“Well,” Kazrian said, and she realized she had simply been standing there, staring at the framework, one hand loosely gripping the ring on the chain around her neck. “I shall get the ring from you later, then, before I leave. Do remind me, in case I?—”
“Oh, no, rather take it now.” She reached back for the clasp at the nape of her neck. “I should hate for us both to forget.”
Her fingers found the hook and tried to grasp it, but she could not properly catch hold of it. She tried again. The clasp was a simple thing—a hook and a loop, nothing more—and she had undone it a hundred times before without the slightest difficulty.
Kazrian took a step forward, then stopped. “Do you want me to?—”
“No, no! It’s—” She tried again, but her fingers had gone damp and clumsy and the hook would not yield, and this was, without question, the most absurd thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life. It was a clasp. A simple clasp! “Darn fiddly little?—”
“It is no trouble, Lucie.” He gave her a tentative smile.
She dropped her hands in frustration and turned away with a sharp exhale, presenting the back of her neck to him. “Yes—thank you—if you would just … thank you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, because she was facing away and there was no one to witness this particular indignity, and told herself with every ounce of conviction she possessed to simply, for the love of all that was good, be normal about this.
His fingers brushed the nape of her neck and she held very, very still, aware that she was holding her breath yet entirely unable to simplybreathe. She felt him work the clasp, and it took him all of two seconds to free it. Because of course it did. Because it was nothing.
She ducked her head slightly as he drew the chain forward over her head, and when she glanced around and down she saw him lower the ring into his palm, closing his fingers around it. She was about to step away, about to turn and reach for the chain so she could put it back on herself, but he was already lifting the chain up and over, and she understood a half second too late that he meant to refasten it for her.
“Oh—right. Yes. Thank you.” She turned her back to him again, and dear stars, would this excruciating moment not simplyendalready? And itwasexcruciating, she insisted. There was absolutely nothing inside her that was enjoying any part of this. Not the nearness of him, not the brush of his fingers at the back of her neck, not the faint warmth of him standing just behind her. Not in the least. Not even one small bit.
His fingers settled the clasp into place, and she felt the light press of the hook catching, and then his hands were gone. She turned to face him and fixed her gaze with great precision on the middle of his chest.
“I, ah, shall adjust this last section,” he said, lifting one hand to the back of his neck, “on the structure. But you may return to the kitchen if you need to. I know you have rather a great deal to see to inside.”
“Of course. Yes. Thank you.” She was already backing away.
“And I shall move the structure indoors once I am finished,” he added. “Rosavyn told me it will rain this afternoon, and she has an uncanny sense for that sort of thing.” Lucie glanced at him long enough to see the half smile. “I have never known her to be wrong.”
She nodded and turned toward the back door, and the thought arrived before she could prevent it.
I have always had an eye for weather.
Henry. Standing in the kitchen with Georgiana’s umbrella, so certain of the clouds he claimed to see on the horizon. She could not recall now whether it had rained that day or not, and it did not matter, because the comparison had already assembled itself without her permission: Henry and his sister, Kazrian and his.
She needed to stop that. She had been telling herself so for days. Stop comparing them. Stop laying the one against the other in her mind, weighing this against that, as if she stood holding a scale with a suitor in each pan. It was not a choice between two men. It had never been that,because one of the two men was not an option and never had been. And the other?—
Well. She knew Henry considered the matter between them to be all but settled. He had a way of speaking about the future that quietly folded her into it, as though it were already arranged and merely awaiting the formalities. For her own part she had made no decision of any kind.
Once the launch was done, she told herself. Once this terrible, wonderful, all-consuming week was behind her. She would give Henry her proper attention. She would spend time with him without constant distractions. She would allow him to call on her at home—formally, properly, the way a man did when his intentions were serious and a woman was willing to hear them out.
The thought of it made her faintly uncomfortable, and she realized, with some embarrassment, that a part of it was simply the prospect of Henry seeing the house. Her family’s home was modest. Comfortable and clean and full of warmth and love, but modest, and she knew—in the instinctive way one simply knew these things—that Henry’s home would be a good deal grander. He had spoken often enough of his investments, his properties, the way he had built upon his family’s foundations. His home would reflect that.
He would be kind about hers, she had no doubt. He would say all the correct things. And she would spend the whole of the visit aware of every worn cushion and every honest, unfashionable corner of it, watching him be gracious about her family’s modest circumstances.
“Right,” Lucie said to the kitchen at large as she stepped back inside. She untied and retied her apron—a small steadying ritual she’d been employing more often in recent days—and crossed to the pantry. Good. That was over. The awkward ring-chain-removal moment. She would now proceed to never think about it again, starting immediately.
The chocolate bees. She needed to check on the chocolate bees. She had completed them a week ago, and then opened the tin the following day to find the whole lot of them buzzing furiously against the lid. She had spent several days, in between other tasks, reworking the magic—a new charm, gentler than the last, designed to keep them in a settled sleep until she was ready to wake them. It needed time to take hold, which meant she could notsimply cast it on the day and hope for the best. Once completed, the bees appeared to be behaving, but she still liked to check the tin daily to be sure.
She scanned the pantry shelf where the tin lived. It was not there. She moved the jar of crystallized violets aside, looked behind several varieties of tea blends, checked the lower shelf where things sometimes migrated when the brownies were tidying.
Nothing.
Her eyes traveled the length of every shelf in the pantry.
Still nothing.
Her chest tightened. Three dozen perfect chocolate bees.Where were they?She still had all the honeycomb to do for the beehive, and there was no time for?—
