Chapter 19
SAGE
My feet touch the lakebed just as Troy’s strong arms close around me. He hauls me up and I scrabble to hold onto him, my fingers catching in his shirt, almost tearing it off him.
The water is freezing cold and so dark, like it’s swallowing me.
“Calm down.” His voice cuts through my panic. “It’s not that deep.”
And it’s not.
When I stop thrashing, I can touch the ground with my toes. But the black water keeps trying to drag me under, and my limbs feel like lead, my lungs burning.
“You…you pushed me!” I can barely get the words out between gasps, clinging to him, clawing his wet clothes.
“You tried to poison me.” His hands tighten on my waist, holding me steady against the current. “Now, stop dragging me under, I’m trying to get us to the shore.”
I should pull him under. But I can’t. My body won’t cooperate, shaking violently from cold or shock or both. And Troy is so warm, radiating heat. I grab onto him and hold on for dear life, hating myself for it, annoyed that he feels solid and safe when he just tried to drown me.
Or did he?
My mind struggles to make sense of it. He tipped the boat so I would fall in. Then immediately came after me. But now that he’s dragging me toward the bank, his arm around my waist like an iron bar, my brain gives up.
The paddle to shore feels endless. My dress is plastered to my body, the jacket heavy and restrictive.
My teeth won’t stop chattering. Troy’s jaw is set, his eyes fixed ahead, and I can feel the anger radiating off him in waves every time I paw at him.
When we reach the bank, he lifts me out of the water in one smooth motion, avoiding the rocks and setting me on my feet with minimal effort as though I weigh nothing.
But as soon as I’m on solid ground, I stumble.
His hand shoots out to steady me…then releases me just as quickly, as though I’ve doused him in acid.
“Can you walk?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“Good. Because I’m not bloody carrying you.”
He turns and starts up the path to the house without looking back, leaving me dripping and shaking in the darkness. After a moment, I follow, my wet shoes squelching with every step.
My teeth are chattering so hard, I can barely breathe as I hurry to catch up.
“I-I didn’t…th-the p-poison…I c-can explain…”
“Don’t.” The word is flat, final. “Just don’t.”
The house glows in the distance, and I focus on that, on putting one foot in front of the other, holding myself, and rubbing warmth back into my frozen arms. I don’t want to think about the fact that Troy both tried to kill me and saved me in the space of thirty seconds.
Or how warm his skin felt in that freezing water, and how hard and bunched his muscles felt when he picked me up.
He must work out.
I’m so cold I shove my hands into Troy’s jacket pocket, even if the material is sopping wet. In one pocket, the tips of my fingers graze sharp metal, just like last time. I snatch my hand back. What the…I glance down.
A razor?
Why does Troy have a razor in his suit jacket pocket? Slowly, I put my hand in and close it around the handle, gripping it tightly.
A weapon.
I have a weapon.
Kathy is waiting at the door when I get there. Troy isn’t. She takes one look at me and sighs, offering me a towel to dry myself with. “Oh my, look at the state of you. What were you thinking? Come on, let’s get you by the fire.”
I don’t know what she means by that. What was I thinking, falling into the lake? Or what was I thinking, wrapping myself around him like kelp? I feel like everyone in this house is always watching me.
The fire in the sitting room is kindling when we get in there.
I’m stumped to see Troy facing the hearth, trying to poke the fire into submission with an iron.
He’s still in his soaked clothes. His hair is dripping wet.
My stomach knots. I force myself to look anywhere but at the way water beads at the ends of his hair.
I focus on the fire instead. Inching closer, letting the dry, crackly heat envelop me from top to bottom.
Troy doesn’t turn around or say a word. Only the snapping and popping of dry wood can be heard in the hushed sitting room.
Occasionally, the wind outside makes itself known, too.
Soon, the room is toasty and warm, and Troy leaves, quickly moving away from the blaze like it might jump out of the fireplace at him.
He glances at me once, as he goes, but it’s fleeting, his duty done.
“You look like you were dragged through a swamp,” is his only parting comment.
He’s still upset with me about the poison. It must be that. However, it could be a number of things. Talking to Tobias. Being in places I shouldn’t be. Leaving doors open. Wearing things that aren’t mine. I seem to be doing everything wrong.
“Is he mad at me?” I can’t help but ask Kathy when she brings me a cup of tea.
“Why would Master Troy be mad at you?”
“He only ever looks at me like that when he is.”
‘Like what?”
“Like he wants to murder me.”
She tilts her head back, lips pressed together, as though musing on the answer. “Yes, he can be…” She sighs and tries again. “He’s…” but trails off, staring at the fire as she bundles the wet towels.
“He’s what?”
“I was going to say not used to company.”
“But you and Mundel live here too?”
She sniffs. “We’re staff. There’s a difference.”
When Kathy has gone off somewhere to find me some dry clothes, from where I can only imagine, I hide the razor under a sofa cushion.
I’m just checking it’s hidden when Troy’s big black dog comes ambling into the room.
It stops when it sees me, sitting in one of the chairs.
I pause too, the air in my lungs caught mid-breath.
The dog, Ben, I recall, sniffs the air once or twice and then pays me no attention, and flops out in front of the fire with a groan.
I breathe out too, feeling a smile ease onto my face at how cute he is, despite his size.
When Ben starts whimpering and running in his sleep, the urge to go over and soothe him is too much. I shrug off the towel, place my tea on the side, and then go over to the hearth, kneeling next to him.
“Shhhh, Ben.”
I stroke his head until he stops having a nightmare or a dream about chasing rabid squirrels.
“It’s okay, you’re safe.”
He opens one eye to check who I am, but lets me pamper him. His fur is thick and soft, like a teddy bear’s. I settle beside him, letting him rest his head on my lap. For a moment, I just watch the flames dance and feel the warmth seep into my damp skin, my fingers moving absently through his coat.
“This house is so cold that it needs a fire lit every day, no matter what the weather,” I tell Ben. He grumbles, as if to agree with me.
“Then you can go out and chop the wood.”
I look around, startled.
Troy stands in the doorway, arms full of logs, watching me with those chartreuse eyes of his.
All at once, I feel like I might spontaneously combust. I force myself to look back at the fire.
Ben huffs under my stalled hand, so I make my palm move, continuing to stroke him.
But it feels weird with Troy watching me.
His boots are loud on the hardwood, dropping mud in clumps as he crosses the room. Was he just outside chopping wood? And he’s still in his wet clothes; he must be freezing.
“He likes you,” Troy huffs, seemingly annoyed by that. “He doesn’t usually let anyone else close.”
Like me or not, Ben soon abandons me for his master, his added warmth disappearing. I’m left sitting alone on the rug, arms wrapped around my knees, trying to look anywhere but at Troy as he crouches by the wood basket, filling it, pausing to give his dog’s head an easy rub.
I wish that were me.
Oh my god. Where the hell did that thought come from?
Hopefully, it was Nell, because the thought came from nowhere, and it can’t be mine. I hate this man with every bone in my body.
I shoot Troy a look in case he can read minds. But he doesn’t react; he carries on stacking the logs, his hands moving, placing each one with deliberate care. The same hands that had me senseless on those stairs, that pushed me into the lake. The silence stretches until I can’t stand it.
I draw in a breath. “Why?”
Troy doesn’t seem to hear, still piling logs with precision. After what feels like a long time, too long, he answers.
“Why what?”
“Why did you…?” I can’t say it.
He turns, his eyes meeting mine. Then, I swear I can’t breathe. My eyes betray me, dropping to his mouth, and then his scarred chest under that wet shirt. I catch myself, but it’s too late.
When I finally look up, his face is unreadable.
“Tip the boat? You know why.”
“I meant the other night on the stairs.”
“Oh, when I kissed you?” He says it like he’s commenting on the weather. It was more than just a kiss.
“Um, yes, that.” Heat creeps up my neck.
“We’re getting married.” He returns to his task, his tone indifferent, each log laid carefully so they don’t fall. “Seemed inevitable.”
Inevitable. Like catching a cold.
I hug my knees tighter, my breath quickening. “I see. So it was just—?”
“It was nothing.” He cuts me off. “Don’t read into it.”
“I didn’t…that’s not…” My words get messed up, spilling in staccato from my mouth, my face too hot from the fire. What I want to say, all my carefully rehearsed words from sleepless nights fall like leaves, scattering.
Disappointment lodges thick in my throat. I wasn’t expecting him to say it meant something. Of course, it didn’t. I should be angry that he kissed me. Touched me. But I’m not.
Instead, I feel ill.
And I want to crawl under my bed and stay there until he’s gone.
But then…he’s looking my way again. His eyes cold and empty and I can’t feel my legs.
“You certainly ran fast enough afterwards.” His eyes flicker with something I can’t place. “Did you not like it?”
My mind scrambles to catch up. “What?”
“The kiss, Sage.” Troy’s voice drops lower, rougher. “Did you not like it?” His eyes burn like stars.