A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(67)

“No,” I say.

“So you’re about to cry, then.”

“I’m not,” I protest through gritted teeth.

“Your eyes are glassy and your chin is doing the thing. Come onnnn, put the face mask on, I promise you’ll feel better.”

With a sigh, I obey. When Delphine wants something, she is a force of nature, and I’m too tired to fight nature right now. I lie down on the bed, adjust the cold, glutinous mask over my face, and then close my eyes to wait.

“So what happened between you and Saint?” Delphine asks, settling in next to me. Even through her pajamas and my sweater, her shoulder is warm and soft, and she strokes an idle foot along my shin in a casually sexy way that raises goosebumps along my flesh.

How has Auden not fucked her yet?

Since I don’t feel particularly invested in protecting Saint’s pride at the moment, I answer, “Well, we kissed and then he told me he was poison and stormed out.”

“Oh my God, really?” Delphine says.

“Yes, really. And it’s not the first time it’s happened. I should have seen it coming.”

“You mean he’s kissed you and told you he was poison before?”

“The night we played Spin the Bottle, I chased him out and we . . . you know. Had a moment. Then he said we couldn’t be together.” I feel even stupider now that I’m saying all of this out loud. When did I become a Russian Doll girl? Except instead of dying over and over again, I’m just doomed to repeat the same kiss and the same fight with St. Sebastian Martinez.

“Why can’t you be together?” Delphine asks, puzzled.

I open my mouth and then close it again, having to readjust the mask as I think. I can’t tell her about the village and what it thinks about me marrying Auden; it’s too ridiculous and it could be hurtful and I’m not going to burden Delphine with it—

“Is this about Ralph wanting you to marry Auden?” Delphine says, and I freeze.

“You know about that?” I ask, shocked.

I feel her hand wave my question away. “Oh, everyone knows about that. He even told me before he died. ‘If you marry my boy and keep him from Proserpina Markham, you’ll be damning him to hell’ or something like that. I mostly ignored him.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. Delphine, please know that I don’t have any intention of—”

She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Stop. Ralph was beastly, and nobody would ever blame you for the things he said. I told him to fuck right off.” She laughs. “Golly, that made him furious.”

“Why was he so obsessed with this idea? Me marrying Auden? It’s just so random.”

“Well, I used to think him quite mad . . . but then I saw how Auden looked at you when he was spanking you, and I have to say, it didn’t seem quite so delusional then.”

Her voice is so mild, so unaccusing, and meanwhile my face is flaming so hot under the mask that I think it might catch on fire despite the antioxidant-laden slime. “Delphine . . .”

“Did I ever tell you how Auden and I started dating?” she asks softly, before I can say anything else. Before I can apologize for making her fiancé come from spanking my bare ass. Or apologize for wanting her fiancé so badly that it haunts every dream I have.

“No.”

“I was raped when I was at Cambridge,” she says matter-of-factly. “My second year.”

“Oh my God. Delphine. God, I’m so fucking sorry.”

She squeezes my hand again, not in reassurance or acceptance, but like she just wants to feel close, like she wants to hold on to someone while she talks. “They’d dragged me out of Audra Bishop’s summer party, and only one of them managed to—managed to do it before they got caught—but they kept hitting me to stop me from screaming, and I—”

She breaks off and takes a breath. I tighten my fingers through hers, and she tucks our clasped hands to her belly. “Auden was at the party, and he noticed I was missing. He came out and found them in the garden, and he yanked them off me. He fought them all, you know, so viciously. Beat two or three of them to fuck and back, and then sent the rest running.”

“Jesus.”

“He saved my life.” She sighs. “Of all the things I don’t know sometimes, I do know that.”

“He saved your life,” I repeat, feeling the weight of that. The undeniable fate of it. How could there be anything but a happy ending for them when that was their beginning? “So then you two started dating?”

I can feel her shake her head next to me. “It took a while. I couldn’t do anything at first. Most of the boys from that night were arrested—and they’d all been sent down of course, all except one who the police couldn’t prove was there. Just this one boy, and we didn’t even go to the same college, but the idea that I might run into him, that I might see him—it was paralyzing. I couldn’t even walk to class alone. I couldn’t study in the library by myself. I ordered food in so I wouldn’t have to leave my room after nighttime fell. And then the trial began and it was so fucking terrible . . .”

Another breath.

“Auden gave me anything I needed, then, you know? He walked me to class, he studied with me. He went to all the legal bits he could. He’d sleep on the floor of my room when I was terrified someone might break in, and he drove me home whenever I needed to just be away. I wouldn’t have finished if it weren’t for him. Well, and Rebecca, but that’s a different story. Anyway, when we graduated, it felt natural that we should keep it up. And then when he proposed a year later, that felt natural too.”