“It’s just the gardener,” Ben says with a laugh, loud enough for Arthur to hear him.
I glance at Ben, studying his face. Anger rises up through my body, but I keep it in check and don’t let it show through my eyes. “Let’s get out of here,” I say, my voice only a touch cooler than it should be.
CHAPTER 22
That night at dinner, I’m trying to pay attention to Ben’s soliloquy about how unfair A-levels are and how he’s never going to get into Oxford when I see a flash of movement by the dining hall door. I look over to see Arthur standing there, watching me. He jerks his head, then disappears.
I should ignore him. I need to focus on Ben right now. But I can’t.
I excuse myself, saying I’ll be back in a moment. I hurry out into the hall, but Arthur isn’t there. When I push open the outside door, I see him on the other side of it. It has begun to snow again, and a few flakes land softly on his shoulder and in his hair. “What are you doing?” I hiss.
He beckons for me to follow him, and we rush to his shed. “I have to get back,” I tell him as he opens the door.
“No you don’t,” he says simply. I shut the door behind me, cutting off the cold. He has a roaring fire in his hearth, and I move closer to it. The warm light makes the room seem even more like a home, illuminating the piles of papers on his desk and the rumpled blanket on his bed.
“You want some tea?” Arthur asks, already moving toward the stove with a teapot.
“No,” I snap. “I need to get back.”
He glances up at me. “Disappear for a little while. Keep him guessing. Isn’t that one of your mother’s lessons?”
I open my mouth but shut it without saying anything. He’s right.
I throw myself down on Arthur’s red plaid armchair and hold out my hands to the fire. “Fine,” I say. “Have you only kidnapped me to force me to drink tea?” I ask.
He laughs, as if I’ve made a joke. “Let’s pretend I was bored and that I wanted some company for Christmas.”
“Get a dog,” I grumble, earning another infuriating laugh.
“I guess I should congratulate you,” he says, watching me from across the room. He picks out two chipped white ceramic mugs from a kitchen cabinet.
I wait.
“You got him to stay here with you. You’ve already got him wrapped around your finger.”
I stare at him, trying to read his face. “Why don’t you tell him to stay away from me?” I ask finally.
He stops moving. “What?”
“Why don’t you warn Ben that I’m wrapping him around my finger for revenge? That I’m going to break his heart? It’s a simple solution. You could destroy everything for me if you wanted.” I begin to pick at the worn fabric of the chair, trying to seem unconcerned.
He sets the mugs down carefully, his eyes falling from mine. “It’s too dangerous,” he mutters.
“How? All that would happen is he would start to hate me, and everything would go back to normal in Madigan society.”
“Not dangerous for him,” Arthur says through pursed lips. “Dangerous for you.”
I stand up and step forward, so close that I can see the long eyelashes framing his deep brown eyes. “What do you mean? Because Mother will be mad at me?” I try to sound nonchalant, but my voice is strained, tinny in my ears.
“Because she will have no use for you anymore.”
His words make me shiver, like cold fingers tracing down my spine. And when he finally raises his eyes to meet mine, there’s a strange mixture of pity and fear in them.
The next moment he’s smiling that infuriatingly wry smile at me.
“So what are you going to do with Ben now?”
I shouldn’t tell him. He’s the enemy. But before I can stop myself, I answer, “Run away with him.”
Arthur drops the teakettle on the floor, where it lands with a bang. He doesn’t seem to notice it, though. His face has gone pale, and he stares at me as if I’ve just confessed to murder.
Why on earth did I tell him that? I can’t decipher my own intentions, and that scares me more than anything. “Don’t look at me like that,” I tell Arthur, burying my head in my hands. I have to get myself under control, and I can’t do it when he’s looking at me like that.
“Why? Why do you have to run away with him?” he asks, his voice rasping as it comes out of his dry throat. “Do you even know?”
I look up at him, pulling my hands away from my face. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think will happen to the two of you after you run away?” he asks, his voice now deadly calm.
It’s not my place to ask questions like that. Mother will tell me what to do when the time comes. But the way he’s looking at me, like he knows everything I don’t . . .
Every question that’s been building up in my mind threatens to come spilling out. If he has the answers I need, why is he keeping them from me? All of a sudden, I can’t take it anymore.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask, nearly shouting now. “What do you know?”
Arthur looks at me. No, he studies me. I should turn away, hide myself from him, but I can’t. All I can do is watch him, my eyes locked on his. We’re caught there for a few heavy, silent moments.
“Ask your mother,” Arthur says finally, his expression full of disdain. “Make her explain what will happen after you’ve ruined an innocent boy’s life. If you even care.”
Ben’s face flashes across my mind. I see his hazel eyes filled with warmth, feel the insistent press of his lips on mine.
“You really won’t tell me?” I gasp.
“You’re your mother’s pet,” he says, grabbing the teakettle off the floor. “You don’t care.”
He’s lying. I know he saw how much I care in that horrible moment I lost control. He knows how desperate I am to know what he knows. But he doesn’t trust me.
He sets the kettle on the counter and grips the edges of the small wooden kitchen chair that separates him from me. I watch his knuckles go white with the effort, and suddenly, the air between us shifts. And I want to—have to—be closer to him. His eyes grow darker as they watch mine, and I feel as if a flash fire is burning over my skin.
I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t.
I step forward, keeping my gaze on his chest. I don’t have the strength to meet his eyes anymore. The magnetic field between us pulls him forward, too, and he sidesteps the chair so it’s no longer between us. There’s nothing between us. All I have to do is lift my face, and my lips will be right next to his. Breathing the air he breathes.
I feel my breath coming faster, tearing through my chest. I can’t lift my face to his.
I have to.
He takes a sudden, shuddering breath and steps back.
“You should go,” he says, his voice uneven. Unsettled.
I don’t even look at him before I fling myself out of the room, letting the door slam behind me as I run into the cold.
CHAPTER 23
That Sunday night, I call Mother and give my weekly perfunctory report, finally able to be more specific since all the girls from my floor have gone home. I tell her that Ben and I continue to meet at the cottage, and he seems more and more devoted to me.
She offers no words of praise. Instead, she sounds more agitated than I have ever heard her be, her words traveling furiously across the Atlantic. “Remember, the most important thing you have to do is get him to run away with you. Nothing else matters. And you need to do it soon after his eighteenth birthday, before his father begins to suspect anything.”
“Yes, Mother,” I say. What am I supposed to do with him after that? I wonder, remembering Arthur’s look of fear and pity, but I bite my lip and keep quiet.
“If you fail, there will be consequences.”
Arthur’s insistence that I
’m in danger flashes into my mind again before I can stop it. I hear a click, signaling that Mother has hung up, and I let the phone fall from my hands. I watch it swing by its cord for a few seconds, my eyes wide.
I hurry down the hall, my whole body itching for action. I need to reassure myself that I’m able to do this. I have to see Ben.
There’s something else pulling me to his room, too. It’s like he’s become the one safe haven in my life. Like I need him.
I don’t see Jenkins guarding the halls, but I still tiptoe as I leave Faraday and head across the newly fallen snow to the boys’ house. The cold bites into me, the wind stinging my cheeks. The tied-down trees seem to point the way to Rawlings Hall, their branches thin and bare like the brittle fingers of a crone. There’s a light burning on the fourth floor, and I count the number of windows to make sure I can find it once I’m inside.
I knock quietly on his door, and there’s a rustling noise within. As soon as Ben opens the door, I fling myself into his surprised arms. I need his warmth, and he obliges, pressing me closer to him.
“What are you doing here?” he asks. I can hear the delight shining in his tone, and it calms me.
“I needed to see you,” I explain as I stand on my tiptoes for a kiss. He smiles into my lips and then gets caught in my frenzy. His arms pull me against him. I pull the heavy sweater he’s wearing up over his broad chest, and he pushes off my coat before spinning me around and laying me on his bed.
Before I can speak, he’s lying on top of me, and his hands are exploring regions he’s previously been so careful to avoid. I make no move to stop him. Instead, I slip my hands under his thin cotton shirt, feeling the hard planes of his back and pulling him even closer to me. I can’t get him close enough to stop the chill that has shaken my whole body. But I can try.
I pull his shirt off, and he pulls mine off for me. When I reach for the waist of his pants, he pulls back, straightening his arms so that his chest is no longer pressed against mine.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice so much lower than usual. He holds himself above me, and for a moment, I let my eyes take him in: his firm jaw, his crooked nose, his golden eyelashes.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. His hazel eyes examine me for a moment, and then his lips are back on mine, open and warm and everything I need right now.
For once, I’m not numb. I’m not experiencing this with a blank mind, the way I have all those nights before. Tonight, I feel everything. The touch of his hands, the press of his lips, the weight of him bearing down on me. And, even more powerful, the ache in my heart that reaches out for him, straining to escape my chest.
We fall asleep in a tangle of limbs.
Every night for the rest of the break, I sneak into Ben’s room at night, and we sleep on his narrow twin bed. I’m surprised to find that I sleep deeper now when I share the air he breathes. I almost believe myself when I tell him that I’m happy.
CHAPTER 24
It all crashes down on us, though, when the boys’ house guard catches me sneaking out of Ben’s room the last morning before the end of break.
I’m closing the door when I feel a presence behind me, and I whirl around to find a very unfriendly face scowling at me with narrowed eyes. The guard is barely taller than I am, but the way he glowers at me, he seems almost monstrous.
“I was just borrowing a book,” I say, for once unable to think of a better excuse. I can see that it wouldn’t have mattered, though. This man is not Mrs. Hallie; I can’t manipulate him so easily.
The guard steps around me and knocks on the door briefly before pushing it open, revealing a surprised and still half-asleep Ben. “Come on, both of you,” he says shortly. “We’re going to the headmaster’s office.”
Ben shuffles along beside me, shivering in the sudden cold as we hurry through the yard to the main building. He only had time to throw on a shirt and jeans, and the muscles of his arms tense up in the bitter morning wind.
We reach the office with its imposing gold seal just as I decide what to do. The secretary isn’t sitting at her desk yet. Her animosity toward me would have been helpful, but I focus on the headmaster, straightening my shoulders.
Ben takes my hand and squeezes it before we walk into the office together.
Harriford looks up from the sheaf of papers he’s examining, and I wonder if we’ve interrupted him writing his novel. He doesn’t look all that pleased to see us, in any case. “What’s this?” he asks, looking to the guard for answers.
“I caught this one”—he shoots a thumb at me—“sneaking out of this one’s”—thumb at Ben—“room.”
Harriford widens his eyes as he looks at me, then purses his lips as he glares at Ben. He has cast me as the unwitting victim somehow and Ben as the calculating seducer, and I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling at the irony.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. Collingsworth?” Harriford asks, clasping his hands together on top of his papers. Even the bronze bust of Nabokov sitting on the corner of his desk looks at us with disapproval.
Ben glances at me, then answers. “She came to borrow something, that’s all.”
Harriford smiles, clearly not buying it. Then he leans forward, searching Ben’s face. “Are you on drugs, Mr. Collingsworth?”
I look at Ben, whose bloodshot eyes must have given him away. Harriford may be more observant than I give him credit for.
“No, sir,” Ben lies, shaking his head. For a long, breathless moment, Harriford keeps his little narrow eyes on Ben’s face. If he thinks Ben is using, he’ll expel him. Which should be what I want. But even after all that we’ve shared these past few nights, I don’t know if Ben is addicted to me enough to run away with me. I can see it now: He’ll go back to his father, who will transfer him to some other prep school. And I’ll never be with him again. I will fail. Mother will be angrier than I’ve ever seen her before, and I’ll have no way to escape her.
My breath comes faster and faster as I watch Harriford examine Ben.
Then he harrumphs and leans back in his chair, and I stifle a sigh of relief. “We don’t condone girls in the boys’ house. This is a hard and fast rule, even during Christmas holiday. I’m afraid I have to give both of you detention for a month.”
“That’s not fair,” I say now that there’s no threat of expulsion. My voice is loud in the chilled space of the office. “The guard just caught me outside of his room. I mean, it wasn’t that bad. You can’t punish us like this.”
Harriford raises an eyebrow at me.
“She’s right,” Ben chimes in, just as I wanted him to. “We didn’t do anything really wrong.”
“Enough,” Harriford says, directing his anger at Ben. “Unless you want suspensions, which will be put on your permanent record, I suggest you leave this office. And don’t ever let it happen again.”
Ben storms out, and I follow. He’s furious, his breath coming in angry gasps, as we head out into the yard. “This is ridiculous,” he fumes. “You’re my girlfriend, and it’s Christmas break, and who bloody cares?”
“I know,” I say quietly. I don’t have to add anything. He’s angry enough with Harriford as it is.
“It’s just not fair,” he mutters.
His rebellion has already started.
CHAPTER 25
The other students return to campus much too quickly. Our safe haven is shattered, and we brace ourselves for the inevitable gossip and questions that will come when everyone finds out we’re together. If that news hasn’t already spread around the country.
Claire bangs into our room with her huge suitcase and an even bigger smile on her face. She’s certainly glad to be back.
“Did you have a good holiday?” I ask as she throws her clothes into the drawers and glances every few seconds at the clock.
“It was awful,” she says absentmindedly. “I snuck
off with some friends one night, and my parents went mental. They grounded me. Told me they were disappointed in me. Like they’re ever anything but disappointed in me. I was dying to get back here.”
I watch her carefully. She looks even more ragged than she did before break. There are deeper, darker circles under her eyes, and her skin seems more yellow than pale.
She turns to me with her usual wide, bright smile, however. “I did hear some interesting news, though,” she says.
I groan. “Who told you?”
“Only about twelve different people. Everyone wanted to know if I had any idea my roommate and the school god were shagging.”
I roll my eyes. “What’d you say?”
“I told them to mind their own bloody business. But you’re going to have some fun days in the hallways, I bet. Absolutely everyone knows.”
She’s right, of course. Everyone stops what they’re doing and stares whenever I walk down a hallway or enter the dining hall, their intense curiosity and naked disapproval making goose bumps rise on my skin. And when Ben comes up to me the first day of class and leans me against my locker to kiss me, there are actual audible gasps.
As Ben’s lips claim mine, I can’t help opening my eyes and watching the faces of the people around us. Ben’s friends look horrified, and even some teachers raise their eyebrows in surprise. No one is smiling. I have no allies here.
Ben seems to take it in stride, grabbing my hand and walking me to class. But once we reach English, I can feel his grip tighten. His friends Liam and Colin are sitting in their usual spots in the back, waiting for us.
Ben gives them a slight nod and pulls me to a chair in the second row, sitting beside me. I sneak a glance back at his friends to find that they’re staring at us in utter confusion.
After class, Liam and Colin corner Ben before he can leave the room. “What’s going on, mate?” Colin asks, giving me a not-so-subtle once-over. “Is this the reason you didn’t go to London with us over holiday? Is she worth it?”
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