Page 95 of Winterset
“I truly cannot believe these are here,” I said.
“There’s more.” Kate slid back and lifted another floorboard. “This is where the most precious items are hidden.”
I sucked in a breath when my gaze landed on the monstrance. It had an ornately engraved base that rose like a candlestick to a sunburst top. In the center of the sun, there was a cylindrical eye where the lunette once held the consecrated bread. It was quite literally breathtaking.
I reached out to touch the relic at the same time Kate did, and our hands brushed. The unexpected touch sent a wave of warmth through me. But I stilled, remembering how she’d fled when I’d touched her hair in the drawing room after our card game. It was then I noticed how close we were sitting. So close our knees nearly touched. Did she notice? Did she mind?
She didn’t shy away from me, and her eyes did not seem fearful, only searching, as her gaze rose to my forehead. To my scar. Did she find it repulsive?
I pushed my hair forward to hide the imperfection.
“Don’t,” she said, and her hand rose between us. “May I?”
I hesitated, not because I didn’t want her to touch me but because I did. Charlie’s words replayed in my mind. Kate was living undermyprotection. I should not be sitting here alone in an attic with her like this. And yet ... I nodded.
She leaned forward and brushed back the curls from my forehead with one hand. I could smell rose water on her wrist. Soft and sweet. She brushed her thumb lightly over my scar, studying it.
My heart raced.
Charlie had removed the stitches, but in their place was a one-inch scar. A straight line of fresh, white skin.
“It’s healing nicely,” she said, sitting back and setting her hand in her lap.
“I believe I might have you to thank for that?”
“You don’t remember?” Her beautiful brow furrowed.
“The details of that night are fuzzy.” I’d tried to recall the events of that night many times but had not been able to. “Could you remind me?”
“I would be happy to,” she said. “Tell me, have you any formal musical training? You have quite the vibrato.”
“Isangthat night?”
“You did.” She grinned. “In both ItalianandFrench, no less.”
“You jest.”
“I promise I do not.” She laughed to herself.
Lud!What she must have thought of me, returning to Winterset in such a state.Singing! And with a head wound, which she’d had to stitch. “I only remember one thing about that night,” I admitted. “Your eyes.”
She looked away, feigning interest in the relics. “Yes, well, they have always been too big for my face.”
Was she in earnest? “If you are fishing for a compliment, you needn’t. Your eyes are beautiful, Kate. Truly, I thought of nothing else for days.”
She met my gaze.
I’d said too much. I knew it, and so did she. “Forgive me. I should not have said that. I can only imagine what you thought of me that night.”
“I thought that I had never wanted to paint a portrait more,” she said.
“Because you wished to erase this unsightly scar?”
She shook her head. “Becauseof it.”
Was she lying? Trying to make me feel better about the imperfection? I’d applied salve to it every day since my accident to help minimize the scarring, but I suspected it was here to stay.
“It tells a story, Oliver. Oneyoumay not wish to remember but oneIwill never forget.” And there was something about the way she said that, about the way she searched my face that undid me.
