Page 59 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
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I’m not jealous, but I hate it. I hate that at every turn, fate seems to be saying he is not for you. I hate that my only inheritance has been sacrifice. I didn’t gain a house or the land I love. I didn’t gain money or a new name.
I simply lost him.
I still mean to leave, and I’m trying to tear my eyes away when he sees me. I know Becket didn’t tell him I was coming, so I expect his surprise. I expect the part of his lips and the blink of his eyes. But what I don’t expect—what I have no defense ready for—is his pleasure. The parted lips slowly easing into a satisfied smile, and the lifting of a single brow. He puts a hand in his pocket as he lifts his glass to me and then puts it to his lips and takes a drink. Like fucking Gatsby.
The sight of Auden pleased, the sight of him in victory, it’s too much, it’s scotch straight from the bottle, it’s holding a sparkler and letting the sparks shower bright and fizzling against your hand. The very reality of him chokes me, burns me, all of it in the worst way, because it’s the way that makes me beg for more, God please, more.
I spin away, not sure if I’m going to leave, not sure if I can stay, strung as always between the ache of being near Auden and the ache of being far away, and it’s as I’m spinning that I run right into Poe.
“Hi,” she says, smiling up at me. She takes me by the lapels and gives me a soft kiss.
She smells like the flowers in the thorn chapel right now, and this dress—this fucking dress. Her breasts are bound high and tight by the strapless bodice, pushing them up and making delicious swells and curves that I want to trace with my tongue. Her nipped-in waist and healthy hips are hugged by the silk too, presenting all the places she’s the most grabbable, the places where someone could seize her and haul her off to a corner to be enjoyed.
“You look incredible,” I breathe. Like a princess, I almost say, but then I don’t, because it’s too close to Auden being a prince, too close to the ways they fit together so easily and he and I never will.
She makes a purring noise, sliding her hands down my tuxedo-clad torso. “You’re not looking so bad yourself,” she says, and I know it’s no accident that her fingertips graze my semi as she drops them from my stomach.
“Poe,” I groan quietly.
“We could find a nice, dark coat room,” she whispers. “Just for a few minutes.”
My cock kicks in my pants at the thought. I pull my lip piercing into my mouth. “Yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, eyes sparkling. She takes my hand, presumably to lead me off somewhere and have her way with me, but Delphine is approaching us with two older people trailing behind, a genuine smile on her face and her mouth already open to call out to us.
Next to me, Poe heaves an unhappy sigh. I try to subtly adjust my jacket to keep my cock hidden. But we both stay put and wait for Delphine to reach us.
“Just who I was looking for!” she exclaims. “Proserpina Markham, St. Sebastian Martinez, this is my mother and father. Freddie and Daisy Dansey.”
The two adults next to her have already stepped forward, both of them tall and flaxen-haired, both of them very attractive. They have red-hued cheeks and lines around their eyes, like they spend their days drinking and laughing in the sun. They look wealthy, they look like the kind of wealth that predates William Pitt the Elder, but I immediately like them anyway. When Freddie shakes my hand, he does it warmly, and when Daisy presses her fingers in mine, it’s impossible not to return her welcoming grin.
I’ve often found Delphine’s boozy chirpiness rather endearing, if alien to me, but it’s even more endearing now, seeing that she’s come by it honestly. And when Freddie gives her a quick, affectionate kiss on the temple, I see that she’s always known love, always always, and it reminds me that I have too. I may never know how to feel about Ralph Guest, but I will always have known the fierce, protective love of Jennifer Martinez.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Daisy says. “We just love meeting Delphine’s friends, and now our Pickles is dating Samson Quartey’s daughter! Just think, you two have grown up together and now you’re in love . . .”
Delphine clears her throat a little and takes a drink. “In love is a bit premature, Mummy, honestly. We only just started dating.”
“Nonsense, I saw how you were looking at her. Wedding bells any day, I say.”
“Mummy,” Delphine groans. “I just ended an engagement. I can hardly jump into another one right now. What would Nanna think?”
While they spar, Freddie smiles at me, tilting his body in that unmistakable way that says I’m about to initiate small talk.
I brace.
“I knew your mother,” he says so only I can hear. “She was a truly wonderful person. I was—well, I was very sad to hear of her passing.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling like he’s just given me a kindness and a laceration at the same time. “Um, thank you. And yes, it was hard. It’s still hard.”
He studies me a moment. “Delphine still spends a lot of time at Thornchapel. All of you do.”
“I mean, I live there—well, not there there, but in Thorncombe. It’s where my mother lived too.”
Freddie nods, slowly. He has a face so symmetrical and pleasing that it’s hard to imagine anything bad ever happening to him. And yet there’s a haunted look in his eyes when he says, “Daisy and I know Thornchapel well. We spent a summer there once, when Delphine was young.”
I know. I remember you there.
