born to rule.

“How’s the trial coming along?” I probed gently.

Tess chewed on her lower lip. “Everyone says Peter did all these terrible things. Even he says so. My tutor told me that usually the accused will deny what they did, even if it’s true.”

“An honest murderer, that’s something new,” I joked, attempting to get Tess to smile again, but I was disappointed. Her pensive frown deepened.

“Do you think people deserve second chances?” she asked, her dark eyes large with concern.

I thought of Odette, and of all the heartache, sorrow, and suffering that she and her father had caused. “No, I don’t. People ought to pay for their crimes. If people have suffered because of a criminal, that criminal should be brought to justice, because no one should suffer.”

“Really? Have you never done anything bad?”

An icy hand clutched at my heart and my jaw clamped shut as I turned my thoughts away from Odette. I’d fed information to an underground rebellion my entire life. I’d committed crimes, yes…but only necessary ones. It was only my desire for justice that fueled my actions. Odette wouldn’t agree; if she’d had the option, I’d have been executed on the spot.

“I wish I could be as good as you,” Tess went on, taking my silence as confirmation. Then her voice got smaller. “I’ve done bad things before. I threw dirt at my governess and I put pebbles in Korth’s shoes.”

“Those are hardly crimes, though.”

“But it was still wrong. How am I supposed to know what is bad enough to be punished? When does something go from a little bad so they should be forgiven to bad enough to be…you know, executed?”

“I’m not a good person to ask that.” She ought to ask Korth. His moral compass was far stronger and more reliable than my own.

“Every person is still a person.” Her thin voice trembled. “Do I deserve to die because I did something wrong?”

“No, Tess, of course not. You’re a good person. But some people”—I thought of Odette and Raquel—“some people aren’tgood. Being a leader, you have to realize that there are some people in the world who don’t want to make the right choices. No matter how many chances you give them, they will always choose bad things.”

---