Catherine opens her mouth, feeling a light tug, like Rosalie might be trying to pull her in—
“Catherine, is that you?”
The door opens and Rosalie pulls away, their hands falling empty between them. Catherine’s mother smiles at her through the now-open doorway and then turns to Rosalie, her eyes dimming.
“Thank you for returning her safely. And please thank your aunt, Lady Rosalie.”
“I will,” Rosalie says cheerfully. “I look forward to seeing you both soon.”
With that, Catherine watches her walk back to the carriage and climb in. Watches her settle next to Lady Jones whileMr. Dean snaps the carriage door shut. Watches her rumble away down the street. Too far to touch, or hold, or talk to.
“Come in, come in, your father and I want to hear all about your trip,” Mother says enthusiastically, dragging Catherine inside.
She’s well and truly back at home, all that openness and freedom in the countryside replaced by Bath stone and bustle and high, narrow townhouses. But they’re going to change that, somehow, together. They have to.
Chapter Seventeen
Rosalie
Rosalie growls to herself, pacing beneath the large green oak tree at the back of their yard, hoping Mother’s still engaged with her correspondence so Rosalie can get a handle on her “sullen” attitude.
It’s getting harder and harder to listen to Mother’s plans about Mr.Dean without screaming that she doesn’t want him, never has, and wants the daughter of her former best friend instead. Ardently. Passionately. Physically.
She lies awake at night, driven wild by memories of Catherine’s touch, and taste—the way she held her, the way she kissed her—the way she—
But each alluring, titillating, scalding memory is accompanied by an instant douse of cold water thinking about how to make it happen again.
Before Catherine, she could always see all the possible outcomes of any given situation, could architect the world to fall to her whims. But that was for socially acceptable outcomes. “Match this girl with this boy, happily (if sometimes only financially) ever after.”
It makes her mad, and flushed, and uncomfortable in her skin to not be able to figure out what should come next, what she wants, and how to get it. They need more than a month to decide what they want the rest of their lives to look like.
“You appear positively vexed.” Rosalie spins around to find Christopher leaning against the big oak tree, grinning at her.
She purposefully hasn’t gone to find him over the last two days, because she didn’t know how to talk about it. Still doesn’t.
“Are you going to kiss and tell, then?” he asks, grinning wider as she splutters. “It’s clear as day that you did.”
Rosalie covers her face with her hands, cheeks flaming. “Shut up.”
She peeks through her fingers to find him holding up his hands, still smirking. “Then do you want to discuss how we’re going to ensure you get to see her again, and perhaps delay Mr.Dean by another year, if not forever? And I vote for forever.”
Rosalie lets her hands drop. “I—we don’t have a plan in place, and we didn’t decide to... be together forever or anything like that. It could still be premature.”
She’s rather sure there’s nothing premature about how she feels for Catherine. But she wants more time before voicing any of her confusing, titillated, overwhelmed feelings.
“Well, even if you haven’t decided—and I rather think you’re a liar—I certainly have,” Christopher says, pushing off from the tree to walk over to her. “You cannot marry that absolute bore. I don’t know that there’s a match for you that isn’t the lovely MissPine, but it absolutely can’t be him.”
Rosalie stares at her brother, relieved, and anxious, and grateful, and hesitant. “Father and Mother—”
“I don’t care,” Christopher says immediately. “You deserve to have a happy life that’s more than... this,” he says, gesturing to the house.
She wants to feel like wanting more isn’t wrong. Wants to silence the little voice inside telling her she’s ungrateful andstrange to want more than what most women dream about. To want a life that’s notperfectin the eyes of everyone around her.
Rosalie meets Christopher’s earnest gaze. “It isn’t like asking to go to school or get a tutor.”
“No,” Christopher agrees, squeezing her hands tightly. “It’s so much braver than that. You’re asking for them to let you be who you are, exactly as you are.”
“If Catherine and I don’t decide to— If whatever this is isn’t forever, then I—”
