She looked at me with distaste. “He didn’t trust you?”
“I tell you, Clara, he doesn’t have a choice. I expect he might have given up a long time ago, if it weren’t for his people.”
Clara sniffed. “Well, either way, you don’t belong there. I can’t believe you cut your beautiful hair.”
“It was too heavy anyway.”
With a sigh, I got into bed. She soon followed, keeping well to the edge, like she thought I was tainted now. And maybe I was. Even though I was weary to the bone from walking back, I couldn’t sleep. I missed Nyar so terribly. I would have given the world to feel his hands on me, his body against mine, to hear the purr of his voice in my ear.
If I had lost him, that meant some other woman would go to him after me. The thought pierced me like a physical pain.
I didn’t care about the women who had come before me. Remembering how coolly he had treated me at first, I knew it had been a long time since he had kissed or held anyone the way he had me. But after—
After, I couldn’t stand.
Before long, I heard Clara snoring softly. The room felt warm. I would have to spend the entire night here, without Nyar’s touch.
I didn’t dare toss and turn, and wake Clara up, but the longer I laid there in the quiet, the more my body hungered for him. I felt so empty. Moving very carefully, I dared to reach for the stone I had stolen and pushed it inside of me, but then it was almost worse. I clenched my muscles around the stone, slowly drawing sensation from the gentle friction, but I knew I would never reach the heights of my lovemaking with Nyar. I was sweating. I reached my hand down to my clit and began to stroke. My muscles clenched harder, and although I was afraid to make too much motion in the bed, I tried moving the stone up and down inside me…
Oh please…just let me have a release. It was like the curse was contagious and I’d caught it myself.
“Sabela?” Clara’s snoring stopped abruptly.
So did my hands. “Yes?”
“What are you doing over there?”
“Nothing.” My cheeks flared with heat. I don’t think I could have felt more guilty if she had caught me murdering someone.
“Are you…are you thinking about the goblin king?”
“No.”
She made a small grunt of skepticism. “I am starting to think we don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“It was your suggestion for me to go to him. You know I’ve always dreamed of a life beyond Fairhaven. What did you think would happen, Clara? If you didn’t think I’d enjoy it, then you must have expected it would be torture. Either way, you didn’t think much of me, did you?”
“I thought it would teach you a lesson.”
“Oh, it did,” I snapped. “Goodnight.”
I tackled the morning with renewed force of will, getting dressed and pinning my hair back into something faintly respectable, planning to head off to the library.
My foot had barely hit the bottom stair when Father said, “Sabela.”
I froze. He never called me by my name. Clara was sitting in mother’s old chair, her hands crossed on her lap, looking prim and resigned.
“I’m sorry, but you are not permitted to leave the house,” Father said. “Mr. Vedast is coming for dinner, and I’m just not sure I can trust you right now. I’m afraid the goblin king may have placed some sort of spell on you.”
“Please—I just want to get a little fresh air!” My eyes shot to Clara. I knew she had told Father at least something of her suspicions about last night. Damn me, I should have controlled myself.
“Then feel free to open a window,” Clara said. “Sabela, it’s for your own good. We don’t want you to get hurt. You have a respectable suitor now; there is no reason to keep thinking of the goblin king.”
“You’re not my mother.”
“Sabela, please. I know you’re upset, but I am your father, and I agree with your sister. You did what you needed to do with the goblin king, but you’re a human girl. You don’t want to turn off Mr. Vedast by seeming ungrateful for his proposal.”
I threw up my hands. Clearly, there was no reasoning with them. “So, you’re going to forbid me from leaving the house?”
“Yes, if we must,” Clara said. “You can help me get the house ready for the dinner. Some hard work will be good for you.”
She rose, giving me a distasteful look. “The dining room needs a good scrubbing and dusting.”
“What have you been doing while I’ve been gone?” I asked, but she brushed me off with some vague excuse.
I followed her to the water pump outside to fill buckets, but I was plotting how I could sneak away from her. She obviously knew this, because she hardly let her eyes leave me for a moment.
I tried to look like I was behaving myself. In fact, I tried to work hard because I knew this would annoy her. Clara, for all her pretensions of being the lady of the household, hated housework more than the rest of us.
“Why don’t you do the floor and I’ll dust?” she asked, airily, but I knew it was because she didn’t want to get down on her hands and knees.
“Fine with me!”
I grated soap into the bucket and dipped the rag into the water. Clara stayed within sight but well out of my way, wiping dust off of all the decorative china in the hutch. There wasn’t much of it anymore. She had spread out the few remaining pieces in a desperate attempt to make the space look filled out.
The twins were out shopping, and Father stopped in to check on us and said, “Clara, will you be all right if I go out for an hour or two?”
“I’m sure Sabela will behave herself,” Clara said, nodding at me like, You will, won’t you?
“I’ll be back.”
I wondered if I could knock my sister out with a candlestick. But I might really hurt her. Or I might not succeed, and then she would probably throw me in the cellar for the rest of the day. It wasn’t as if I had any experience knocking people out. If only I had a drug to put in her tea!
Just as I was considering my limited options, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. It made me think of the goblins. If only I had them here. I might be able to come up with a plan if the candlesticks and tea cups were on my side.
Or…perhaps one of them was here. A handkerchief crept into the room, moving almost as if its folds were legs, and climbed into my lap.
My eyes widened. It was the handkerchief that had been wrapped around my biscuits yesterday morning.
“I didn’t know you could leave the caverns,” I said, in the barest whisper.
I clutched my hands together in a silent plead, and shot a meaningful look at Clara. Can you distract her? I mostly mouthed the words.
Maybe if the handkerchief covered her face, it would startle her enough that I could run out.
The handkerchief lifted a corner like a finger, then crept over to Clara.
“So many nice things,” she was muttering to herself. “It’s a shame we had to sell so many of them already. Mr. Vedast would have been more impressed by the silver…”