Page 79 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“You’re proud of me?” she whispers.
He stands up. And for the first time in years, he folds her into his arms and holds her to his chest. Braids cover her face, her cup is crushed into his ribs, but she stays there, bewildered and tense, like a captured bird.
“I am proud,” he tells her. “And sorry. More sorry than you’ll ever know. But I am learning from you. It’s because of you and Freddie and Daisy’s daughter that I decided to come here. That I decided to do the right thing by your mother and myself. Life’s too short not to love who we love.” He pulls away and touches her cheek, the way he used to do when she was little and he’d make her find the horizon. “You taught me that, you know. You gave that to me.”
And with a kiss on her forehead, he leaves to go find David Markham, leaves her alone there with an empty cup and an aching chest.
You chose a person to love.
He’s wrong about that part. Delphine doesn’t love her, she loves the kink, and Rebecca is wise enough not to conflate the two.
And anyway, Rebecca would know if she loved Delphine, right? She would feel it, it would be apparent to her. She sees how Becket looks at Poe—like Poe is running around with half his internal organs and only just now told him—and she knows she doesn’t look at Delphine like that. She knows that even though she wants to drag Delphine away from Emily Genovese and make love to her in a dark corner until she’s limp and purring—she knows that even though she can barely breathe when Delphine isn’t near her—she knows that even though Delphine makes her frantic, feral, vulnerable, unspooled—that’s not love. It’s nothing like love.
It can’t be love, because she doesn’t do that.
It’s lust, is all. Possession. Good kink.
But, Rebecca thinks, straightening her shoulders and heading for the other side of the deck, Delphine belongs to her. And she’s not a novelty, she’s not something that Rebecca will ever, ever get sick of, and the sooner she understands that, the better off that pretty, easily welted bottom will be.
“Excuse me,” Rebecca cuts in smoothly to the group, smiling at Emily Genovese as she puts a hand on the back of her submissive’s neck. And without another word, she guides Delphine away from the post-funeral chatter and to the upstairs guest room, where she fucks Delphine in her cute plum funeral dress until Delphine’s cries are hoarse and Rebecca feels in control again.
She collapses onto the bed next to Delphine and gathers her happy, loose-limbed slut close, petting her and kissing her.
She’ll have to go back down soon. She’ll have to face her father and David Markham again, and she’ll have to call her mother back, finally. But she has her Delphine, and her father said he was proud of her, and for the first time in a very long time, her mouth stays curved in a smile after the sex is over.
And she can honestly tell Ma she went to church today.
In the words of her mother, praise the Lord.
Midsummer
Auden
“Is it strange that we’re both sitting here with you, when it was our father who very probably killed your mother?” Auden’s voice breaks into the hot summer air, joining the lapping of the lake and the unending whirr of the cicadas.
In front of them, Becket and Rebecca are arguing about the best way to start a fire with the limited resources they have. Delphine is standing over them, interjecting with things she’s finding on Google with her phone. On the lake, the sinking sun has painted a path of orangey-pink arrowing east to the hills.
He turns to look at Poe, who’s staring at him with some surprise. Her mouth is parted, showing off the tempting crease in her full lower lip, and without thinking, Auden reaches up to press against it with his thumb. His crease. His lip. His Poe.
“I’m sorry if that’s a cruel thing to ask,” he says. “But I can’t stop thinking about it. If our father had never met your mother, you wouldn’t have gone to her funeral today. And now here you are with not just one but two of his sons. In your place, I don’t think I could endure it. I don’t think I could forgive me or St. Sebastian for bearing the blood of Ralph Guest.”
Poe looks down, long lashes sweeping over her heat-flushed cheeks. “I’ve been thinking about it too.”
St. Sebastian shifts on the other side of her. They’re all sitting on a blanket spread over the ground, coolbox packed full of drinks and food nearby, their shoes kicked off and their naked feet in the grass. They’re here because, as the evening wore on and the Markhams’ funeral guests trickled away, it became increasingly apparent that Samson and David needed to talk privately. Proserpina suggested they go to a spot she knew on the nearby lake and watch the midsummer sun set, and Rebecca quickly seconded with palpable relief.
“For what it’s worth—” Auden starts, but Proserpina holds up her hand.
“Don’t say you’re sorry.”
“But I am, Proserpina. So fucking sorry.”
A breeze kicks up and sends the hair not tucked into the knot at her neck flying around her face.
“Me too,” St. Sebastian adds softly, and she sighs.
“It’s not your fault. And no—stop. I’m not just saying that. It’s actually not your fault. Any more than it was Becket’s for having been there for part of it. I don’t blame any of you.”
She looks out over the lake. Nearby, Becket finally gets the fire going, and Delphine whoops.
