“Why didn’t your brothers call him out? Why didn’t your father see that he was court-marshalled?”
She laughed a bitter laugh. “Why would they do that?”
“Because herapedan innocent girl. He attacked you, Tessa, just as surely as I will attack him. But I assure you, when I attack him, there will be amble opportunities for him to scream.”
“Raped me?” she said, and she checked the street below, because she’d shouted it. “He didn’t rape me, Joseph. I went with him willingly. I kissed him. I had done my level best to make him crazy with desire in the preceding weeks. My dress that night was—”
“Stop,”Joseph gritted out, stepping to her.
He said, “No,no maneverlures a young woman into the forest, pins her against a bloody tree, andforceshimself on her, except in the instance ofrape. I don’t care how much you flirted. I don’t care if you were wearing the most beautiful gown in the world or your chemise. Unless you are fully willing, with total consent, no decent, honorable man has sex in this manner unless he is raping her, which is exactly what he did to you, and—forgive me—I am so filled with fury right now, I... I—” He stopped. “Tell me his name.”
Tessa stared at him. “I will not.”
Joseph jerked open the door to the rooftop. “You will.”
“I willnot,” she repeated, louder.
He growled and began trudging down the stairs.
Tessa made a noise of shocked frustration and hurried after him.
“This is why you’ve taken to wearing the terrible dresses,” he called over his shoulder.
Tessa swore, tripping to catch up with him. “Those dresses are modest! I am being modest.”
“They are hideous. And you hate them. You look like someone tossed a sack over your head and forced you to do penance. They conceal your personality.” He ducked into the attic corridor and made for the next set of stairs.
Now I amchasingyou?Tessa marveled. She quickened her step. “My personality could stand for some concealment.”
“Never say that!” He vaulted down the stairs and made for the next set. “Your personality is as beautiful as your face. I want the dresses gone. I will burn them myself.”
“You can’t tell me what to wear!” She rounded the landing.
“Every time you wear a dress that you hate, you give him another piece of yourself.Tell me his name!”
“You sound like a madman,” she shouted back.
“I am a madman! And I will kill him.”
“You will not! You will stop sprinting down the stairs and come back right now and...acknowledgeme.” She stopped on the landing and breathed in and out, trying to stop herself from screaming.
He froze on the bottom step and looked back up at her. She held out her hands, palms up.What are you doing!She would not take another step. She sat down. The stairs were polished wood with a thick carpeted runner. She dropped her head into her hands.
Joseph forced himself to tap down his charged fury and take a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he called. He was sorry, but his voice sounded indignant. He regretted his outburst, although not much.
He tried again. “I was prepared for every narrative but this. I am never prepared for you, Tessa. My reactions are always just a little bitoff. Or a lot.”
His reaction to her story felt exactly perfectly right, but it served himself and not her.
She said, “If you are truly outraged on my behalf—”
“Let me be clear,” he cut her off, climbing the stairs, “outrageis a generous word for what I feel.”
“That’s very... vanquishing of you,” she said, “honestly. I feel safe... and vindicated. But I don’t feel supported. If you truly want to help me, sit still. Please.Bewith mein this moment. Let us both come to terms with this thing that I’ve never told anyone but you—”
“Your friends do not know?” This he could not believe.
