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FORTY-FIVE

ROSE

I would do anything to see Danni right now, but I can’t risk it getting back to the palace. Not when they’ve promised to send William in tomorrow. So, we do our best not to look at each other as we leave dinner and retreat to our rooms.

To distract myself, I message Alfie the details of the dilemma. Well, most of the details—the ones regarding Danni’s predicament. I leave out the crucial point regarding my promise to get engaged to him, though.

A feeling of dread washes over me. Engaged to him. Am I really going to do this? Can I commit to spending the rest of my life married to someone I’ll never even be attracted to, let alone love? Yes, I knew this would happen eventually. But I don’t think I’m ready yet.

Although is one ever ready for something like that?

And what will Danni say when she learns of my promise? Will she see my efforts for what they were: a last-ditch effort to save her? Or will she consider it the ultimate betrayal? The final confirmation that I will never publicly admit she means a thing to me?

Alfie responds fifteen minutes later, and I feel a rush of relief. Don’t worry. Mum will speak to the headmaster tomorrow. I’m coming, too, to make sure. We’ll fix this.

Thank goodness. With William and Mrs. Paget-Harrington both campaigning for Danni, her place at Bramppath must be secured. Surely it doesn’t matter what pressure is coming from the alumni association if its head is on our side?

I wait until eleven thirty, when I’m certain everyone is asleep. Then, I message Danni—who is, thankfully, awake and waiting for me still—and creep downstairs to her room.

She falls into my arms as soon as her door is closed. I walk her over to her bed and climb in beside her, encasing her body in mine.

The next morning, I wake in the pitch black to my shrieking alarm. I look around Danni’s room, momentarily confused as to my whereabouts.

At some point Danni and I must have separated in our sleep. She’s lying on her side, facing me, her face scrunched up in protest. “What time is it?” she mumbles. “I got back up last night to do something. I was up really late.”

“Before sunrise,” I whisper. I have to leave early, to ensure no one catches me. Squinting into the darkness, I fumble around for my clothes and quickly dress. To provide a dim glow for myself as I do, I prop my phone against her lamp.

“Be careful when you leave.” Danni yawns. “Harriet always lets me off when she catches me, but you’re not her favorite person right now.”

I pause while lacing my right shoe. “Does she catch you often?” I ask.

“Used to. Don’t worry. She never turned me in.”

She rolls over and throws an arm over her head to go back to sleep.

And I stare straight ahead, disturbed.

I accused Molly of blackmailing us because she’d suspected Danni’s sexuality. But Molly had an excellent point. She spent more time around Danni and me than anyone. Of course she would notice our behavior, along with any sudden changes in it.

Someone else, someone who wasn’t quite as familiar with us, might have suspected Danni and I weren’t straight, especially after the influx of articles about us over the past several weeks.

But reading a few articles, and having a suspicion, is not the same thing as knowing somebody is queer. And it certainly isn’t the same thing as knowing for a fact that two people are queer, and in a relationship with each other.

Something has occurred to me about the night of Florence’s party. Something somebody said to me. At the time, I’d read it as a childish insult. An implication that I was being overprotective of Danni. Eleanor had obviously taken it the same way, as she’d heard the whole thing, but she was caught entirely off guard when I came out to her the next day. Still, I should have realized . I had the context to realize.

That night, I’d screamed at Harriet for kissing Danni. In my rage, it hadn’t even occurred to me that it was somewhat odd Harriet would assume Danni was interested in girls at all—with enough confidence to kiss her, even—given Danni surely wasn’t overtly flirting with Harriet. The night Danni and I kissed, it had felt like a game of chicken, with both of us taking gradual steps with our words and body language, carefully assessing if the other felt similarly, and if our hints were landing on soft ground. Even after weeks of what was, in hindsight, blatant flirting, I was hesitant to believe Danni could truly like girls right up until the point of undeniability. Even so, Harriet isn’t me, so though I find the idea of her kissing a girl she wasn’t sure also liked girls odd, it’s not damning.

What is damning is the fact that when Harriet yelled back at me that night, she’d angrily referred to Danni as my girlfriend.