Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Edith had put a lot of thought into her first kiss.
When one made it all the way to the ripe age of twenty-seven without ever kissing anyone, it was only natural to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, fantasizing really.
Edith had dreamed up a thousand perfect scenarios.
Dashing rogues, perfect gentlemen, demure ladies, bold, mystical women like Morgan le Fay.
She had pictured them all. Sometimes they kissed her in the rain, or on a beach.
On a nighttime stroll under the full moon, or under the cover of candlelight in her bedchamber.
In her lack of actual experience, she had drowned herself in imagined fairy-tale romances.
She believed there was true love for everyone, but the ticking clock of her life had begun slowly convincing her that there was no romance out there for her.
As her prospects grew more grim, her fantasies grew more wild, more perfect.
But nothing, not one single idealistic, desperate imagining she had ever conjured up, could compare to this moment.
Thomasin Shaw was kissing her.
In a torchlit, underground chamber, where King Arthur’s Round Table had waited to be found for centuries, Thomasin Shaw was kissing Edith Darling.
Thomasin’s hands held Edith’s face, tilting her head just slightly upward. Her lips touched Edith’s with the most delicate pressure. Edith couldn’t wrap her mind around the feeling of Thomasin’s lips against hers. They were soft and hard. Insistent and patient.
She wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, so she did the only thing that she wanted to do. She slid her hands up to grip Thomasin’s shoulders and pulled her in closer.
Thomasin obliged, stepping further into Edith’s space, lips beginning to gently move against hers.
It wasn’t scorching hot or mindless with lust like Edith might have imagined.
But Edith didn’t need that yet, wouldn’t quite know what to do with it, and perhaps Thomasin knew that, because the way Thomasin kissed her was sweet and soft, and all the things Edith had ever wanted someone to feel for her.
There was a restraint in every brush of her lips, in the flex of her hand against Edith’s cheek.
She could feel Thomasin’s yearning as if it were her own. Which, of course, it was.
Thomasin pulled back just enough for their eyes to lock.
Edith’s heart dropped at the baffled look on Thomasin’s face.
She should’ve known such an innocent kiss would not have pleased Thomasin in the way that it pleased Edith.
But Edith’s heart started beating again when Thomasin licked her lips and said, “You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. ”
“So that was good for you too, then?” Edith whispered into the space where their breath mingled.
Thomasin gave a short laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
When Edith just searched her eyes, with a little furrow of insecurity between her brows, Thomasin leaned down and kissed Edith once again. Harder this time, her tongue brushing across Edith’s lower lip.
“I didn’t know it was supposed to feel like this,” Thomasin said.
“Like what?” Edith asked, still expecting the worst.
“Like magic.”
Edith smiled, and Thomasin’s eyes sparkled down at her. “You’re magic to me too,” she told Thomasin.
Thomasin kissed her once, twice, three times. Each one longer, more languid, like she couldn’t help herself. Edith had never felt so wanted before.
After the fourth, or maybe hundredth kiss, Thomasin twirled a loose strand of Edith’s hair around her finger, studying it like it was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.
“Before,” Edith said, and Thomasin dragged her gaze back up to Edith’s. “You said our quest …”
“I meant it.” Thomasin trailed her hands down the sides of Edith’s neck, down her arms, then interlaced their fingers together.
She brought their clasped hands up between them and landed a kiss on Edith’s knuckles.
“I believe you. I believe in Excalibur, the treasure, all of it. And I want to be the one to find them with you.”
“Really?”
“I mean, we’re standing next to the bloody Round Table, it’s kind of hard not to believe.”
“We’ll find it. I promise you, we will.” Edith looked over at the Round Table, and her smile stretched impossibly wide.
But then, something terrible occurred to her.
She drew her lower lip between her teeth and faced Thomasin again.
The other woman’s brow lowered, dimples disappearing as she took in the grim set of Edith’s mouth.
“What?” Thomasin said in a low voice.
“There’s something we’ll have to do first.” Edith grimaced. Thomasin made a face as if to say, Go on. Squeezing Thomasin’s hands tight and scrunching up her nose, Edith said, “If we want to get out of here, we’ll have to go back through the spider room.”
“Fuck.”
Once the spiders were finally behind them, Edith couldn’t help checking her satchel over and over again to make sure none of the creatures had tagged along for the ride.
It was the pitch-dark of night just before dawn by the time they made it back out through the replica Round Table.
As they snuck through the town of Winchester, Edith regaled Jay with the tale of their adventure.
Out in the open air, with a new destination on the horizon, the spider encounter seemed much more like a daring, lighthearted act of bravery than the horrifying disaster it had felt like while they were in it.
It was no longer the kind of scare that made you want to cry, but instead the kind that made you laugh.
Despite Edith’s gift for dynamic storytelling, Worthing still slunk behind the group with a practically visible rain cloud above his head. When they had told him that there was no treasure yet, all he had said was “I’m shocked” in a tone that conveyed he was anything but.
“Just a few more clues,” Thomasin had said, clapping him on the back.
“Just a few more chances for the police to pin us down,” he shot back. Thomasin said nothing, barely even sparing him a glance.
Every time Edith looked at Thomasin, her lips tingled and butterflies erupted in her stomach. She wasn’t sure how she was going to behave normally in front of Thomasin anymore. The mere thought of their kiss had her legs turning to jelly.
They were almost to the outskirts of town when Edith stopped and said, “Why don’t we just rent a room at the inn for the day?
I mean, I think we all deserve a little luxury.
And a bath.” It was almost dawn, and they could all use a good nap before setting off again.
Sure, it was a risk, but Edith felt invincible, and they could just stay in the safety of their rooms during the day and leave once it got dark again.
Thomasin looked as if the idea had never once occurred to her, but then shrugged and said, “Why not.”
Jay clapped his hands in delight, and they doubled back into the main street of Winchester.
The inn was a modest brick building at the far end of the town square.
Unsurprisingly, the dining room was empty, save for a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a stained white apron who was sweeping underneath one of the tables.
He looked up at the rickety sound of the door swinging open, naturally suspicious of a group of strangers arriving so late, or early, depending on who you asked, but when Edith took out her heavy bag of gold, his suspicion quickly faded into hospitality.
With only a handful of coins, they got a room, a hot meal, and a bucket of hot water for each of them.
After scrubbing herself clean of spiders, dirt, and sweat, Edith flopped onto the bed, which had an objectively thin mattress, but felt like a cloud after all the nights sleeping on the ground, and dug into the potato stew that she’d brought up from the dining room.
It was bland, near tasteless, but it was still warm, and Edith was happy just to have something to eat. She wasn’t used to the rationed travel meals she’d had to endure these last weeks, her store of toast and jam long since run out.
Her dinner was just about finished when there was a firm knock on her door. She dropped her spoon, and it fell with a dull clatter into the bowl. Her heart sped up with every step toward the door, and when she turned the knob, she thought it might beat straight out of her chest.
Thomasin stood on the other side, her dark, wet hair loose around her shoulders. Her face had been scrubbed clean as well, cheeks still reddened. She gave Edith a very un-Thomasin-like smile. It was hesitant, almost bashful.
“Can I come in?” Her voice was rougher than usual.
“Of course,” Edith said but forgot to move aside to actually let her in. Only when Thomasin laughed and gestured at the gap between the door and the wall that Edith was currently blocking did she have the wherewithal to step backward and open the door for her.
As Thomasin entered her room, Edith sent a prayer to King Arthur himself to please just let herself behave normally. Edith wanted to be cool and relaxed, not uppity and overwhelmed.
Instead, she blurted, “Good stew.”
Thomasin gave her a peculiar look over her shoulder, then sat down on the bed.
She made herself comfortable, as she always did, leaning back against the headboard and stretching her legs out in front of her.
It was a trait that Edith envied. She never felt comfortable anywhere, let alone in someone else’s space.
No matter how welcoming that someone might be, she always felt like an imposition, and would shrink herself down to take up as little space as possible.
Thomasin did the opposite, and maybe it should’ve felt rude, but really it just seemed like Thomasin knew she had the right to exist as she was.