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I plant my palm on the table between us. “Yes.”
She doesn’t even glance at my hand, just holds my gaze. This time, there’s no mistaking the glimmer of tears, somehow different from the expression mere minutes ago.
It takes too long before I can make myself shift back. “Then what?”
For a breath, it looks like she wants to protest. Then she sighs again and grabs the quill. “You asked me to the ball. I promised to be there. Then we kiss—” Her voice cracks, but this time as she returns the pen to its holder, she ducks her face away. Like she’s ashamed. Or repulsed. “Can’t you just go through your timeline, and I can tell you if I remember something differently?”
My chest throbs. “Fine.”
For the first second after I pick up the pen, it retains her hand’s warmth.
I stamp the feeling down and keep my voice even. As if the word I’m about to say means nothing. “We kissed, yes. Then you went to work. You left first, but I left a moment after. I joined my father and brothers and handled court issues for the rest of the day. I didn’t see you again until the next morning, Thursday…” I trail off and flick my gaze up.
She nods. “Yes. That’s how I remember it too.”
“I gave you the dress.”
The faintest hint of a frown tugs at her brows. “And it wasn’t brown.”
“No.” I swallow hard, but the lump remains like claws inside me. “It was blue. That sort of sky blue you like.” I can’t keep looking at her eyes, so I lower my attention to the parchment. “Or liked.”
Silence hangs between us like a thick curtain.
“I still like it,” she murmurs.
I glance over, but she has her gaze on the candle now. The soft amber glow makes her hair shimmer. Shadows play across her face and body, bending my mind toward a far different reason to have her here alone with me.
I clear my throat as best I can and focus on writing down the memories we just relayed. “We were at your stepfamily’s quarters. When I gave it to you.” I dip the pen in ink again.
“Yes, and I put it —” For half a breath, her expression blanks. Then she shakes her head and stifles a yawn. “I hung it over the chair beside my bed.”
I shift to face her more. “Not in your trunk?”
“No, I got it off the chair when I dressed for the ball. I didn’t want it to wrinkle.”
“Right.” I watch her for another moment. “And your stepfamily didn’t bother it?”
Now she frowns. “No. They rarely came in my room.”
Part of me wants to ask more, though I can’t understand why. Nothing about her story is different than it should be. Everything adds up so far. Yet an unsettledness lingers in my chest, sliding through my fingertips even as I write out truths that don’t deviate from each other.
“So two days after I gave you the dress, you put it on for the ball?”
“Yes. In the evening, after work. I bathed and put it on, and I used my stepmother’s mirror to see how it looked.”
Another prickle of that something. “Did she catch you?”
“No. No one was there when I got ready. They’d already left for the ball themselves.”
Defeat taunts me, but I scribble her words down. “And once you were dressed, you went straight to the ballroom? No shortcuts, no detours?”
“Nothing. Other than seeing your father.”
I strain to think back on when I’d seen my father in the ballroom, but the only memories that stand out from that night have nothing to do with him. “And you’re sure the dress was brown when you looked at yourself?”
“I think so. I don’t really remember that part.” She winces and gives me a bewildered look. “But I don’t remember it ever being blue. Sorry.”
Unsure what to make of that, I nod and write it down as well. “And you’re sure this was Saturday? I invited you on Wednesday, gave you the dress Thursday, saw you only briefly on Friday, and then it was the day of the ball.”
