Page 119 of The Giver of Stars
‘Oh. Got another letter this morning at the library. In all the commotion I forgot to give it to you.’ Fred pulled the envelope from his pocket and handed it to her. She recognized the writing immediately and let it fall to the table.
‘You not going to read it?’
‘It’ll just be about me coming back. Plans and suchlike.’
‘You read it. It’s fine.’
While he cleared the plates she opened the envelope, feeling his eyes on her. She scanned it swiftly and shoved it back inside.
‘What?’
She looked up.
‘Why’d you wince like that?’
She sighed. ‘Just … my mother’s manner of talking.’
He walked back around the table and sat down, taking the letter from the envelope.
‘Don’t –’
He pushed her hand away. ‘Let me.’
She turned away as he read it, frowning.
‘What’s this?We will endeavour to forget your latest efforts to embarrass our family.What is that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s just how she is.’
‘Did you tell them Van Cleve beat you?’
‘No.’ She rubbed at her face. ‘They would probably have assumed it was my own fault.’
‘How could it be your fault? A grown man and a bunch of dolls. Jeez. Never heard anything like it.’
‘It wasn’t just the dolls.’
Fred looked up.
‘He thought – he thought I had tried to corrupt his son.’
‘He thought …what?’
She was already regretting having spoken.
‘C’mon, Alice. We can tell each other anything.’
‘I can’t.’ She felt her cheeks colour. ‘I can’t tell you.’ She took another sip, feeling his gaze rest on her, as if to work something out. Oh, what was the point of hiding it? After today she would never see him again. Finally she blurted out: ‘I brought home a book that Margery gave me. About married love.’
Fred clenched his jaw a little, as if he didn’t want to think about Alice and Bennett and any kind of intimacy. It took a moment before he spoke. ‘What would he have to mind about that?’
‘He – they both – thought I shouldn’t be reading it.’
‘Well, maybe he felt that as you were in your honeymoon period you –’
‘But that’s the thing. There was no honeymoon period. I wanted to see if –’
‘If?’
