“Good lord, what are you doing?” she says, a hand pressed to her heart.
Howard struggles to disentangle herself from the sheets.
“I did not mean to frighten you.”
“You nevermeanto do anything,” Legh says. The conversation is slipping away from Howard before it has even begun. She grasps at it.
“Sister. May we talk? Just you and I? Without any of the others?”
Legh remains hard, her hand still on her chest like a shield.
“What do you wish to talk about?”
“Us.”
Legh smirks. “Coming into my bed. Talking aboutus.You act as though we are married.”
“Please stop,” Howard says.
“I am only jesting.”
Howard spins off the bed and paces to the other end of the chamber. The strangeness of the room makes her realise she has never been here before. Four years since she married Henry and Legh entered her household, and she has never been inside her bedchamber. She who used to share a mattress and all her secrets with her half-sister.
“We used to be so close,” Howard starts.
“Ask me what you really want to ask me,” Legh says. She is on her feet beside the bed, bare feet planted solidly.
Howard wavers for a moment, her own determination faltering in the face of Legh’s challenge.
“Are you working against me?” The question lands like lead between them.
“Well,” Legh says. She laughs, a fluttery sound soon dampened. “Well. Have you asked anyone else that? The quiet little artist who watches more than she speaks? Did you ask her? Or the boy who’s in love with the king’s sister – did you ask him?”
“No,” Howard says. She feels as though she is eight again, standing in front of her aunt after a misdemeanour.
“No.” Legh smiles bitterly. “No. You have only asked the half-sister who has protected you and taught you and stood by you since you were barely out of the cradle.”
“You have been so cruel of late,” Howard says. “Am I not entitled to ask why you act so?”
“I have only been to one Moon Ball, Howard.”
Howard blinks at this sudden diversion. “What?” she says.
“You took me in your retinue in your first year of marriage, and never again since,” Legh says, slicing the air with her hand.
“And that is why you dislike me?”
Legh utters a loud, crumpled noise and balls fists into the blankets. She will wake the rest of the household. “I do not dislike you, Howard. I am saying that you were cruel to me long before I was cruel to you.”
Howard stifles a laugh. “It’s only a ball, Legh. This is so small.”
The laughter dies in her throat as Legh fixes her with tear-brimmed eyes.
“Not to me.”
Outside the window, an owl hoots.
“Not to me,” Legh says again.
