It was such a line. Daniel needed to know it wasn’t fake. Mostly because hesowanted to believe it was real.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why would you have a better time if I was there?”
With a push off the counter, Sam returned to her pacing. Her fingertips twisted in the hem of her sweater. Not for the first time, Daniel wanted nothing more than to read minds, to slither between someone’s ears and understand what they were thinking. Sam’s angst at the question was evident, but what for? She’d asked him out. She must have likedsomethingabout him, even if he would serve as little more than terrific arm candy.
“I’m not really good at this romantic stuff,” she eventually managed.
“Try, please,” Daniel encouraged, hoping it wasn’t too harsh.
More pacing. More twisting. More waiting.
“Because…” She stopped. Her eyes widened slightly in revelation. And her perfect, pink, kissable lips formed words he’d been waiting his entire life to hear. “You sing a song my heart hasn’t ever heard before.”
He’d go to a million stuck-up balls if he could feel like this every day. Like he was the only person on earth worth her.
“I think we’ll make a poet of you yet, Samantha Dubarry.”
…
Ever since moving into Ashbrooke, Sam had developed a carefully crafted schedule. Upon her return from university, she would always ascend to her bedroom, work through her afternoon’s reading or write notes on her thesis, and then continue her night to the schedule of the house. Dinner at seven, drinks and dessert in the smoking room until nine thirty, and then straight up to the living quarters for a shower and bed.
After leaving Daniel Best and his bookshop with four plastic bags stuffed with paperbacks, she threw the schedule into the fire and dove headfirst into a scalding hot shower. Not because it was practical, but because she wanted to scrub herself clean of the afternoon.
Dammit. It hadn’t gone at all to plan. None of it. She’d expected to waltz in there, buy the books, and charm him into going out with her. All of her best-laid plans and practiced lines were useless when he turned his dejected eyes on her.
It had gotten too real. She’d told him about herpast, for Christ’s sake. Told him about her struggle to maintain her own identity in this swirling vortex of the British peerage.
She’d even told him the stupid line she’d written in her diary.Diary, music is stupid and love songs are bullshit made to sell concert tickets and flower bouquets. Love isn’t real. But when he sang last night, it was like I could almost believe it was. It was like I heard music for the first time. Like he was singing a song my heart never heard before.
The page, like all pages of her diary, was burned immediately after it was written. Before she moved into her father’s house, she’d kept a daily diary, and she couldn’t break herself of the habit. But she never knew when the Animos Society would show up and what they would want to steal from her next, so keeping a record of her exact feelings and thoughts and fears and dreams seemed risky at best.
Still, once the pages were burned to keep them safe from prying eyes, she remembered her scribbles.
After her shower, when her skin was pink from the heat and the scrubbing, she yanked a comb through her hair and slipped into some pajamas. She’d rung Cook long ago not to expect her for dinner. This night was not a fresh salad, red wine, and beef bourguignon night. She was in for an ice cream directly out of the pint and cold beer night.
Which is exactly how Thomas found her twenty minutes later. Sitting on the floor of the kitchen, shoveling famous Cornish ice cream directly into her mouth with a hundred and fifty-year-old silver spoon. Still dressed in his suit from a day at work, he didn’t seem to mind she’d foregone her usual fine dining attire for the more comfortable NPR T-shirt and leggings.
Thomas merely sighed and—full suit and all—joined her on the tile floor.
“Tough day?” he asked, gesturing for the spoon. Somewhere, in another part of the house, candles were surely burning low over the delicious dinner whose scent wafted through the walls, but here Thomas was, scooping Butter Brickle out of the carton with gusto.
“No worse than any other,” Sam said, shrugging. Thomas was her brother. He was nice to her, but she couldn’t let him in. The walls needed to stay up. If she let herself feel one thing, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from feeling all the things.
“Did you talk to the Daniel kid?”
“Yes.” She nodded, taking back the spoon. She entertained the idea of purposefully getting brain freeze to excuse herself from this conversation entirely but ultimately decided against it. Thomas had, after all, been guiding her on this whole Mud Duck thing, even against his better judgment. “We’re going out on Friday.”
“Excellent news. Where?”
“Here.” Daniel’s disappointment at missing the Blitz Ball had been evident as soon as she mentioned it. As palpable as his sadness was, there was no way Sam would be going there. His choice of venue was too close, too personal, and, if she was being honest with herself, too romantic. No, she’d show off her family’s wealth and dizzy him with champagne and fancy dresses, like Thomas told her she should. “I told him we’re holding a ball.”
Thomas raised a single eyebrow, never taking his eyes from the ice cream.
“Are we holding a ball this Friday?” he asked, as light and easy as asking someone for the weekend weather forecast.
