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Curtis bent toward me, his eyes lowering to my mouth. As he placed his hand at the back of my neck, I could feel how large his hands were. I placed my own palm against his chest, remembering all the stolen moments in the year before the accident, and knew what to do as though no time had passed. Curtis pressed his lips to mine, pulling me close and wrapping me in a tight embrace. My arms wrapped around him, wishing this moment would stretch on forever.

There was no stable boy to interrupt us now, no teenage worries at all about being seen, so we kissed again and again. I somehow felt like I was breathing too fast and not breathing at all, but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. Nothing mattered except for this moment.

After a long time, we broke apart, but still looked at each other. “Wow, I really missed you!” Curtis said, and gently pecked my lips again.

I smiled widely. “And here I was thinking you would just replace me with the first pretty face that came along.”

“There is no face prettier than yours,” Curtis said fervently.

“You are very generous with your compliments.”

Did he even know about my disfigurement? He must—he said in one of his letters that Comfort had told him about it. I bit my lip, unsure of how to begin. Curtis merely took my hand and began walking over near the lily pond where Father had proposed to Mother.

“What is it?” Curtis asked.

“I… I didn’t say anything,” I said, surprised.

Curtis looked shrewdly at me. “You always bite your lip when you want to say something.”

“Nothing gets past you.”

We walked on, arriving at the bench beside the pond. I sat down and kicked off my shoes again. Why had I ever decided to wear those infernal accessories? Then I remembered—Comfort chose them, not me. No wonder my feet were in agony! Comfort and Mother, finishing school instructors that they were, were always daintily stepping around in high-heeled, pointy-toed shoes that pinched their toes and gave them blisters. I had always preferred big comfy shoes that I could conceal under my skirts. Curtis pulled my foot up onto his lap and began rubbing it. His large hands putting pressure on my sore feet felt wonderful.

“Where did you learn to give foot massages?” I asked.

“Hubert likes his feet being rubbed,” Curtis answered nonchalantly.

My mouth hung open, horrified. Curtis looked at me then burst out laughing. “Got you!”

I let out a long breath. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again! Here I was, picturing you two having foot massage parties.”

Curtis chuckled. “Well, I would like to claim that I have an extensive education about this matter, but alas, I am just making it up as I go.”

He massaged my feet for a few more minutes. We listened to the frogs croaking, the crickets chirping, the occasional sound of a carriage departing from the ball, trundling off toward the main road. It was peaceful.

“In your letters, you said you had a broken arm,” I ventured, trying to find a tactful way to approach the subject.

“Oh yeah, it healed in no time. I still have the scars from where the arrows went in though.” Curtis said casually. “But it is okay, every man needs a good scar story. I am quite proud of mine.”

I hung my head, ashamed to say anything about my own scars.

Curtis gasped, “Truly, I am sorry!” He began to stumble over his words. “I know you have scars too, I just…I mean, I didn’t…I didn’t mean to make you feel bad…” he trailed off awkwardly.

I hastened to explain. “No! No, it isn’t that. You didn’t make me feel bad. I am just… embarrassed of my face sometimes,” I finished quietly.

Curtis nodded, “Comfort wrote me a letter after you moved. She told me about it.” He peered into my face, pulling my hair back to examine my features closely. “You really can’t tell.”

I felt ashamed now, like I had deceived Curtis. Tricked him into proposing to me until the false pretense that I was pretty. “I wear a lot of cosmetics.” I admitted as I indicated the left side of my face. “Here especially.”

Curtis looked hard at my face and rubbed away a small portion of the makeup “That is it?” Curtis asked after a moment. “That isn’t bad at all! I wouldn’t even be able to tell if you didn’t tell me where to look. The way Comfort described it in her letter, you were almost unrecognizable.”

“I was at first,” I conceded. “Most of my hair was gone, and my face was red and swollen. It had blistered, and I had boils for a long time before they peeled off. If she wrote to you right after we moved, I was just getting over the worst of it then.”

Curtis put his arm around me. “I am sorry, Truly,” he said sincerely. “I should have been there for you.”

I leaned into his arm, let my head rest on his shoulder. “You were there for me, Curtis. You always have been.”

“And I always will be,” he finished.