He looked good. His sleek black hair was longer and curling over his shoulders, his dark eyes sparkling with happiness and good health. I didn’t dare look at Tarik or my Cambridge friends, whose gazes I could feel flocking back and forth as though trying to work out a difficult mathematical puzzle. It wasn’t all that difficult.
When faced with the true version of my cousin, the differences were small but noticeable to a discerning eye. People who knew us wouldknow.
Because Roz looked like me…
Pale, dark haired, dark eyed, and deeply, unforgivably guilty.
My father cleared his throat, with another annoyed look to Blake, and signaled for the orchestra to resume. My aunt and mother followed him, though Mama kept glancing back at Ansel as if she suspected something troublesome might occur but her usual decorum prevented her from causing a scene in front ofguests. For once, I found myself grateful for societal expectations. The boot might drop tomorrow, but it wouldn’t today.
“Ansel, mate,” Blake said, slinging an arm over his shoulder with a wary glance to the duke to make sure he was otherwise occupied before dragging my cousin inside. “Next time send a messenger, will you? Your father nearly skewered me.”
At the last moment before closing the terrace doors behind them, Blake turned to spear me with a look that said I wouldn’t be getting off scot-free either, but it wasn’t him I was worried about. Anna shot me a sympathetic glance, but I couldn’t even draw comfort from that. I knew I would have to face my fate eventually, so I sucked in a breath and pivoted.
My Cambridge friends were still gaping at me, though I wasn’t sure if they were gawking at Lady Rosalin or the truth about my deception that was now coming to dreadful light.
Feeling like a coward, I felt my knees wobble before meeting Will’s stare next. His blue gaze swam with bewilderment, but he wasn’t stupid. It might take him more time than Tarik, but he’d figure it out eventually. The Ansel who had appeared on the terrace might have resembled the false version that I’d been pretending to be, but we weren’tidentical,and my cousin certainly was not theRozmy new friends had gotten to know.
“Will?” I whispered, resting my palm on his arm.
“Roz,” he said softly, face still wreathed in confusion. “I don’t understand. Who was that gentleman who claimed to be your cousin? And why are you wearing a gown?”
Not why did you lie to us and pretend to be a boy…
My lashes dipped as my eyes stung with helpless tears. I hadn’t meant for any of it to end up like this.
“Because sheisa girl.” The sentence, delivered in a vicious monotone, came from the boy standing to my right. Tarik. I lifted my guilt-ridden gaze to his. “Isn’t that correct, Lady Rosalin? Or should I call youRoz?” The last was hissed with so much venom that I flinched, the ire in his expression like razor-sharp blades.
His lip curled. “Were you so idle and bored in your fancy mansion with your middling daily amusements that you decided to take on a whole new identity for the fun of it? Toy with people’s lives because you could?” He blew out a harsh breath. “You claimed you weren’t a thing like the Lord Ansel Chen I knew, and you’re right. You are much worse.”
“It’s not like that,” I whispered urgently, my heart squeezing. “Please give me a chance to explain.”
At that exact moment, like an ill-fated, portentous sign, lightning forked across the sky, and the overcast clouds rumbled ominously. Everyone else but the two of us fled indoors, and we stood there like two immovable objects, frozen like stone statues, when the skies opened up and a deluge broke free. I didn’t even care that I was being soaked or that I was in danger of being struck by lightning.
“My lady, you have to come inside,” Anna urged through the cracked door.
But I could not move.
The intense blue gaze I so loved felt like shards of ice skewering me in place. “It wasyou,all along.Lying.”
“No, it wasn’t all lies. Tarik, please—”
But his eyes flashed when I whispered his name, his face laced with betrayal as he spun on his heel and marched off into the arbor in the downpour. With a hand in the air to Anna as well as Will and the twins, who were peering from behind the terrace doors, to stop them from following us, I rushed behind him, uncaring that I was without a chaperone or that my reputation was at stake. I’d much ratherthatbe flayed than my character, as insignificant as it might be to him. It was important to me. I had to make sure he understood.
That he knew howsorryI was.
His steps were quick and frenzied, as though he were being pursued by the devil himself. In truth, with the storm upon us, that was how it felt even as I begged him to slow down or stop. My pleas fell on deaf ears as if all he wanted to do was to get away from me. But I was too stubborn to let him, too proud not to attempt to explain my reasoning, and too scared of losing him forever not to follow. Not totry.My dress was soaked through, my hair was plastered to my skull, and I was certain I looked like a drowned rat, but none of that mattered.
“Tarik, wait!”
“Go back inside, Lady Rosalin,” he snarled, stopping so abruptly that I nearly crashed into him. Rivulets of water streamed down his face, his clothing drenched and waterlogged.
“No, I have to explain!” I shouted as a crack of thunder obliterated my voice.
“You’ve done enough,” he yelled underneath the sound of the rain and rolling thunder, his eyes burning with fury and somany other emotions I could barely pick them apart. “I told you things I’ve never told anyone else. Itrustedyou.”
“It might have started out as a ruse, but it was still me. I need you to believe that, and I would never betray your trust,” I said wildly. “I told you things, too, that no one knows.”
“But not that you were pretending to be a man to enroll in university?”
