Page 57 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
And I think I’m jealous of Poe Markham. Not because she gets to be bitten and bidden by Auden, but because he looks at her with unguarded love and appetite. Because she knows he loves her more than anything.
“Sir Guest,” Rebecca greets him, and he moves his forest eyes over to us.
“Quartey. Delly.” He kisses Rebecca’s cheek and then kisses mine. His lips on my cheek are firm and warm, and when he pulls back, his eyes are fond and sad all at once.
I think of the way he bit Poe’s cheek. I think of how he watched her as she walked away. And I think of how it felt to watch Rebecca slip away from me this afternoon. How it felt to welcome her inside my body, to have the most urgent and unfiltered sex we’ve ever had, and then to look over and see a stranger in her place.
What if I’d stayed with him?
It’s a stray thought, one that can be batted away like a moth, one that can be wiped away with a thumb like bleeding lipstick. I’m not in love with him, because I’m in love with someone else.
I just wish I’d known how much it hurt to love someone for real. I wish I’d known how much it hurts to be the one waiting.
I should have been kinder to him. But I look over at him now, talking seriously with Rebecca, his eyes flicking over to Poe in a way that betrays where his real attention lies, and I think maybe I was kind after all. I know Auden would’ve never cheated, never strayed, but if we’d stayed engaged, maybe he would’ve burned, like St. Paul talks about in the Bible.
Auden would’ve married the wrong person, and oh, how he would have burned for it.
And me? Without Rebecca, I never would have caught on fire at all.
“Why is the priest here?” Rebecca is asking Auden. “Doesn’t he have a flock to tend to?”
Auden takes Rebecca’s glass and helps himself to a drink. She flicks him on the cheek for it, and he just laughs before he answers her. “He’s on t
he board of the DevonSafe foundation, which helps shelter domestic violence victims. Harcourt + Trask is currently designing three secure shelters for the foundation, as a pro bono contribution, and they’re the beneficiary of this year’s gala, so naturally we invited the board to come.”
We turn and watch as Becket sees Poe and takes her hand to kiss it. The gesture is gallant—more Virginia money than Virgin Mary—looking all the stranger because he’s wearing his priest’s clothes. They’re flawless and crisp and a black so Cimmerian that I know he’ll look stunning in every picture taken tonight—but they’re a priest’s clothes nonetheless. His collar flashes snow-white at his throat, and when his black jacket parts, I can see the corner of a small Bible poking from his pocket.
Becket offers his arm, and there’s a lost kind of smile on his mouth when Poe accepts his offer and tucks her hand into his elbow. Together they start walking toward us, Becket’s head bent solicitously over Poe’s so he can listen to whatever she’s saying.
“Guest,” Rebecca says. “I think your priest is in love with your submissive.”
I look over at Auden, not sure what I expect to see. One of his crooked smiles maybe, his first line of defense when it comes to showing his real emotions, or perhaps a dismissive laugh, or maybe one of his smirks, as crooked as a smile but curling with bitterness at the edges.
But he only looks thoughtful, and maybe a little sad. “I know,” he says. “I know.”
Becket stands out among the crowd—a pillar of blue-eyed flame clad in coal—and I can see how much attention he’s drawing as he walks toward us. I can see the swiveling heads, the darting eyes, the ensuing whispers. Did you see that? Did you see him?
The perils of being a handsome priest, I suppose, but I’m more concerned about the way he’s looking at Poe while everyone else is looking at him.
“He needs to be careful,” I say. “A fit priest is bound to make waves. But a fit priest looking swoony over a woman like Poe is going to make trouble for him.”
Auden nods, and for the first time tonight, he looks concerned. Because there is no mistaking the look on Becket’s face as he strolls next to Poe, and if we can see it, other people can too.
I scan the side of the courtyard we’re standing in, making sure I don’t see any cell phones out and taking pictures, making sure I don’t see any of the worst gossips circulating through the tuxedoed horde, and that’s when I see him from across the fountain, looking lost and angry—and rather romantic standing alone like that, with his hands in his tuxedo pockets and with the jets of the fountain walling him off from the rest of us, like he’s been imprisoned behind towers of warped glass.
His hair falls dramatically into his face, and his lip piercing glints in the fading twilight of the city. Sigh. I wish he’d let me style him too.
“I thought Saint wasn’t supposed to come tonight,” I say.
Chapter Fourteen
St. Sebastian
This is a mistake.
This is a mistake and I knew it was mistake and I did it anyway.
I meant what I told Poe. I had no plans to come to this gala. I had no plans to see Auden at all, maybe ever again, because it just hurts. Too fucking much. I can barely even think of him, I can barely stand living in Thorncombe and watching the trees stir while he’s gone. Watching them preen and flutter happily when he’s back home again.
