Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,54

should’ve seen the look on their faces. They had no idea what had gotten into me.”

Serafina smiled. “You really didn’t want to leave Biltmore that bad?” Still smiling, she took a few steps forward and sat on the edge of the bed beside him.

“You have no idea how my heart leapt when I saw stupid old Crankshod shaking the daylights out of you in the porte cochere,” he said. “I thought: There she is! There she is! I can save her!”

Serafina laughed. “Well, you could have come a little earlier and saved me a good shaking!”

Braeden smiled, and it was good to see him smile, but then he remembered her question and turned more serious again as he looked at her. “But then, later, during the battle in the forest, and in the carriage that night, and when you disappeared the next morning, that’s when I realized how different you really were from anyone I had ever met. Yes, you are different, Serafina…very different…maybe even strange, like you say…I don’t know…but…” His words faded, and he did not continue.

“But maybe that’s all right with you,” she said tentatively, thinking she understood him.

“Yes. I think it’s what I like about you,” he said, and there was a long pause between them.

“So, we’re friends,” she said finally, her heart beating as she waited for his answer. It was a statement, but it was also a question, to be confirmed or denied, and it was the first time in her life she had ever asked someone that question.

“We’re friends,” he agreed, nodding his head. “Good friends.”

She smiled at him, and he smiled in return. Her chest filled with a sensation like she was drinking warm milk.

“I also want to tell you this, Serafina,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with me, either. I don’t know. We’re just different from the others, you and I, each in our own way. You know what I mean?”

He climbed out of the bed. “I have a present for you,” he said as he lit an oil lamp on his nightstand. “I know you don’t need the light, but I do. Otherwise, I’m going to stub my toe on the bed.”

“A present? For me?” she said, not really hearing anything else he said.

Presents were something she’d read about in Little Women and other books, something people exchanged when they liked each other. She had never been able to figure out why her pa never celebrated her birthday, but now that he’d told her the story of her birth, she realized that it probably dug up dark and painful memories that he preferred to forget. It didn’t help that buying sentimental presents that weren’t useful was akin to a sin in his book. And the one time he tried to make her a gift, she ended up with a doll that looked suspiciously like a crescent wrench. The truth was she had never received an actual wrapped present in her life, but the thought of it excited her.

“Why do I deserve a present?” she asked Braeden as she crawled farther onto the bed.

“Because we’re friends, right?” he said as he handed her a medium-size lightweight box wrapped in decorative paper and tied with a crimson velvet bow. “I hope you don’t mind what it is.”

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s foreboding. What is it, a black satin cloak?”

“Just open it,” he said, smiling.

She untied the bow, thinking of how different the soft velvet felt in her fingers compared to the rough twine that she once cinched around her waist. But having no practice at it, she didn’t know how to unwrap the beautiful paper. Braeden had to show her how.

Finally, she lifted the lid off the box.

She gasped. What she saw in the box struck a deep chord in her heart. It was a gorgeous winter gown. It had long sleeves of dark maroon velvet and a corset of richly patterned charcoal-and-black velour, all trimmed in lynx-gray piping, its silver threads shimmering in the flickering light of the oil lamp.

“Oh, it’s wonderful…” she said in amazement as she lifted the dress out of the box. The material felt so soft and warm that she kneaded it with her fingers and touched it to her face. She had never seen such a beautiful dress in her life.

She pulled her hair back behind her head and tied it with the red bow from her present. Then she went