34. A Study in Restraint
A STUDY IN RESTRAINT
ERIC
I find her flat on her back where they bury the traitors. The grass close to her feet is scuffed, a bald patch in a suspicious arc. I’d have mistaken her for a corpse if her hand wasn’t absentmindedly rubbing against her locket. She must’ve fallen and didn’t bother to get back up.
Honestly, after what just happened in the hall? Same.
“Is lying in grave dirt a new tactic, or are you actually dead this time?” Half of the bottle is already gone, and I take my first sip. Still good. Offensively good. When she doesn’t speak, I nudge her foot with the toe of my boot, and she groans.
“You’re laughing at me,” she says without opening her eyes, still scratching at the filigree.
“I’m not.”
“You are; I can hear it.”
I squint down at her. “That’s because you concussed yourself on ancestral remains.” Red-rimmed eyes choke the fuck out of my sense of self when I gulp down a loud swig. “You’re glaring at me like I pushed you.”
She sits up slightly, one leg bent awkwardly beneath her dress. I’ve never seen such exasperation on a face other than my mother’s. “It’s not like I planned this. Percy wanted to be alone, so I figured I’d head back to the hall, but I tripped.”
I glance at the grass. “There’s fuckall to trip over.”
It costs her nothing, not even time or thought, to clap back. “I tripped over the gravitational pull of your ego , Eric. It showed up a minute before you did and caught me at the ankle.”
My grin comes involuntarily, hidden behind the bottle. I smile because I can hear her, read her subtitles. Present tense, not past. Because she’s not gasping for air on a marble floor. Because she’s still here, grass in her hair and venom on her tongue. Still a bloody nightmare.
Thank fuck.
Bad news lingers at the back of my mind, pressing forward as a reminder. If I had my way, these words wouldn’t touch her. She’s had enough trauma for a fucking lifetime. I let her sit in the victory of her snarky remark for a moment before I reveal what happened.
“Thalia had an allergic reaction.” I grit my teeth at her lack of reaction, but I don’t know what I was expecting.
Surely not this ‘Ah, how unfortunate’ thing she’s got going on.
Last night’s panic still bubbles beneath the surface of her expression, yet it doesn’t seep through. I wish it did. “To your cake.”
Her throat works as she asks, “Strawberry?” I nod. A palm lifts, and elegant fingers make a grabbing motion. I fixate on it like a fool. “Give me the rat juice, Atherbourne. Now.”
I feel my lips curl as I hand her the wine, letting our fingers brush before letting go. She scoots until she’s pressed against the thick trunk of the tree, and I drop down beside her without hesitation. The ground’s softer than it should be, and that’s my problem. It feels occupied.
I’m just perched here on corpses with a fourteen-thousand-pound bottle of wine and a woman who won’t stop testing mortality’s patience. She’s unmoved, obviously. This is probably her version of a chaise longue.
The wine lifts, and Francesca chugs as though it’s tap water.
A single line of crimson trickles down her bottom lip, catching on her chin before she swipes the back of her hand across it.
The bottle lingers between us as if she’s weighing whether to share or keep drinking.
I make the decision for her and press my mouth to the same patch that her lipstick stains; the intimacy of it stings a little.
“Be honest. How bad would it have been?” I watch her pick at her locket again, trying to find ways to downplay her response.
“Not like Thalia, that’s for certain.” She snorts softly. “I’d have been a mess, with welts, hives and whining. Nothing fatal, though. Just ugly and miserable.”
A warning, then.
“Whoever did this knew it wouldn’t kill you,” I press. “They want you frightened, not dead. Everything has been warnings, reminders that you’re being watched even when you’re alone. It’s all meant to haunt you.”
I tilt the wine her way and she takes another long gulp. “You’re forgetting that you can’t haunt a ghost,” she voices, then tips the rim towards her mouth. The lamplight spills onto her, and her gaze becomes depthless lake water. Fucking hell, the slur to her vowels tells me it’s hitting her now.
Her shoulder bumps mine, and all the warmth zaps right out of it, courtesy of my personal ghost girl.
Goosebumps rise under my shirt sleeves before my brain even registers it.
“That may just be the most frightening thing you’ve ever said to me.
And probably the most honest thing I’ve heard all night. ”
There’s a lazy confidence to the way she stretches out her legs, exposing her throat to my stare as she leans back. A flush creeps onto her cheeks. “You should hear what I don’t say out loud.”
“You’re drunk,” I tease, a little amused and a little awed. She blinks at me, then shrugs. “Considering you went to bed after experiencing a death threat and nearly ate one for dessert, you’re being far too nonchalant.”
“What, d’you want me to sob into your jacket?
It wouldn’t change anything.” Another long swallow.
“I learnt at age six that we don’t get praised for visible misery, okay?
” She grips my chin with her free hand, forcing me to nod.
The pad of her index finger traces my smile.
“I should be frightened, yes, but right now, all I feel is—” She’s cut off by a hiccup, followed by laughter. “Maybe just a small bit drunk.”
“ Fucking hell , Sheffolk,” I stare at the empty bottle in utter disbelief.
She’s sagging sideways enough for my voice to hum against her ear.
“Cheval ’47, and you drank it like it’s fucking lemonade.
Either you’re an exquisite waste of vintage wine or the most expensive omen this world has ever seen. ”
The scoff she makes is half-melted, turning into a sigh midway. A content kitten clutching a bottle older than us both combined. “There he is again, my favourite poet in exile.”
With the way it slurs, I think she’s mocking me. The punchline is never reached, and I’m left pleased with what seems like an alcohol-doused compliment. “Suppose that makes you my favourite dead and dangerously drunk duchess-in-waiting.”
Suddenly she’s upright, genuinely delighted. “Oh my god, alliteration . Be still my heart.” She beams and jabs a finger against my chest, humming her approval. “Alliterate at me again, please.”
Against my will, my expression softens. Compared to the pictures online, she’s so alive it almost hurts to witness. I oblige her request, lowering my voice. “Ferociously frustrating, fantastically foolish and fucking fascinating Francesca.”
Momentarily, she stares as though I’m the apparition, like she’s not the one split in three between girl, ghost and goddess. Short blades of grass scratch at my pants, moved by a soundless wind. Something is reaching, moving. I can’t explain it, and I’m done trying.
There’s no way I’ll risk going insane trying to understand this haunted patch of land.
The most delicate laugh leaves Francesca, soft as a whispered spell.
“So much for unreliable narrator.” A long moment passes, in which I’m dissected with drunken reverence.
“You’re far too present, writing yourself in each time you dig deeper.
And maybe that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Her voice dips.
“That my story won’t let you stand outside of it. ”
If that isn’t the most accurate fucking assessment of us, I don’t know what is. Whatever version I pretend to tell myself, it doesn’t matter; her story already has its claws in me. This is participation, implication—the furthest thing from mere observation.
I don’t bother brushing the dirt from my clothes when I stand, and I heft the abandoned bottle in one hand.
“You’re right, but if you think that makes me malleable, then you’re more tipsy than I thought.
” Lights flicker in the distance where celebration churns on.
“At the risk of sounding like a medieval general cosplaying as a poet: enemies are closing in. You know it. I know it, and I’ll shape this story however I fucking have to. ”
The smile she gives me is too dopey, too blinding for tonight and its events. “You don’t even have a pen, kind sir,” she singsongs, giggling into the crook of her arm.
Utterly ridiculous.
I scoff, bending close enough until my shadow falls over her and my hand is outstretched. “You’re my pen. Now up, Baskerville. Before someone sees you grinning at me like that.”
That foolish, brilliant smile lingers, and her palm grazes mine, testing the temperature of something she’s learned to avoid.
Warmth floods my hand as she takes it—too warm for someone who claims to be dead.
I lift her carefully, easing her weight towards me, and the earth seems reluctant to give her up.
The rest of her heat bleeds into me when she stumbles, forehead meeting my chest. I brush dry leaves from her hair and pull her neckline back into place.
She nestles closer, breath ghosting through my shirt. “Thought you said I don’t have a fixed font. That I keep changing every time you look. Called me a typeset nightmare and everything.”
“I did, but that doesn’t mean you’re completely illegible. Just that sometimes I have to squint.” My palm settles against the base of her spine, and I push her into step with me. “C’mon, let’s get you home.”
But she stumbles awkwardly, turns, grabs the bottle from me to place it on the ground—and suddenly she’s back against me. Chin propped on my chest, looking up from beneath heavy lashes. “ No , wanna kiss.”
Those words from her cherry-stained lips nearly send me headfirst into cardiac arrest. “You’re swaying.”
“Not when you’re holding me.” Dimples pop, and the first crack of my composure is embarrassingly audible in the stillness of the night. “We’ve only kissed twice, y’know?”