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“What do you mean?” Darcy said curtly.
“The night of the fire, when I waited for you in the library. I was flicking through the shelves, and I came across an album,and I saw the two of you, by the river. You and Giovanni. You looked …”
“Christ,” he spat, patting the back of his head. “Christ!” The sibilance echoed through the chapel. Bron’s breath stopped short. “Are you telling me that it was you? You were the one looking through the photo albums?”
Something told Bron that he had overstepped here, crossed some unknown boundary in a terrain he wasn’t all too familiar with. That he should have stayed on a safer path and kept his thoughts to himself. “Yes, but I—”
“What else did you see? Tell me, what else? Was it just you?”
“Nothing, nothing, that was all—”
Bron couldn’t bring himself to look up from the floor. He felt exactly as he had as a child being scolded. There was a heavy silence between them, dissipating into the airiness of the chapel into something resembling peace, tension leaching from the walls. But Darcy let out a breath. And Bron held his in.
“Were you not taught at that school of yours not to go prying through someone else’s things? And am I wrong to want to keep my own life private? That I do not wish to air my problems with the fucking world?”
It took all he had within him not to break. He forced himself to nod, a dam blocking the sea of tears that threatened. “I’m sorry.”
“I think we should head back now, don’t you? It’s getting late.”
He watched Darcy pull the phone from his pocket and dial a number. After three rings, Darcy spoke into it and ordered two cabs, each to pick them up immediately from outside King’s Parade, on the corner of the Corpus clock. When he hung up, he walked past Bron, a stranger. Bron spoke out his name, quietly, desperately, but Darcy wasn’t ready to hear it.
“Just … I’m sorry. I need some space,” he said, and left him standing below at the altar, alone.
When the car dropped Bron back at the house, he ran straight to his bedroom, flung himself face-first onto the mattress, his nose stinging from the impact, and yelled into his pillow until his eyes were raw and his throat sore. His insides stirred, full of want and anger. He had miscalculated, and this was the end, the end of whatever it was that had been building between them. The dance, the kiss—it all meant nothing now.
He’d jeopardized his professionalism too, his tact. The very things that had helped to get him this placement at Greenwood in the first place. When they were alone together, he often forgot the true relationship between them, the difference in their position. But the distance between him and Darcy was now greater than ever, a giant fissure. Hierarchies still reigned, and he needed to learn his place. Who was he to pry into Darcy’s life, to ask such questions? Darcy could say whatever it was he wanted, make a mockery of him any time he liked—he’d been naive to think he could talk to his employer’s son in such a way. That was the way of the world. It was just that, for a moment, he’d forgotten.
Was Darcy talking to Mr. Edwards that very instant, discussing his impropriety? Were the next three words he’d hear would be“Pack your bags,”terminating his employment? Who would be the one to deliver it? Not Mr. Edwards, surely? He’d always been so kind to him. And where would he live? He had nowhere else to go.
Oh, how wretched. How cruel.He gasped, feeling the terror of his life—that he was destined to be alone—clinging to his upper belly, that weightless space below the ribs, like a suction. Because, finally, he’d been happy. He could admit that, now that all was lost. It had never occurred to him that this place had slowly started to feel like home, a concept he hadn’t understood until he’d experienced the comfort of these walls. Here he had come to escape the moroseness of his past, where he cared for a little girl almost like a sibling, could look up to a fatherly figurethrough Mr. Edwards. He had earned this world after having gone so long without. Yes, sometimes he hated it here, and sometimes he thought about what it would’ve been like to have stayed on at St. Mary’s, or to have successfully gained entry to the university, but now he didn’t want to leave. Here he had made a life for himself.
Perhaps if he could only explain himself, maybe he could rectify some of the damage he’d caused. Though, Darcy’s reaction to the photographs only confirmed his suspicions. He was convinced that Darcy and Giovanni had been lovers, and something had gone terribly wrong between them. He dragged himself to the writing desk, grabbed a piece of paper, and mindlessly scribbled down his thoughts, finding the process of handwriting cleansing, an erasure of reality through the creation of something material. But feeling no comfort or relief in this, he threw open his bedside drawer and brought out the locket. The stupid thing which he knew had to mean something—he just hadn’t quite worked out what.
A knock at the door made his heart lurch. Here it was. The moment everything came crashing down. He stashed the locket away. Swiped the tears from his eyes. Took a deep breath. Opened the door.
“Oh, Ada, it’s you.”
“Yes, it’s me. Hello. Oh, have you been crying?”
“No,” he said, but the tears were there, rising to the surface again. He looked away.
“Don’t worry—it’s okay to cry, you know. It’s good for the soul.”
“What do you want, Ada?” he said harshly. She didn’t respond. “I’m sorry. I’m just a bit tired.”
“I was just hoping for some company. Could you read me a bedtime story, maybe?”
What he wanted to do was close the door, climb back under the safety of the duvet, his own little tortoise shell, and cry the night away. He would face the consequences tomorrow. But ifthis was to be her last request, her last demand of him, he would oblige her. “Yes, that would be nice.”
She smiled and ran into the room, headed straight for the shelves to grab a copy ofJane Eyre.
“Ada, what are you doing?”
“I thought you could read me this—”
“No.” He snatched it from her hands, maybe even too quickly, thinking at once of Harry’s dislike of the book. He’d rather keep it to himself. “You won’t like it.”
“Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I?”
