“And me,” I echoed, knowing there was nothing in my life that could ever match the mantle of importance placed on Camille’s shoulders.
She reached out and squeezed my hand. “I am so, so wonderfully glad you’re here, that you live with us. Highmoor will always be your home, you know that. Perhaps I’ve not shown you how much I appreciate you being there. I need to do better. I…I will try to be a better sister.”
“Camille, I didn’t mean to insinuate that you—”
“I will be better,” she promised.
“Well…actually…there’s something else I’d hoped we could talk about,” I said, slipping the duchess’s letter from my pocket. There was something horrible in the way Camille had said Highmoor would always be my home. The words themselves sounded lovely but their implication made me bristle. Staying at home meant I never went anywhere. I never learned anything new. I wouldn’t find a suitor, a calling, myself, if I never left. Camille was bound to Highmoor, she was called to protect it and the islands, but I…what purpose did I serve behind its stony walls? “I…got that letter from Mercy yesterday.”
She took a small spoonful of the broth, rolling it around her mouth while she contemplated what I wasn’t saying. “Oh?”
“She’s made friends with a duchess, from Bloem—”
“Dauphine Laurent,” Camille cut in, nodding.
My head bobbed in time with hers. “Yes, well. The Laurents have a son—”
“Alexander,” she interrupted again, taking more crackers and crushing them into her soup.
“Alexander,” I agreed. Each time she broke my train of thought, my nerves mounted, growing from my middle like a bramble of tangled vines, reaching up to strangle me.
“He’s a lovely young man,” she said, glancing out across the room again. “I can’t imagine being in the duke’s position.”
“Position?”
“He’s an invalid, you know. Alexander. Some nasty fall or childhood malady, I can’t remember which…” She shook her head as if it wasn’t of importance. “He hasn’t the slightest bit of movement in his legs, has to go everywhere in a wheeled chair.”
“How awful,” I murmured, picturing how it would look in painted form, a small, forlorn figure seated before a looming old manor, the grounds chock-full of overgrown greenery, threatening to swallow the boy whole.
Camille took another bite. “Do you not like it?” she asked, gesturing to my own bowl. I still hadn’t touched it.
“I was just…letting it cool for a moment.”
“So, let me guess. Dauphine is after Mercy to visit Chauntilalie, isn’t she? She’s obviously trying to set up some sort of arrangement with the pair of them behind my back. And Mercy wrote to you to…what? Get her out of it?” She rubbed at her temples with a sigh. “I swear, she’s such a baby sometimes.”
“What? No.”
But Camille was already playing out her imagined scenario, too intent upon it to hear me. “Mercy,” she snorted. “Dauphine must be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Anyone with one eye can see that that girl has already pinned her heart to—” She cut herself off abruptly, glancing sharply toward a couple who’d passed by closer than she liked. She swallowed. “Well. You know.”
I did.
“That isn’t why she was writing,” I said, carefully bringing out the duchess’s letter and setting it down on the table between us, now a sodden mess.
After giving it a wary look of disdain, she opened the wrinkled pages. I watched her eyes dart back and forth, scanning the bright ink. She read it once, twice, a third time, then put the letter back down. “No,” she said without preamble.
“What do you mean no?”
“No, you won’t be going.” She downed a long swallow of the cider as if seeking fortitude.
Normally I would have nodded and followed her wishes but her earlier words still echoed uneasily in my mind.
Highmoor will always be your home.
Always.
It will always be my home.
My home will always be here.
But why should it?
Had she ever once asked me what I wanted out of my life?
No.
She just assumed she knew best and went around making sweeping pronouncements like that. Like she always did. Like a duchess always would.
I took a sip of the cider myself, then another. “I don’t recall asking permission.”
Camille’s eyebrow arched sharply. She seemed too stunned to reply.
“I’ll be turning eighteen next week. I’m more than old enough to be making my own decisions.”
“Eighteen is hardly—”
“You let Mercy go to court at sixteen.”
“The king requested it. What was I to do?”
“Honor left at seventeen,” I continued, keeping my voice level.
It had been a double blow, both my closest sisters leaving within just months of one another. I’d felt abandoned but tried to stay hopeful, knowing that only in a few years’ time, I too would be old enough to join in their adventures.
Only that had never happened.
They were out there. I was still here.
Always.
“Honor became a governess. She had a job.”
“So do I,” I said, glancing at the letter.
“That’s not…” She trailed off and closed her eyes. “That’s not the same.”
“I already sent her my acceptance.”
There was a quick flash of amber as her eyes opened, narrowing at me. “You what?”
“I wrote back, saying I’d be delighted to accept the post. I mailed it off this morning.”
She took a deep breath. Her cheeks burned brightly and I noticed her hands trembled with rage. “Then you will write her back and say it was a mistake. You’ll have to apologize, of course, but—”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. I am going.”
“You’re not.” Her voice was terrifyingly calm. She’d not raised it once, keeping every word crisp and deliberate.
“I don’t understand. Everyone else has left. Annaleigh, Honor, Mercy, even Lenore! You let all of them go without a fuss. I only want what they did. It’s time for me to find out who I am, who I’m supposed to—”
There was a crack in the veneer of her face, just a small glimpse of the thoughts swirling in her mind that she desperately tried to hide, but as I spoke, it grew bigger, splitting the mask into tatters. “Dammit, Verity,” she snapped, striking at the table with the palm of her hand.
It was as shocking as a slap. My breath caught in the hollow of my throat, unable to understand her reluctance, why there was such fury in her eyes.
“You’re not them. You’re not like any of them!”
She struck the table again, and the bowls and mugs trembled at the force of it. Before I could say anything, Camille swooped off the bench and was out the door. It swung shut behind her, striking against the frame with a resolute finality.
I sat frozen in place, staring at the food before me. I didn’t have to look around the tavern to feel the eyes of everyone in the establishment staring at me, wondering what had occurred. Camille always presented such a calm, dignified fa?ade in public. She must be mortified at the scene she’d caused. I was certain she would quickly return, making up excuses for her out-of-character antics.