Sukie stared at him.
“Pardon!” he blurted, yanking his arm back to himself as if burned.
Yet while her astonishment remained, she didn’t appear in the least bit upset or angry with him as she replied, “I don’t mind.”
Daniel could hardly believe his good fortune. Slowly, hesitantly, his fingers faintly trembling, he reached out again and idly brushed his fingertips through her hair.
She closed her eyes with a soft sigh that washed over Daniel’s heart.
While he misliked washing or brushing out his own hair—the length of it annoyed him, and the time it took to tend it annoyed him further still, until it required almost more willpower than he possessed to resist hacking it all off—he found when it came to the walnut locks on Sukie’s tender head, he delighted in taking the utmost care. He could spend many happy hours combing it out for her, weaving his fingers through it to work out the knots without causing her the least pain, until it shone with a glossy glow. And she, against all odds, seemed to enjoy letting him do so.
After such an intimacy as this, it seemed silly to go on denying each other the small comfort of touch, and so Daniel felt emboldened when next they sat together, cross-legged with their knees almost meeting, to lay his hand on the floor-boards between them, palm-up, at her mercy.
And she, to his infinite delight, deigned to grace his palm with her own.
They held hands throughout that night’s conversation. And the following night. And the night after that.
Another subsequent night, whilst they held hands and whispered of nothing and everything, Sukie reached up to her own shoulder and winced.
Daniel was on the alert in an instant. “Are you all right?”
She shrugged. “Just an ache. Gone by morning. Or I hope so, at least.”
Small wonder she ached, given all the hauling and scrubbing she did in a given day throughout the whole academy. Still, Daniel wondered a great deal at his own boldness as he raised his hand to her shoulder and asked, “May I?”
She blinked at him in something like confusion but nodded all the same.
Daniel rearranged himself to sit beside and behind her. Then, with his breath held and his heart hammering at his ribcage as though it would burst free, he laid his hands upon her shoulders and began to knead.
Her head fell forward with a groan of relief.
Slowly and steadily he worked the knots from her muscles with his soft hands—shamefully soft, when contrasted against her honest and hard-earned callouses. It became another part of their night-time ritual. And there were nights when, stretched out across his bed and under the ministrations of his fingers, she would fall asleep altogether. Then he dared not disturb her but dressed himself for bed as quiet as possible and laid downbeside her, careful not to let his form touch hers, though the bare inch between them hardly seemed to suffice in either direction, neither near nor far enough for his liking.
Yet no matter how oft they touched, it always felt—to Daniel, at least—like the moment their fingertips had first brushed against each other at afternoon tea. Terrifying. Exhilarating. And, somehow, as natural as a rosebud unfurling into full bloom.
He didn’t dare to imagine how a kiss might feel. Still, the thought of it burned in his mind throughout the day, flaring forth at odd moments of idleness to consume him in day-dreams far beyond anything that had ever preoccupied him before.
And then, one evening, Sukie arrived with a barely-repressed smirk on her face and something held behind her back.
No sooner had Daniel shut the door after her than she held out to him a package wrapped brown paper and twine. He accepted it with some bewilderment. Unwrapping it revealed a battered but no less beautiful copy of Scott’sThe Monastery.
“I thought you might like it,” she said, beaming. “I know you haven’t the opportunity to procure them yourself, and if I may be so bold, I noticed Mr Knoll’s gifts don’t come very often, and when they do they don’t seem to suit you. If you asked him for a novel he might well return with a string of pearls—and not the penny dreadful, neither. So I supposed it was up to me to supply the lack.”
He laughed and thanked her, though words felt hardly sufficient to express all he felt at this marvelous escape from the dull day-to-day of the academy.
Sukie bit her lip (which made Daniel’s heart perform acrobatics) and asked if she might have something in return for her gift.
“Oh—of course, yes,” said Daniel. He supposed the price of an entire novel, even second-hand, must prove trying on a maid’s salary. “How much—?”
“A kiss,” Sukie blurted.
Daniel blinked. Surely he’d misheard her.
A primrose tint came into Sukie’s beautiful face. “That is—I rather thought—if you don’t mind—but if you do mind, it’s all right by me, I only—”
Daniel leapt forth and kissed her.
Soft lips met his own. Their touch thrilled his whole being, exceeding all expectation. She gasped against his mouth and threw her arms around his shoulders. The warmth of her embrace suffused his very bones. He found himself entwined with her in turn, his hands settling onto the soft curves beneath her uniform. A thud resounded through the attic as the book fell to the floorboards all-but-forgotten.
