To prove it, I clutched his shirt and lifted myself to my toes and brought my lips to his.
Sweeter than raspberry jam, warmer than candle flame, softer than bread.
People often spoke with religious rapture of milk and honey, but if I had nothing but Jesse to consume for the rest of my days, I’d die a heathen beast, content.
Chapter 23
Monday dragged on. The lack of sleep I’d been accumulating over the past week or so was creeping up on me. I fell asleep in my chair during Vachon’s lesson in the ballroom, listening to Caroline struggle to add some brio to her Rossini.
She wasn’t succeeding. With Vachon tapping his wand hard into his palm, she repeated the same passage again and again, and the world went fuzzy and my head dipped down to my chest.
I awoke to my classmates’ giggles and monsieur’s wand whacking me upon the shoulder.
At least he hadn’t hit me across the knuckles. I fancy it was that he didn’t want to risk bruising them; the duke might ask for an encore any day.
I staggered through the rest of my classes. I took notes; I conjugated verbs. I sketched pomegranates and limes in fat, crumbly strokes of charcoal on Bristol board and earned a word of praise from Miss Swanston, who seemed to think my simple lines were the product of modernist inspiration, instead of I just want this done.
I listened for Jesse’s music, which came to me finally during supper, floating up from beyond the windows of the dining hall. He would be standing out there in the dark, I knew. Standing in the moonlit gardens, looking up at the glass.
We had no better reliable means of communication. Paper notes could be intercepted; I might get caught at any time whenever I tried to sneak to the grotto or out to the green. But if Jesse was near enough for me to hear him, I could understand him. Intricate music, dulcet music, his silent symphony moved from brio to lullaby with such effortless beauty, Vachon would weep. And every bit of Jesse’s song was meant for me, a one-way message only I could receive.
Tonight it said, Rest, love. Sleep.
That seemed a fantastic suggestion. But I decided to drop by the library before I made my way up to my tower.
The truth was, despite what I’d told Sophia yesterday, it was the one place I tended to constantly avoid.
Imagine a man crawling through a desert, dying of thirst. He needs water; his parched dreams are of water; only water is going to save him.
And then at last help comes. A bloke walks up to him and says, “Sorry, chap, no water for you. But here’s a lovely glass of powdered sugar. You can have as much as you like!”
Books had always been my lifeline. Even at Moor Gate, they’d offered me books to keep me biddable, and I’d plunged into worlds I’d never guessed existed. Fiction or fact, it hardly mattered; books transported me beyond my own mental borders. Maybe they even helped preserve my sanity. What there was of it.
Iverson girls were not exactly encouraged to dream beyond their borders. There’d be no tales of amazing submarines or folklore of the Fay found here. Mrs. Westcliffe didn’t even subscribe to a newspaper.
However, if I wanted to read about needlework or making cheese, I had my pick.
I don’t think I was the only one unimpressed with the selection. After supper, the library always filled with students, most of them from my class and Chloe’s, but all they did was sit around and play games and chat about things like fashion and boys until curfew—until I would have been blue in the face with boredom. Usually a teacher or Westcliffe sat with them, I suppose to ensure no spontaneous moment of meaningful conversation erupted.
It was yet another part of life at the school in which I would be considered an interloper, and on any other night I’d walk past the library entrance without a second thought.
But …
Armand had mentioned that he had a book of peerage at Tranquility. All these blue-blooded girls mucking about: I thought it a good chance Iverson might, as well.
Perhaps I could riddle out the mystery of Rue and Kit. Perhaps I could find them before Armand did.
Perhaps … I could find my own family somewhere in there.
It was a notion I’d not allowed myself to surrender to until now, but it had been boiling inside me for hours, bubbling up against the