That was not what Father told me.
I blinked at Huck. “Father said... He told me you made the choice to go and live with your aunt. Thatyousaid it would be better for everyone.”
“That’s a bald-faced lie,” Huck rumbled. His dark, bushy brows knitted together into a dark slash. “He gave me an ultimatum. He said if I didn’t go back to Belfast and ‘cool off,’ I’d never see either one of you again.”
My chest tightened. “What?”
“You know what he always says—family first. Well, according to him, I broke that rule. I violated his trust, committed a crime against God himself, and sullied his perfect angel of a daughter.”
There was so much wrong with that, I didn’t know where to start. “You didn’t... sully me.” Not any more than I’d sullied him. If anything, it was a mutual sullying.
“Apparently he saw enough to pass judgment,” Huck mumbled.
My face heated even now. I remembered it all too well, what happened last year. My birthday. The impromptu party at Foxwood with some friends while Father was away in New York City. The glass of champagne. The fistfight between Huck and a boy who liked me. The broken china. Father’s butler throwing everyone out. Huck sneaking into my room when it was all over, apologetic for ruining the party, his left eye red and swollen, already showing signs of a purplish bruise.
The champagne still swirling inside my head...
The next thing I knew, we were all over each other. His hands, my hands. His mouth, my mouth. Other parts of us... For the briefest of moments it was glorious. The world slipped away, and I didn’t realize we were making so much noise. And that’s when Father burst in.
After a rage-filled chaotic moment when Father was chasing Huck out of my room, threatening to kill him, I tried to confront him—which wasn’t easy, because Father and I didn’t talk about anything that made him uncomfortable.
And apparently figuring out that I had forbidden feelings for Huck was the absolute worst mistake I’d ever made. I went down to Father’s study that night to apologize—even though I had nothing to apologize for. Even though he’d never in his life, not once, said the words “I’m sorry” to me for things he’d done—and he’d done alot, believe me. Despite all this, I was humble and ready to do penance, and...
He gave me a look I’d never forget as long as I lived. It was something between horror, shame, and disappointment. I’d failed him. I was no longer his little girl. I was a shameful floozy.
And I thought I couldn’t hate him more for making me feel that way. But now here I was, realizing that I had so much more bitterness to give.
But it wasn’t all for Father.
“You just gave in to him without a fight?” I said.
One dark brow lifted. “What?”
“With Father. You didn’t even try?”
“Of course I tried!” he said, throwing his arms into the air. “I begged and pleaded. I told him I was sorry, that I’d shovel horse shite and chop firewood. That I’d never even so much as look you in the eye again, and that it was all a huge, drunken mistake, but he didn’t listen.”
I didn’t think it was possible for my chest to feel any tighter. My ribs were going to crack. “Well, I’m sorry that I was such a huge, drunken mistake!”
“I didn’t mean it like—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, because itwasa mistake, Theo. Maybe not to you, because you’re sitting pretty in your gilded tower, still the apple of Fox’s eye. While me? I had to move to a strange country that I didn’t even remember, because the last time I was there I was still in diapers. I didn’t know any of my family there. I was a stranger in a strange land.”
“But your mother’s sister, your aunt—”
“Yes, I’ve been living with my aunt. I work nearly every day and, apparently, I’m a spoiled cur who’s lived in a fancy house too long and should be reminded of his place. Not to mention that I give most of my earnings to her, because she has a bad leg and can’t put food on the table—and hates me because I look like my mam!”
Oh. I hadn’t realized... Father had made it sound like Huck had happily returned to the bosom of his Irish family. His real family, because we were only temporary. Silly me for thinking otherwise.
Father lied about all of it? Why?
“I’m barely living,” Huck said. “I can’t fly. I’m stuck in Belfast. And I lost everything—my life, my country, my family. Do you know how that feels?”
“I lost my mother!” I said angrily.
“So. Did. I,” he said, thumping his chest with each word. “Right in front of my face. And my da. Every time I look in the mirror, I’m reminded, aren’t I?”
As if magnetized, my eyes were drawn to the scar on his cheek, and I felt a prickle of shame for looking.
“You don’t know what it’s like to loseeverything,” he said. “You don’t know what it’s like to feel as if you’re living on the edge of a knife, forever in debt to someone for pulling you out of the gutter. And how could you? You were born into privilege. No matter what trouble you get yourself into, you’re still Empress Theodora in Fox’s eyes, and I’m just a stray that he took in from the cold.”
