“It’s not been dry-cleaned yet. I’ll send it off tomorrow. Should be back Wednesday. Mrs. Long will give it back when it’s done,” she rambled and dashed for the stairs. Her bedroom was her only sanctuary. He could play here in the basement forever for all she cared. She’d shove stones in her ears to block out the noise. She didn’t want to be any nearer to him. There was something pulling her to him, and it got stronger the closer they got. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Maybe you could give it to me on Friday,” he called after her.
Taking the bait, Sam paused on the staircase.
“Why Friday?”
“Because I hope I’ll see you then. On our first date,” he replied.
Don’t say yes. Don’t you dare say yes.Heart. You keep in that cage where you belong. I’ll handle this, her brain commanded.
“What?” she asked, stupidly.
Her genius was rewarded with a breathy chuckle from a few steps behind her. He’d climbed the stairs.
“Would you like to go out with me?”
“You can’t ask someone that.”
“Of course you can. You find someone you like, ask, and hope they like you back.”
Her heart was banging against its cell walls.Tell him yes. To hell with the Animos Society. To hell with your dad. You’ll have Thomas for family and a chance to go out with this guy. No more initiations, no more embarrassments, no more property damage. Just half a family and a date.
“No,” she said, trying for the firm dignity thing Lady Mary Crowley always had going for her.
“No, you don’t think it works or no, you don’t want to go out with me?”
“No,” she repeated.
“Listen.” The more he spoke, the more she realized she wasn’t even halfway right about him. He was an honest-to-God, wide-eyed, clear-heartedromantic. “There’s this Blitz Ball happening in town on Friday, where everyone dresses up like it’s 1943 and we drink cheap champagne cocktails and swing dance until we can’t stand up. My great-grandparents met at a county dance during the war, real proper and polite, so I thought maybe we could see what it was like back then. And the best part is, we’ll both be fully dressed.”
He was a romantic. He believed in love. He looked at her like he wanted them to share something. And so, Sam would have to make him suffer all the more for it. She’d spent her whole life wondering if someone like him existed, and now she’d found one, she couldn’t even be his friend.
She was no longer channeling Lady Mary. Turning back to Daniel, she conjured up the frozen fury of Captain. She returned his hope with deep, cutting cruelty.
“I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last penniless guitar player on earth.”
Daniel stumbled back down the steps as if he’d been shot. Ran a hand through his hair. Paced a few steps. Opened his mouth to speak and closed it several times. If Sam had been ashamed by her nudity at Christ Church, it was nothing compared to what ripped open her chest now.
“I must have misunderstood. I thought… The other night, in town… I thought there was something between us. Something we could…”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she tilted her chin and waited for the spark in his eyes to vanish.
“Stupid, right? A guy like me with a girl like you. Well.” His popping, joyful, teasing voice softened, and he reached for his guitar to return it to his case. “I’ve got to get back to work, miss. I’m sorry for the distraction. It won’t happen again.”
Sam fled. Up, up, up the staircase to her room, where she tried to return to life as normal. But once the evening sun had set, a small knock rang out at her door.
“Come in,” Sam called.
She’d been reading the same paragraph of a textbook for three hours, intermittently checking the news and scrolling through her spam inbox though she was sure she didn’t need male enhancement pills or emails from American politicians. A distraction was welcome. It came in the form of Mrs. Long, the Ashbrooke housekeeper, a spindly woman with a constantly beleaguered expression on her square face.
“Miss?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Long?”
“Your brother asked me to draw up this list and bring it to you. Didn’t tell me why.”
A yellow folder landed in Sam’s lap. From its weight, she could tell it only contained a single piece of paper. Two, at absolute most.
