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13
My speech causes a scream-fest in English. Arabella is in an uproar, calling me all the names under the sun, so vicious that even kick-happy Li has to cajole her to sit down. The chiefs defend me valiantly by cursing out Arabella, and at one point Finlay leaps up so suddenly that I almost think he’s going to throttle her. Arabella only settles when Mr. Stevenson finally returns with his book, and the class sinks back into the kind of tense, stifling silence that oddly makes me want to laugh.
“Your speech was impressive,” Rory tells me in an approving tone once class is dismissed, sidling up to me in the hallway. “Perhaps your training this summer wasn’t a waste, after all.”
“Did youhearArabella? She’s getting worse every day.”
“Forget her,” Rory says shortly. And somehow I’m able to forget Arabella the instant Rory wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me in close. It’s like the world fades and I’m caught in those storm-gray eyes. Rory kisses me in the middle of the hallway, in front of all our classmates, as if to reward my speech — and yes, I forget Arabella entirely. I also forget my own name.
His tongue slides slowly against mine, a warm, hot tease that makes me arch into his firm body. I moan into his mouth, the touch of his tongue an erotic ache that makes me melt inside his arms. It’s like Rory knows instinctively the best way to draw out an elongated groan, a needy whimper, from my throat.
It’s Li I overhear first — the loud scoff, the mutteredgross. But it’s Arabella who insists I remember her existence, who intrudes upon my leisurely kiss with Rory by saying in the snootiest voice, “Your behavior has been noted for going against school rules.”
Rory ignores her, but I can’t continue kissing with Arabella glaring daggers at me. I pull away, irritated at having been denied Rory’s perfect, sensual mouth for longer.
“Get a bloody life, Belly,” he drawls, sounding equally irritated. “Your obsession with us isn’t healthy.”
“You know as well as I do that there are standards to maintain around here,” she snaps, her eyes lingering on the hand wrapped possessively around my middle. “At least I’mdoingmy job. You flout the rules time and time again and nothing happens. So I’m going to clean up this school and get rid of this filth.”
Rory rolls his eyes. “You understand being Head Girl isn’t a paid position, right? There’s no reason for you to be quite so gung-ho with the persecution.”
Arabella’s gaze drifts over us in disgust, as though a boy and a girl standing in close proximity is the most repugnant thing her brain can conjure. “Youdon’t seem to be taking your role seriously enough so I may as well do your job in addition to mine.” She turns on her heel, before adding, “Certain behavior between Lochkelvin students desperately needs correcting — and I’ll make sure that comes to fruition.”
As she storms off, the other chiefs stand beside us as backup. I can’t help but think it’d be a task and a half to defeat all of us — Arabella’s hate for us must be so deep if it’s what she’s contemplating. Rory secures his arm around my shoulders and plants another soft kiss to my temple, his voice supremely bored as he advises, “Ignore her. She’s all bark and no bite. What could she possibly do?”
I’m not so sure. I watch her loop arms with Li, almost yanking Li’s arm off from the force, and have the acute certainty that, at some point during this summer, Arabella completely lost her mind.
To Arabella’s credit, she sticks by her threat. That night, I only have to open my door a crack, the hinges releasing their telltale squeal, before Arabella comes marching out of her room.
“Don’t you dare go down there!” she snaps. “If you think you can freely come and go between the girls’ tower and the boys’ dorm then you have another thing coming! Your misdemeanors have already been reported to the authorities.” I marvel at Arabella. Her eyes are slits and her face is scrunched up. She seems bloodthirsty, desperate for me to submit to her iron will. Her Head Girl badge grows that little bit shinier every day, like Arabella’s favorite hobby is to polish it and admire her face in its sheen.
“So I’m not allowed to leave my room? I have to stay here under duress?”
“Girls don’t meddle with boys! It’s very simple, Jessa. Follow the rules and you won’t be a target.”
I shake my head at her. “I’m afraid I won’t do that.” And in a single motion, I push past Arabella.
Arabella seems stunned. Her self-belief is so huge that she’d never considered I’d just swan past her. She doesn’t react for a long moment, blinking several times instead. “Your mother was here,” she eventually says, and it’s these words, I think, more than anything that could possibly have left her mouth, that makes me freeze in the middle of the staircase. “Looked like she had very little to her name. Not even two pennies to rub together.”
My teeth are grinding before Arabella’s even finished speaking. How dare she bring up my mom. “What are you saying?”
“Just that. You wouldn’t want her to be disappointed in her scholarship baby, would you?”
“She already is,” I snarl, and Arabella blinks her large eyes at me owlishly. It’s clear she hadn’t expected that response, but there’s a victorious glint in her gaze — and my heart sinks, because now she knows the key to all my vulnerabilities.
“Disappointed in a Lochkelvin student?” she asks, her tone full of sympathy. “Surely not. We’re the best — and that means, no matter how much I may privately dispute it, you must be too. Studying here is an achievement for exceptional students, the elites of our age group. Your mothermustbe proud.”
She manages to make it sound like a demand. I keep my mouth firmly shut. Of all the people in this blasted castle, Arabella is the one who least needs a deep-dive into my psyche.
“But gallivanting with boys, Jessa? Staying in their dormsall night?” I’m surprised Arabella doesn’t perform a theatrical chest-clutch. “It’s not right, and I’m positive your mother wouldn’t approve.”
I remember Mom’s terrible talk with me. No, she hadn’t approved of the chiefs at all. But Arabella doesn’t need to know this — and neither does my mom need to be made aware of it.
“What, are you planning on telling her?”
“If I must.” Arabella’s eyes are as bright as her badge. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, naturally. And you can make it so by turning around and going back into your room the way you came.Don’tyou have homework to do, anyway? I know we’re all incredibly clever at Lochkelvin — well, supposedly — but you must have some work to be getting on with that doesn’t revolve around the male anatomy.”
My jaw is clenched tight and I’m having trouble keeping my breath even. The worst thing is, Arabella isn’t wrong. I mean — oh, yeah, everything she says, she manages to say it in exactly the wrong way. But Idohave masses of homework I’ve been putting off. And the only reason I’m traipsing downstairs to the boys’ dorm is that I’m utterly, hopelessly addicted.
