CHAPTER 33: CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Sunlight, bright, cheerful, and entirely unwelcome, streamed into Ines’s room. It was an assault. A direct one at that.

She groaned, the sound a low, scratchy thing in the back of her throat. She turned her head, burying her face into the cool, dark side of the pillow. The brightness of the room was damning. It was too happy. It was a morning, and she felt as if the night had swallowed her whole.

Slowly, painfully, she woke up. She pushed herself into a sitting position on the bed, her legs still tangled in the sheets. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, a small, childish gesture, trying to clear the blur.

She opened them, allowing her vision to adjust to the light. The room came into focus.

And the first thing she saw was Edith, her back to her, pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the side table.

"My lady, you are awake," Edith said, her voice a chipper, normal sound in a world that felt anything but normal. She turned, a pleasant smile on her face, and offered Ines the glass.

"You must have had a hard time reading last night. You slept soundly, though. I came in an hour ago to stoke the fire, and you didn’t even stir."

Reading. Ines thought, her mind a thick, gray fog. Right. Reading. She took the glass of water, her hand slightly shaky.

"Did I?" she asked. Her voice was a croak. A raw, hoarse whisper.

Is it because of last night? she thought, taking a sip of the cool water. My throat is sore...

Why is my throat sore?

The fog in her mind swirled. It was sore from... from...

From muffling her screams. From crying out his name. From having his mouth on hers, on her...

Her eyes, which had been half-closed, flew wide open.

LAST NIGHT.

The memory didn’t just return. It slammed into her. It hit her with the force of a blow.

It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a Chapter in her book. It was real.

The library. The darkness. The lamplight. The look on his face. The thin, useless silk of her nightgown. His hands, his mouth, his lips. The things he had done to her. The way his hand had... and his finger... and the feeling. The shattering, body-rocking, mind-ending feeling that had ripped a scream from her throat.

Her face, which had been pale with sleep, turned a deep, hot, violent red. The color flooded from her neck all the way to the roots of her hair.

She let out a tiny, high-pitched squeal, a sound like a boiling kettle. The glass of water in her hand sloshed, spilling cold droplets onto her wrist and the fine linen sheets.

"My lady!" Edith cried, her cheerful smile vanishing, replaced by a mask of immediate concern. She rushed forward, taking the trembling glass from Ines’s hand. "Are you alright? Your face! You are burning. And your voice... you are not coming down with a cold, are you? Has... has your illness flared up? Should I call the doctor?"

Edith’s hand flew to Ines’s forehead, and Ines flinched at the touch, her skin feeling raw and overly sensitive.

"No!" Ines squeaked, her voice still high and strange. She flapped her hands, a bird-like gesture. "No, no, I am fine. It is just... it is just a little hot in here."

She fanned her burning face with her hand. "I... I have been sweating a lot," she stammered. It was, she realized, the truest thing she had ever said. She had been sweating. She had been on fire.

"A bath," she said, her mind seizing on the first, logical thought. She had to be clean. She had to wash him off her. "Can you... can you run a bath for me, Edith? A hot one."

Edith still looked worried, her eyes searching Ines’s face for signs of her heart condition. But a request for a bath was a normal, reasonable thing.

"Yes, my lady. Of course. Right away," she said, curtsying quickly and bustling out of the room toward the bathing chamber.

The moment the door clicked shut, Ines’s body gave out.

Her spine dissolved. She fell back onto the bed, her limbs splayed out, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she wondered if her illness was flaring up.

"Oh, God," she whispered to the empty, sunlit room. "Oh, dear God."

She didn’t remember how she got back.

The last thing she recalled was... that. That shattering, blinding, world-ending moment. Her body convulsing on the desk. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her hand over her own mouth to stifle the sounds.

And then... nothing.

She was in her own bed. She was wearing her simple, linen sleeping gown, not the scandalous blue silk.

"I don’t remember how I got back to my room," she whispered, her eyes wide with a new, dawning horror.

"Did Carcel carry me?"

The image flashed in her mind: Carcel, his face a mask of dark, sated passion, lifting her from the desk. Her, boneless and dazed. Him, carrying her—her, in her state of undress—through the dark, silent, sleeping hallways. Him, bringing her here. Him... changing her?

No. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

He must have. Or he had woken Edith. No, he couldn’t have done that. He brought me here. He put me in my bed. He saw me. He touched me.

"Why on earth did I do such a thing!" she whispered, her voice a low, agonized wail. She grabbed the pillow and pressed it to her face again, her whole body curling in on itself in a knot of mortification. "Why did I let him? Why did I ask him? A list! I made a list!"

She was ruined. She had done... that... with her brother’s best friend. On a library desk.

Edith came back into the room, her footsteps soft. "My lady? The bath is ready."

Ines sat up, her movements stiff. She felt... sore. Her throat was sore. Her... her insides were sore. Her thighs felt bruised. She felt as if she had been riding a horse for a week.

She got down from the bed, her legs unsteady. She clutched her dressing gown around her.

"Mmm," she managed, her voice flat. "Thank you, Edith."

She started to walk toward the bathing room. Edith moved to follow, to help her undress, as she did every single day.

Ines stopped. She turned. She couldn’t. She couldn’t have anyone touch her. Not today. Not when her skin still felt as if it were on fire, as if his fingerprints were still branded on her.

"I won’t need your help with the bath today," she said, her voice quiet but firm.

Edith stopped, her hands in mid-air. "Really, my lady? Are you sure? You seem unwell..."

"Yes," Ines said, cutting her off. She could not, would not, be argued with. "I want to bathe alone today."

Edith looked confused. This was a massive break in character. Ines never bathed alone in the morning. But one look at the strange, bright, haunted look in her mistress’s eyes, and she knew not to press.

"Understood, my lady," she said, dropping into a small curtsy.