Blackmoore(56)

Henry’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat, and a tear fell on my cheek. I leaned against the door frame, weak with sorrow, my hand pressed over my breaking heart. I heard his roughly drawn breath, and then he went on:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I kept my eyes closed as his voice faded, feeling the full measure of devotion of this young man for the grandfather who had forgotten him.

“Again, please,” his grandfather said.

I opened my eyes in time to see Henry reach out and place another fallen shell in his grandfather’s hands. He started reading again, and I backed up carefully, knowing I had stayed too long. I had seen and heard many things in my life that I had not been invited to. I had regretted eavesdropping more times than I could count. It was always too hard on my heart.

I walked away with soft footsteps and tried to shut my heart to what I had witnessed. But my heart protested the closing, and stayed open, tender and raw, and it whispered to me, There is nothing more beautiful in the natural world than what you have just seen. There is nothing more moving than that devotion, that steadfast love.

But I shushed my heart. I did not want to be told such things, and I certainly did not want to feel. I did not want beauty to move me. I did not want to be won over by my heart. This was my path. This was how I would change the course of my life: by rejecting everything that Worthington women did naturally.

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Chapter 24


two anD a halF years BeFore

I was spending more and more time in the library at Delafield Manor. I

now had a stack of my own books on one side of the table, and when I was not reading, I was debating with Henry. He had a tutor all morning, and so he had plenty of time to learn more than I did. It took most of my afternoons to feel even halfway caught up with the progress he was making. My own mother cared little for my education, just as she cared little that I spent most of my day away from home.

Sylvia was content to lie in front of the fire and dangle a piece of yarn for the kitten to play with. When I needed a break from my more rigorous studies of philosophy and science, I always turned back to the illustrated book on birds. My greatest frustration, though, was being unable to hear their calls for myself. Surely I had heard them—everyone hears birdsong. But I wanted to know them, individually, to be able to identify them and connect each bird with its song.

“Have you ever heard the call of a woodlark?” I asked Henry.

He looked up from his notes. He was writing a paper comparing the Greek

myths of Icarus and Phaeton, a subject we had discussed at length the previous afternoon. “I can’t say that I have,” he said, casting his gaze on my open book.

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J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n

I sighed.

“What?”

I shrugged. “I would just like to be able to hear some of these calls.”

“Our gamekeeper is a great birder. I could ask him about it.”

“Would you?” I looked up, finding Henry’s eyes right on me. He looked

at me in silence for a moment, and I remembered, just as if it was happening again, how he had pulled me to safety—how strong he was when he had lifted me onto his horse—how he had called me Kate when I asked him to.

“Yes,” he said quietly, a little smile curving up one side of his mouth. “I would do that for you, Kate.”

He looked down then, with a smile tugging at his lips. He pressed it away, and a line creased his cheek, near his mouth. I stared at that crease, feeling something melt inside of me.

L

It was full dark when the pebble hit my window. I jerked awake,

then immediately cursed myself for oversleeping. I was not even dressed yet.

Scrambling out of bed, I lurched toward the window and threw it open.

Leaning my head and shoulders out, I looked down and spied Henry

standing near the rose bushes beneath my window. “I need to dress,” I whisper-called. “Wait just a moment.”

“Be quick about it. Carson said this is the perfect time.”

I had my clothes already stuffed under my pillow. And not for the first

time I was grateful I did not share a room with any of my sisters. I hurried to pull on my dress, two pairs of my thickest stockings, and my boots. The laces were tricky in the dark, but I wasn’t going to risk lighting a candle and being caught. I was ready in record time. Henry was pacing impatiently under the window, and when I was halfway out he softly called out, “Just jump and I’ll catch you.”

“I can do this,” I hissed, searching for my customary footholds in the

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lattice. I felt clumsy. After a few fumbling steps down the lattice, I felt Henry grip my ankle.

“I have you,” he said, and knowing he could catch me if I needed him, I

hurried down the rest of the way until he grabbed me by my waist and pulled me away from the wall, setting me down on my feet. He gave me not a second to catch my breath but grabbed my hand and started running for the woods.

I ran too, looking over my shoulder to check for any lights in the house—

for any sign that I had been heard and was about to be discovered. But the windows stayed black, and the full moon lit our way. I grinned and faced the woods, and the clearing, and the birds that awaited.