“I am in earnest. Give me your hand.”
He held it out to me, as if it were a gift. I grasped it and tried to climb up on top of the stone wall while holding onto him. He tugged me back to the ground. “Wait. What are you doing?”
“Something daring. Like you. Only I am going to fly.”
I smiled at him, my heart quick with nervousness, and he looked as if he would refuse me. But finally he said, shaking his head, “This is madness.”
He released my hand and moved closer. His hands slid around my waist. I gripped the folds of his jacket. His grip tightened, and then I was in the air, with Henry lifting me high, and suddenly there was stone beneath my feet. I wavered in the air, bent over, trying to hold onto his jacket.
“Let go, Kate,” he said, a laugh and a warning in his voice. “You have to let go of me.”
I did as he said and stood upright, and he moved his hands, one at a time, from my waist to my left arm. My right arm was outstretched, over the open air. I stood upon the wall of the tower, the stones beneath my feet, Henry’s hand wrapped tightly around my wrist, while I gripped his wrist.
“Are you ready?”
I nodded. The rooks called in the tower next to ours.
“Don’t let go of me,” he warned.
“I won’t.” My heart pumped with fear.
“Watch your skirts and look straight ahead. Not down at your feet.”
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I gripped Henry’s wrist even tighter.
He took a step forward.
I stepped forward too, and then Henry took another step, and another step, until I was walking on the wall, high above the trees and the ocean and right next to the starlight.
A laugh burst from me. I felt light-headed with both exhilaration and fear.
“Faster?” Henry asked.
“Yes.” He walked faster, never lessening his grip, and we went around the circular tower once, twice, faster and faster, until he was running, and so was I, and it was the most frightening and the most exhilarating thing I could imagine, running like that, around and around, with the wind in my hair and the birds all around and Henry—strong, secure Henry— holding me tight. Then he yelled, “Now jump!”
And I did not pause. I did not hesitate. Not even a second. I leapt, with my eyes closed, and felt nothing but wind and freedom and Henry’s grip on my arm, and then he pulled me hard, to the side, and his arm caught me around the waist, and my arms stretched wide and I flew. I flew in the night like the blackbirds and the rooks and the woodlarks. I turned and turned, and I laughed, and the birds cried. And then we slowed, and I dropped my arms and opened my eyes and looked down into Henry’s grinning face. My arms fell around his shoulders as he stopped turning and slowly let me slip down, until my toes touched the grass.
I was dizzy. I leaned against him, closing my eyes as I buried my face in his chest, feeling his quickened breath and his arms around my waist, holding me, keeping me close. Finally, feeling the world settle in its proper order again, I tipped my head back and smiled up at him.
He was shaking his head, smiling at me as if he couldn’t believe I was real.
“I think,” he said, his voice just a husky whisper, “that you have nothing to fear in life, Kate. I think the world needs to watch out for you, not the other way around.”
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J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n I felt breathless and buoyant and torn up inside, as if everything within me had been rattled around by my brief flight, and now I could not remember how to stand still on the earth beneath me. I wanted to keep flying, or I wanted to find an excuse to stay this close to Henry for a long time. Both were dangerous desires.
So I stepped away from him and bit back the sigh that would have betrayed my disappointment when his hands fell away from me and we stood separate and alone. I shivered in the sudden chill, turning to look up at the dark shadows of the birds crying out in the tower above us.
Awkwardness filled the spaces where we no longer touched. I had to say something.
“Now it is your turn,” I said, forcing myself to smile.
“To do something daring?”
“No. It is your turn to confess. What are you most afraid of, Henry Delafield?”
He looked at me for a long moment, and I felt sure he would deny my request. But after several heartbeats of waiting, he said, “All my life I have known what my future holds. I knew where I would live, how I would live.
I have even known, for years, who my parents would make me marry.”
He drew in a breath, and his voice sounded hoarse and vulnerable and soft when he said, “You were the only surprise in my life, Kate. And I am afraid—I am very afraid—that once you leave, I will never be surprised again.”
I did not expect the tears that stung my eyes. These were words of parting that Henry had just uttered. I felt like my heart had been cleft in two. Blinking back the tears, I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep myself from shaking, and took in a steadying breath. I had not asked him for something about me. I had not expected a confession that would tear at my resolve like this. I moved farther away from him, needing distance and clarity.
Two steps away, then five, and I paced the circle of the tower wall 220
before I returned to him and said in a brusque voice, “Shall we move on to our bargain?”
He cleared his throat. “If you want.”
“Go ahead, then. Ask me your last secret. Your payment.”
“Payment first again?”
I nodded. I could not make it through another proposal right now, with the wild strings of my heart unfettered as they were. I moved toward the wall, putting my back against it, needing its support. But Henry moved with me, and stopped just a pace away from me, keeping my heart racing. He stood too close. I could grab him too easily.
“I want to know what happened at the ball a year and a half ago.
The ball at my house. The one you left early, without dancing with me.
I want to know exactly what happened that night, Kate. What made you leave early. What made you run away from me when I called after you.
What made you tell me and Sylvia the next day that you planned never to marry.”
We were here, at the brink. I had not thought this bargain would bring us here. My heart fell with a sickening drop.
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Chapter 32
one anD a halF years BeFore
Maria saw me in the hall and whispered, with a look of unholy amuse-
ment, “Mama has Mr. Cooper by the arm and is looking for you.”
I shuddered with repulsion. “I cannot dance with him. I cannot. I’m
afraid of catching whatever disease he has.”
Maria smirked. “You had better hide, then.”
The sound of Mama’s voice drifted down the hall. Maria’s eyes grew wide, and she giggled. I shot her a dark look and hurried down the hall, looking for a way to escape or a place to hide. The door to the morning room was cracked open. I slipped into the dim room and held my breath, waiting for them to pass by. But after a long moment, the door eased itself open, and I hastened to hide. Two options presented themselves: behind the sofa or behind the drapes.
I chose the drapes, pressing myself against the wall behind their thick folds.
The sweet scent of peonies wafted toward me. There, in front of the window whose draperies I hid behind, stood a tall table with a vase full of my favorite flowers. They had been all over the house tonight. The Delafields must have secured every peony in the county for their decorations.
I held perfectly still in the drapes, for I would do anything to avoid touching the diseased Mr. Cooper and smelling his fetid breath. I waited to hear 222
Mama’s voice, but the door closed again with only the sound of footsteps. Then a creaking of the settee.
“Oh, it feels good to sit.” I stiffened. It was Mrs. Delafield.
“Indeed it does. My feet are not so used to dancing as they once were.”