King Among the Dead - Lauren Gilley Page 0,18
firelight, eyes shiny from the whiskey – gone now, she saw, as he ran a fingertip around the rim of the glass.
“You can pretend if you want to,” he said, “but you don’t have to. I won’t ever think less of you.”
She wondered if they were still talking about blushing.
“Don’t you find it surprising that Jane fell in love with Rochester?” He sounded genuinely curious, and not as though he were laying a trap. It wasn’t a challenge, not like Claire’s opinions had been. “They’re so very different, after all.”
“I don’t think they’re that different at all.”
“Really?”
“Everyone thinks Jane’s meek, but she’s just quiet. Careful isn’t the same as afraid. She’s smart. And – and a person can’t help trembling, sometimes. It happens whether we want it to or not.”
He pressed the tip of his tongue to his top lip and stared at her fixedly, listening, really listening.
“And Rochester is gruff and impolite – but it’s to cover up that he’s awkward. He feels a great deal more than he says, but he isn’t very good at putting any of it into words. Really, he’s meeker than Jane, with his secrets, refusing to allow himself to…”
“To what?”
“Love her.”
The firelight bathed his throat, highlighting the movement of it as he swallowed. “But how can Jane love him in return? What about the wife in the attic? The cruelty of it? He’s cruel and he’s ugly.”
“Not to her.”
His brows went up, and then he became very still, before his head cocked to the side. “The lamb fell in love with the lion, I suppose.”
“Who says Jane’s a lamb?” She heard the quiet rush of his exhale. “I think – I think Jane has cruelty and ugliness, too. She’d have to, or they wouldn’t suit each other so well.”
He glanced toward the fire again. “Yes. Yes, I guess you’re right,” he mused. “Some find fault with the book, for failing to serve as a morality play at the end.”
She shrugged. “It’s a love story. Love doesn’t require morality, does it?”
He didn’t turn his head, but his eyes cut toward her, a wet gleam in the dimness. “No, I don’t guess it does.” He smiled again, a flash of a canine like a fang, before he schooled his expression with what looked like real effort, and studied the dancing flames. “You ought to go to bed, Rose,” he said, gently. “It’s late, and you’ll be sleepy tomorrow.”
It was a logical statement, but a clear dismissal, too. It stung, maybe more than it should have. “Right.” She stood and left the book behind on the chair.
When she was at the door, he called after her: “I think tomorrow we’ll start with some lessons. History, language, science. The normal sorts of things. You can’t have gleaned anything worthwhile in whatever bit of schooling you’ve had.”
She glanced back over her shoulder, but his profile was still toward her, half-hidden by a screen of his hair.
“Alright,” she said. “I’d like that.”
“Goodnight, Rose.”
“Goodnight, Beck.”
That night she dreamed of a rain-soaked beast sprawled across a chair, claws digging into the upholstery, golden, slitted eyes with tall pupils, and fangs as long as her fingers.
SIX
The next day after breakfast, Beck carried in an unused table and chairs from one of the fancier parlors and set them up in the center of the library rug. He brought her a stack of new spiral notebooks with crisp, white pages, and six pens with fresh black ink: untold luxurious the likes of which she’d never owned, like everything else he’d given her so far.
He wore a soft-looking blue shirt today, open at the throat, white undershirt peeking from beneath, tucked into olive corduroys and a pair of battered old loafers. Truth told, she liked him best in the stark, fitted blacks he’d had on last night, but there was something about his during-the-day clothes that made him feel more tangible. She studied him, while he had his back to her, pulling books down off the shelves. Appreciated the way his lean, hard shape was still evident beneath the softer, looser fabrics. He looked touchable like this.
At breakfast, he’d shown no signs that he wished to discuss their conversation in the library last night. Hair soft, dry, gleaming, his manner mild and warm, she’d realized he wasn’t going to address the side of him she’d glimpsed in the firelight: the whiskey, and cigarette, and tension of it all.
Today he was playing professor.
Last night he’d been something entirely different, and not playing at all, she didn’t