Peony drifts off soon after I have her bundled up in my arms under the duvet, but I can’t stop spinning in my head how the world changed in that moment. I was single-mindedly focused on her, on making hermine. I would consume her, filling her up again and again, owning her body as much as her heart. It was like my vision narrowed to this single point, and then I lost control of it, watching as my body devoured hers, as my claws dragged down her back, as she screamed and writhed underneath me.
I can’t sleep until the wee hours of the morning, only finally drifting off as the sun comes up. When I spring awake, the sun is already high in the sky, and Peony is gone.
Instantly, I’m alert, wondering where she is, whether she’s safe. Then my sense of human reason comes back, and I smell her in the bed, but she must have left a few hours ago without disturbing me.
When I make my way out into the main room searching for her, a plate sits on the table by my chair.
Your favorite.
-P
I pick up the sandwich and bite into it, finding arugula, goat cheese, and fig. It’s a nice, light lunch, and it settles my soul to know Peony is simply off somewhere cleaning, and made sure to let me know she hadn’t forgotten about me.
I feel strange knowing she is already at work while I laze about. We will have to have a discussion about her hours—and how our relationship has changed now.
It’s lovely to make my way down the stairs in the daytime. I forgot what it was like to walk around my own home in the open.
After searching the manor, I find Peony in the washingroom with the linens. Her bright smile when she sees me fills me up with warm bubbles, and so I help her with the fiddly fitted sheet, marveling at how deftly she folds it.
“I’ve never seen anyone succeed at that in any clean manner,” I say as she adds it to the stack in the hamper.
“Learned it from a video.” She winks as she passes me, heading out into the hall. I follow her to the linen closet and help her put all her acquisitions away again. “I can also fold the hell out of a shirt. Like, in the air, with my eyes closed.”
“Oh? That’s a feat.”
I love her smiles. I could eat them all and still want more.
She keeps talking as she works, and I follow her around like an idiot puppy. But I can’t help myself.
I know what I want. I want this, forever, until we both get old and die. Now I simply need to convince Peony that she wants it, too.
twenty-three
. . .
peony
Ifind Rupert likes to putter around in the morning, rather like an old man, reading the newspaper with a pair of cute, tiny glasses perched on his big nose. While he catches up on the news and the Stock Exchange, I get to work. Now that I’ve been at the manor for some time, there’s much less need to get onto a stool to pull down cobwebs, and I spend my time on maintenance, laundry, and other more immediate and pressing concerns.
But Rupert drags me away in the afternoon, insisting that I ought not to work so hard.
“You are paying me to clean!” I insist, but he demands even more strongly that I take breaks and rest.
“Money is nothing,” he says. “I would be happy to hire someone else altogether, if this arrangement is uncomfortable.”
I balk at the idea. “I like my work, Rupert. Please don’t take it from me.”
He waves his hands. “I won’t, I won’t. I just don’t want you to think your job is contingent upon… you know.”
“Fucking you?” I ask cheekily. He bites his lip, and I think he would be blushing if he could. “I know it’s not. But the house still needs to get cleaned, and I’m saving up while doing it.”
He arches a brow. “What are you saving up for?”
Once upon a time, I would have said,an apartment of my own. But I like my life at the manor. I wouldn’t want it to change.
I have new goals now.
“Maybe, someday,” I say in a quiet voice, as if being too loud about it will prevent it from coming true, “I want to open a restaurant.”
