“There’s no fixing this, Caleb,” Amelia said in a low voice that had grown so calm it was practically the doldrums.
Of course there is,he wanted to reply.I’ll take care of you, and you’ll take care of me, just as we’ve always done.But in truth, she was right. There was no fixing it, because it no longer was “just as always.” A new vulnerability had come upon them these days, one that expressed itself as kisses, whereas before it had been only smiles and touches that pretended an innocent friendship.
“You’re right,” he said. “I wish I could give Ottersock a real piece of my mind. Actually, I wish I could punch him in the nose, and Throckmorton too. Let me, Meely. It won’t fix anything, but it will make me feel better.”
He turned to give her an imploring look and found her gazing at him with big, soft eyes, just as she had when they were eight years old and he’d won her eternal devotion by presenting his handkerchief. He’d treasured that moment ever since. Remembering it now, he felt all grandiloquent sentiment and poetry fall away, leaving only profound silence in his heart.
“Thank you for offering to fight for me,” Amelia said in barely more than a whisper. “That means so much. But…” She smiled. “Prison would be terrible for your complexion.”
“True,” he said, and sighed. “Are you going to take the job in Germany?”
“No.” Such a small and simple word, but it saved Caleb from utter heartbreak (since he would of course have gone with her, and he hated bratwurst). “I don’t want to leave Oxford, and yet I’m not sure if I can bear continuing on as we have been.”
“Understandable,” Caleb said. “We can invent a new scheme. Fake rivalry, perhaps. Fake—”
Amelia closed her eyes, and he stopped immediately. Hewaited, feeling anxiously that they were on a precipice and one step in the wrong direction would prove fatal.
“I don’t mean how other people see us,” she told him, the words seeming to tiptoe as if she sensed the precipice too, “but how we see ourselves. I want to be your friend.” And before Caleb could answer with something inane, such asyou are, she added quickly, “I would say ‘more than a friend,’ but that’s not right. It’s not about more, it’s about…deeper. I want to be…do…all the things that the very best friends can.”
“You mean like eating from the same bowl of ice cream?” Caleb asked, because he knew what she really meant and his stupid, stupid brain tripped over itself in an excess of nerves. He winced.Damn it.There was only one thing to do now. But bare, solemn sincerity always frightened him. He’d spent so long being charming, cheerful, and pretty, hoping that people would like him enough to give him what he needed to survive in the rookery—in boarding school—in adult life with all its perils. But he didn’t want to just survive when it came to his relationship with Amelia. His pulse skittered as he took a deep breath and spoke.
“I want to take you into my bed,” he said, quiet and serious and oh God so brave, “and show you just how much of a friend you are to me.”
Amelia’s eyes grew wide, brimming over with such sorrow, such longing, that Caleb felt rocked by it. She said nothing, but words would have been superfluous anyway, considering the lyricism in her gaze. Caleb could not restrain himself from reaching out to cup her beloved face with one hand, stroking his thumb across the moon-soaked skin.
“My soul is friends with yours,” he said. “I want no more limits on expressing that.”
She swallowed heavily. “That’s what I was trying to say too.”
Triumph rushed through him, conquering all fear. He sent a quick glance over her shoulder, checking that they were alone, before he stepped closer to her. “I want not even clothes between us. I want to be inside of you.”
“Yes,” she whispered in return, gazing up at him adoringly and making him harden with just that look. “I want to open myself to take you in.”
“Slowly at first,” he said, his thumb stroking her lips now. They parted for him, her softly gasping breath warming his skin. “So slow…in and then gliding out a little before inching forward again, teasing you, indulging in you, until at last I can go no deeper.”
“And then?” she asked so softly the words were just a dream. But Caleb heard them; he knew her so well. He bent his head so that the universe shrank to the heated little space between them.
“And then faster,” he whispered. “And faster, my beautiful moon, my darling friend, until I bring you to such pleasure, you scream my name, not caring who might hear you.”
“Oh God,” she breathed.
“You can just call me Caleb.”
They were so close now that their smiles felt like the same smile reflected back and forth; like kisses without quite touching. Caleb no longer remembered the name of the village they stood in. It could have been a wilderness for all he knew. It could have been a windowless, hidden room deep inside Ravenscroft Manor, and the whole journey south with Ottersock just a fever dream. Nowhere mattered, nothing in the world mattered, except this woman.
“Amelia Victoria Tarrant,” he said. “I lov—”
“You cannot be serious!”
Ottersock’s appalled shout struck them like a shock wave, pushing them apart with such speed that Amelia almost fell. Caleb reached out to steady her, but she avoided his hand, frowning so darkly he had to choke back a wounded sound, even knowing that she was faking. Girding everything that could possibly be girded, he turned to face the faculty head.
But Ottersock was not even looking their way. He stood by the door of the coaching inn, arguing with the proprietor.
“It’s not my fault your plumbing system is inadequate!”
Caleb dared not glance at Amelia, for fear he’d start laughing or possibly crying. But he nudged her with the back of his hand, and she tapped her fingers against his in reply, and it was as much a conversation as words would have been.I love you. I love you. It’s us, always.
Just then, the rented carriage arrived, its driver yawning widely. Caleb held Amelia’s hand as she climbed in, and she brushed his thigh as he sat beside her. The air trembled. The silence between them was so lush with secret understanding that even Ottersock, dropping onto the seat opposite them, fanned himself with his gloved hand.
