Chapter II
II
Clement Hall
Two weeks prior
Laughter blew through the garden like a breeze.
A giddy shriek, a cheerful shout, bare feet racing over lawn, and stone, and earth, and step.
The gardens at Clement Hall were like a painting still in progress, the center perfectly finished, the edges devolving into rough lines, unkempt clusters of apple trees and patches of wild rose.
Her mother’s sculptures dotted the landscape, clay animals tucked between bushes or perching on gates, a menagerie of silent spectators.
Jocelyn reached the fountain first, cutting one way and then the other, Charlotte on her heels, the two chasing each other like hands around a clock.
Jocelyn let out a startled cry as Charlotte splashed her hand through the pool, made a mad lunge for the other girl, but she was already breaking away, disappearing down another path.
She darted beneath a wooden trellis and then stopped, as if crossing some imaginary finish line. She twisted back toward Charlotte, who came to a breathless halt on the other side and grinned wickedly as if to say, What now?
And for a moment, they stood like that, coiled, flushed, each studying the other, each on the verge of movement, like a girl and her reflection, though they looked nothing alike.
Jocelyn Lewis was a study in contrasts, green eyes and raven hair framing skin so pale that the slightest effort puts roses on her cheeks.
Charlotte Hastings, on the other hand, was shades of brown.
Eyes the color of tea before the milk goes in, hair a mess of chestnut curls, skin that spent the winter tan, and darkened by degrees in summer, freckles dappling her face year-round, like flecks of paint.
At that moment there was, of course, one other crucial difference.
The journal, clutched in Jocelyn’s hands.
Charlotte’s journal.
“Joss,” she said slowly, one hand raised as if creeping toward a skittish cat. “Give it back.” Her pulse quickened as she said it, her friend’s green eyes going bright with mischief as she unwound the leather cord.
“And sacrifice this glimpse into the brilliant mind of Charlotte Hastings?” Jocelyn smiled, teasing, toying. Charlotte wanted to throw herself onto the girl, the book. Instead, she inched forward, but her friend danced back in turn.
“Jocelyn,” she warned, trying to sound stern instead of terror-stricken.
“I wonder,” mused her best friend. “Have you been writing about me ?”
At that, Charlotte—who could keep a secret off her tongue but not her face—made the fatal mistake of flinching, and Jocelyn cackled in delight and flipped open the book, but before she could skim, Charlotte flung herself forward.
Jocelyn yelped, and turned to flee, made it almost to the line of fruit trees when Charlotte caught her around the waist, and they both tumbled down into the grass.
“You feral thing,” said Jocelyn, giggling.
“You wretched thief,” countered Charlotte, winded and giddy.
The journal lay face down, several feet away.
Neither of them bothered making a grab for it.
They sprawled on the lawn at the edge of the orchard, limbs tangled and dresses stained, a tree root digging into Charlotte’s back, but it was worth it, for the dappled shade, the weight of Jocelyn beside her.
Jocelyn, whose hand found hers, fingers knotting in the grass. “I only wanted to know your thoughts.”
Charlotte’s heart leapt inside her chest, even though it was nothing, they’d known each other since their bodies were shapeless, edgeless, they’d shared beds and woken with their limbs entwined, hair grazing each other’s cheeks.
And yet.
The words were a spark against Charlotte’s already burning skin. She rolled onto her side to look at Jocelyn. “You could have simply asked.”
“You could have lied.”
Charlotte scoffed. “Such slander!”
Jocelyn rolled toward her, head pillowed on her hands. “All right then. Tell me what it says.”
Charlotte swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. It would be easy to say no, to scoop up the journal and go marching back to the house. But Jocelyn’s green eyes were wide and waiting, and the words came spilling up from memory.
“‘Sometimes, when I’m with Joss, I forget who I am.’”
The other girl blushed, and so did Charlotte.
“‘I forget who I am meant to be.’”
Charlotte reached out and tucked a loose black lock behind Jocelyn’s ear.
“‘And all I know is that I want—’”
At that moment, something cracked, came free. Jocelyn’s mouth found hers, or hers found Jocelyn’s. She didn’t know which of them closed the gap between their bodies, only that the kiss was softer than she would have dreamed it, because it was real.
If they had stopped, right there, it could have passed for chaste, a glancing kiss between old friends—but it didn’t.
There was the sound of Jocelyn’s breath catching in her throat, and Charlotte’s heart skipping with a nervous speed, her skin alive with heat, as if she’d grazed a patch of nettles, and their hands—their hands—two of them still tangled, and the other two now searching, Charlotte’s on her cheek and Jocelyn’s on her waist, fingers knotting in the fabric of her dress. Pulling Charlotte forward, closer—
And then, suddenly, firmly, away.
Their mouths broke apart, Charlotte gasping as if coming up for air, a laugh already rising like bubbles in her throat. But they were no longer mirror images. Jocelyn’s cheeks were flushed, her breathing quick, but her face was drawn, and when she spoke, her voice was thin and tight and scared.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered, and Charlotte flinched as if struck, but before she could say anything, another voice joined in.
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
James.
His hair windblown, a riding crop tucked under one arm.
In the time it took Charlotte’s older brother to bend down and collect the discarded journal, the two girls had flung themselves apart.
But it was too late. They were in such a state of disarray, their faces flushed—Charlotte’s with shock, and Jocelyn’s with something worse. Shame. She looked like she might cry.
“James—” started Charlotte, surging to her feet. But before she could say any more, her father was coming down the path, asking James about the filly, how she was adjusting to the saddle. He startled at the sight of them.
“Charlotte, Miss Lewis. What are you doing out here?”
Jocelyn was standing now, every ounce of her attention fixed on her skirts, and her attempt to set them right.
Her father looked around, perplexed. “Where are your maids?”
Charlotte found she couldn’t speak, the air was all sucked out of her, and she was afraid to try and force it in again, in case she came apart.
How had it all gone so wrong? Moments earlier, she had been so full of hope and joy, and now her best friend wouldn’t look up, and neither would James.
She knew she had to beat her brother to the answer, but when she tried, she found she couldn’t breathe, and in the end he got there first.
“I wanted to show Miss Lewis around Mother’s garden, now that everything’s in bloom,” lied James. “Charlotte was kind enough to chaperone.”
It was the best excuse he could have given.
And the worst.
At twenty-one, her only brother had been notoriously fickle when it came to matches.
Now, at the mere mention of a prospect, especially one so well-known and well-liked, a light kindled in their father’s eyes, his attention flicking between his son and Joss in a way that made Charlotte’s stomach ache, made her want to scream, to plant herself between her brother and her friend, as if staking claim.
But she was not a fool, and she knew she would owe her brother dearly.
“Darling, are you well?” her father asked, and Charlotte realized then that she was shivering. At some point, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds, and it looked like it would rain.
How quickly the English weather turned.
“I should be getting home,” said Jocelyn. She looked at Charlotte’s brother. “Thank you, James.” Charlotte, she ignored.
Her brother nodded grimly. Her father held out his arm.
“Come, Miss Lewis,” he said. “I’ll walk you to your carriage.”
Charlotte watched her best friend go, held her breath and hoped that Joss would glance back, that those green eyes would find hers and they would say, It is all right, we are all right .
But she never did.
The moment they were gone, she heard James draw breath to speak, but Charlotte could not bear to hear the words, and so she turned, and hurried home.
She didn’t run, but walked as briskly as she could, chest heaving with pent-up tears as she rushed back through the trellis and around the fountain, rewinding the path of her chase, wishing she could reverse the time as easily.
How far back would she go? Before the interruption, or before the kiss, or before she glanced up from her journal to study Jocelyn across the blanket they’d spread on the lawn, and the look on her face gave away too much of what she’d written.
The first drops fell as Charlotte reached the back steps of Clement Hall, James trailing like a shadow in her wake. He reached her, of course, and they stood in silence as the rain came down—a sudden downpour, the kind unique to spring.
He met her gaze, and Charlotte forced herself to hold it. He took after their father, his complexion lighter than her own, his eyes darker, his hair content to fall in loose, elegant waves. She thought for a moment he’d leave it at a look.
Please God, let him leave it at a look.
But God was not on her side today.
“Lottie,” he began, almost gently.
“It wasn’t—” she started, shaking her head, but he cut her off.
“You are not a child anymore.”
She scoffed. Three short years between them, but he treated the time like a chasm.
“You cannot . . . that is, you mustn’t . . .” James, who never struggled for words, could not seem to find the right ones now. She wanted to melt into the stone beneath her, or rush inside, escape upstairs into the safety of her room.
But he was still holding her journal.
That damning book.
“It was a lark,” she lied with a brittle laugh. “Nothing more.”
Please believe me. Please believe me.
But the look on his face was unconvinced.
“Be that as it may,” he answered cautiously, “you are nearly grown, and there are certain games you can no longer play.” James rapped his fingers on the journal. “Surely you understand. There are rules. Expectations.”
“ You don’t play by them,” she shot back. James Hastings, unwed, unwilling to even entertain the idea, attached as he is to his independence.
He arched a brow and said, “We are not equal, Charlotte.”
There was no malice to the words, and still they stung.
“In intellect, perhaps. In willfulness, surely. But the simple fact is that you are a woman, and I am a man. And yes, it does afford me certain freedoms. But even so, one day I will need to take a wife, just as you will need to take a husband. ”
Husband. What an ugly word. A rock tossed in a clear pool, muddying the water. She tried—and failed—to keep the thought from showing on her face. Perhaps that was what damned her in the end.
James extended his hand, and the journal with it, but when Charlotte reached to take it, he held on a moment longer.
“Be careful, sister,” he said, before letting go.
He disappeared into the house, left her clutching the book to her chest as the rain fell heavy as a curtain, the garden lost from sight.
That night, Charlotte tore the last ten pages from the journal and burned them in her hearth. Tears slid down her cheeks as the paper curled, the words devoured one by one.
But as the fire cooled to embers, she sighed with something like relief, and told herself that it was done.