Honor and Desire (Gold Sky #3) - Rebel Carter Page 0,25

Del.”

The other woman lifted a shoulder in a shrug and spread her hands over her skirts. “You know it’s because I care, otherwise I’d tell you what I know you want to hear.”

“Which would be?” Seylah wanted to know.

“That August has no feelings for you, and that he most definitely did not brood and stalk about when word of your impending outing with Mister Elliots Myers came about.”

Seylah moaned and covered her face with her hands. “Oh dear. He was rather agitated when I left him at work today.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Delilah deadpanned, which earned her a withering look from Seylah. “What?” Her sister asked, sitting up in her chair and throwing her hands up. “The man is-is—”

“He’s what?” Seylah sighed.

“I’m not quite sure yet, but I know it’s with you, dear sister, and he has been since he clapped eyes on you in Mother’s classroom.”

Seylah shook her head and stood from her seat. “You are quite mistaken, Del. August and I—, well, we are friends.”

“But Seylah—”

“No, Del. Listen to me.” Seylah wrung her hands in front of her and cleared her throat against the rising lump she felt there. It was growing increasingly difficult to speak, to breathe, to do anything when the matter that Del was suddenly determined to drag out into the open.

Why would she do this now? After all this time.

“I almost lost him once, and I’ll not risk it again.”

Delilah’s eyes widened. “What?” She asked, voice just loud enough for her sister to hear in the stillness of the library.

“When we were fourteen...that dance, August took me to that dance. The one that was just after school ended for the summer. Do you remember it?”

Her sister smiled fondly at the memory. “You were lovely, and you were, I mean, that was the last time that you dressed up. Of course I remember it. You were beautiful.”

Seylah’s eyes drifted closed. “I was not.”

“Seylah, that’s a lie. You were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, you looked just like Mama in her wedding photos. Even Daddy and Papa said so.”

Delilah’s words poked at the sore spot Seylah kept covered for fear of someone finding it, of someone accidentally pressing upon that unhealed wound that would hurt her anew, fresh as the day it was wrought.

“No, I was not.” She held up a hand when her sister made to protest and continued speaking. “That night I heard August speaking with a group of older girls, girls that had finally noticed him because August was far more dashing than the rest of the boys there. I had thought the night was the start of something bigger, of perhaps an us, because that was what I wanted so desperately as a girl. But, August told them he did not care for me like I did him.”

Delilah shook her head, a frown on her face as she did so. “No, it can’t be.”

“He told them that he was only watching out for me as debt to our fathers for looking out for him. That,” she swallowed hard, past the lump and forced the words out, “nothing was for free and that he owed them.”

Delilah clapped a hand over her mouth and gasped. “Oh, Seylah, no.”

“After that night, things were strained between us. I left the dance early and came home, I was so embarrassed. I felt like a fool and couldn’t look at him for weeks. He started, ah seeing one of the girls from that night shortly after as well, so it was easier for us to avoid spending time.”

Delilah nodded. “I remember that time. It was hard on you both.”

Seylah cleared her throat and pushed past the bit where her sister said both, and continued on, “We didn’t speak to each other like we did before—not as best friends, until the night of my eighteenth birthday, when it was simply too much for us.”

“What was?”

“The pain of missing one another. We reconciled, though I doubt he knows what our estrangement was ever over. August has no idea that I heard him that night. I never told him, or anyone until now, until I’ve told you. I kept it close.”

“But why? Why would you not let us share that pain?” Delilah asked, her eyes shining with tears.

Seylah blinked back her own tears at the emotion she heard in her sister’s voice. “I wanted it to be a memory. I wanted it to not have happened, so I pushed it aside and built a fortress around it so