A pause, but there really was no denying the truth. “Yes.”
“Kazrian Rowanwood.”
“Charlotte, if you say his name in that tone one more?—”
“HE LOVES YOU.” Charlotte seized both of Lucie’s hands and very nearly shook them off. “Oh—oh, I had no idea. I had not the faintest idea, Lucie, how did I not—” She stopped, and her whole face crumpled into something soft and thrilled. “Oh, but of course he does. Of course. He is completely wonderful, he always has been, and he has beenhere, at The Honeycomb, every single day, helping you with all of it, all these weeks?—”
“It was not?—”
“All that time in the kitchen together.” Charlotte pressed on, ruthless, her eyes shining. “The two of you, side by side, hour after hour. The long looks across the worktable. His hand brushing yours over the—over the truffles, or whatever it is, and neither of you saying a word, and the tension simply—oh, Lucie, of course you fell in love with him, how could you not, it is exactly like a?—”
“It was not like that!” Lucie was laughing now, helplessly, and swatting at her sister’s arm. “Stop it. It was not all long looks and brushing hands. Most of it was flour and burnt sugar and me being cross about falling ovens. Stop.”
“Long. Lingering. Looks,” Charlotte said with relish, and Lucie lifted the blanket and pressed her burning face into it and laughed until it hurt.
It was some while before the laughter wound itself down. When itfinally did, Lucie wiped at her eyes and found her sister watching her with a quieter expression, thoughtful now, the delight banked down into something more considering.
“You are not,” Lucie said slowly, “as disapproving as I expected you to be.”
Charlotte lifted one shoulder. “Well. It is Kazrian.”
As if that settled it. As if who he was, specifically—not his title, not his family, not his place in society—was the only thing that mattered.
“But he is still a fae lord,” Lucie said quietly. “And Mother and Father … after everything with Aunt …”
Charlotte’s expression shifted. The brightness dimmed, though it did not go out entirely. “I know,” she said. “I know that.”
“Then you understand why I refused him.”
Charlotte went very still. “You refused him?”
“Yes.”
“He made an offer of—he asked you to?—”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. But I knew it could not possibly work, so I told him I did not love him. And then he left for three years.”
Charlotte stared at her. The silence stretched. “This happenedthree years ago?” Charlotte’s voice climbed. “You have loved him since—for three entire …”
“Yes?” The word came out small and uncertain, almost a question, as if she were bracing for a verdict.
“Youare the reason Bloomhaven has not seen Kazrian Rowanwood in three years?”
“I … yes?”
Charlotte’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “And you did not tell meanyof this!” She reached out and gave Lucie’s knee a sharp, sisterly smack. “Not one word! Three years, Lucie!”
“Because he is fae!” Lucie’s voice rose to meet her sister’s. “And because of what happened with Aunt and Lord Starspun! You know as well as I do how our family suffered. The whispers, the judgment. Mother said it took years for people to stop looking at them sideways. And I could not?—”
“Mother exaggerates. I suspect it was months at most. No one has the stamina to maintain a sideways glance for years on end.”
“And I could not—” Lucie forged on, ignoring Charlotte’s interruption “—I would not—bring that down on us again. I knew Mother and Father would oppose a match between the two of us. Likely even more strongly than Kazrian’s family.”
The room went quiet again.
Charlotte sighed. The sound was long and heavy and carried something complicated in it—understanding and frustration and grief, all wound together. She looked down at the blanket, running her thumb along its edge. “Yes,” she said softly. “I imagine they would be rather opposed.”
“And the whole of society,” Lucie reminded her. “Not merely our family.”
