Page 40 of An Honorable Deception
Lavinia breathed a laugh. “Then I’ve become an expert at detecting it. I don’t need a day off. I took one on Sunday.”
“You have shadows under your eyes still,” Yates pointed out, studying her likeshewas a dossier.
“I was up too late and looking too long at the files. And thank you, by the way, for the flattery. You certainly know how to turn a girl’s head.”
Wrong thing to say—stupid, stupid.
Marigold frowned. Yates set his jaw.
Lavinia pivoted on her heel. “Never mind—who am I to argue if you want to relent on the torture? I’ll be in my domain, reigning supreme over the filing cupboards.” She fled back up the stairs before either one of them could say another word. Like ask herwhyshe was rubbing her chest if her heart wasn’t physically hurting.
TWELVE
Are you going to tell me exactly what happened to Lavinia while I was gone?”
Ordinarily, Yates would have matched his stride to Marigold’s, in deference to his niece or nephew, who definitely slowed her from her usual pace. But she could keep up withhimtoday. He wasn’t certain if the energy pulsing through his veins was worry or frustration or a bit of both, but he needed to get to the gymnasium to work it off. Marigold, if she cared to make excuses, could blame his speed on the lightly falling rain.
His sister sighed, but she kept up. “It’s my fault.”
He stopped, turned. Frowned.
She looked at the weeping sky rather than him, raindrops gathering. “We ... had a bit of an argument.”
The words were simple enough. The meaning wasn’t. He shook his head, but that did nothing to clear it. “You don’t argue with Lavinia. You have plenty of serious conversations. You even disagree, but you never argue.”
The way she winced and continued to look at everything but him made a sick knot of dread cinch tight in his gut. “No. You didn’t. You didnot—”
“You’re my brother!” She spread her arms wide, the flushon her cheeks saying she knew very well that it would do nothing to appease him.
He muttered something in Romani that Hector had never given him the exact translation for, but whose gist he understood well enough. And it suited his mood right now. He spun back toward the path.
“Yates.” Marigold hurried to catch up, a plea in her tone. “I would say I’m sorry, that I shouldn’t have overstepped—but I’m not. It needed to be said. I’m not going to stand around and watch while you—”
“What? While Iwhat?” A lock of hair fell onto his forehead, and he shoved it away like he wished he could her words. “Leopard stripes, Marigold, I’m a grown man, not a lovesick adolescent. I can be her friend without it breaking my heart.” He yanked open the door to the gymnasium and stormed inside.
Was that what Lavinia’s reaction had really been about last night?Marigold?Had the bit about Alethia been an excuse?
His sister slipped in behind him before the door crashed shut. “Can you? Be her friend? Are you certain?”
He strode for the skipping ropes. “You need to take a step away from whatever you think your role is as my older sister and consider your best friend. Does she look normal to you? Was sheactingnormal yesterday? This morning?”
Marigold was silent behind him. When he turned, rope in hand, she was sitting on the weight bench but not reaching for any of the handheld dumbbells. “No,” she whispered, and her brows drew together in concern. “Have we been working her too hard? She’s seemed all right, aside from the expected muscle pain. But I don’t like the way she was rubbing at her chest this morning.”
Yates didn’t either. “We can call the doctor if you think we should. But I don’t think it’s only the physical training.”
“Grief is a hard thing. A long thing.” Her eyes went unfocused, and the rain picked up outside, hammering on the roof and making a din in the vaulted room. “Sometimes I forget how long it took me to stop being angry at Papa for leaving us with no reserves. To stop being angry atMamafor dying so young. I forget how fast I ran to try to outpace it.”
They’d directed their run toward the Imposters—something to keep them busy, to occupy their minds, give a bit of hope. They hadn’t known if it would work, monetarily. It had been a risk. They’d sunk the last few pounds they had into business cards and those club memberships. But praise God, it had paid off.
“She’s doing the same thing, I think. With the files.” Yates swung the rope into motion, his legs falling into their usual rhythm without the need for thought. “And I’m glad we can give her that outlet. But she needs more than work, Marigold. You know better than anyone that our work is only going to paint the world as a bleak place. It isn’t going to give her her joy back.” Was it so wrong that he wanted to do that where he could?
No. And yet, her point in the study had been valid too. Alethia was ... intriguing. It wasn’t her beauty. It wasn’t the fact that she needed their help. It was the way she smiled at Zelda. The delight in her eyes when Penelope had come out to greet them yesterday. When he had an arm around her to support her, it didn’t feel like it ever had with Lavinia—there was no familiarity, no tangled hopes and dreams and reality, no expectation.
There was simply the quickening of a pulse, the acknowledgment of attraction, the first hint of life peeking out of soil in the spring. There was the shimmering light of what could be, brightened every time she looked up at him with those too-wise eyes that seemed to see him in exactly the same way.A possibility. A future that could unfold, perhaps, if they wanted it to. If they pursued it. If it was what God wanted for them. It was discovery waiting to happen. Exploration inviting them onward.
He’d never experienced that before. Lavinia he had simply loved forever—there had been no start to it, no bolt of realization. He had no memory of his childhood in which he didn’t love her and know—know—that they were meant for each other.
No other woman had really caught his eye. He’d hoped one would, as he worked so hard to resign those old dreams of Lavinia to the box of memories in which they belonged. Even as he knew he was in no position to marry, he’d hoped he’dwantto. He’d believed that falling in love with someone else would bring the healing he craved.
