Page 61 of On Edge

I shower quickly, reliving, to my mortification, Severin’s mouth, soft but savage against my lips, and the solid weight of him as he practically humped me on the stairs. My body still feels electric where he touched me, and I hate myself for wantingmore. I shouldn’t have let him kiss me like that, among other things.

Why did he?

My mind rages over and over, the same old thoughts spinning around like a bad song. I must remind him of Nell. That’s the only thing I can think of. Something happened between my sister and Severin. I got the distinct impression, last night, he knew Nell intimately. He called me her name in the heat of the moment. A kiss like that doesn’t come from one night of knowing each other, arranged marriage or not.

It just…doesn’t.

But just thinking about it makes my breath too short, and spots dance before my eyes. One glance at his ring, snug on my finger, looking too much like it belongs, and I feel pretty sick. It comes off with a bit of soap, and I study it, twisting it to catch the light. Inside is an inscription.

Suibhne.

I have no idea what that means. Shoving aside how mixed up I am, I slip it back on my finger and get changed. The dress I arrived in is over the chair in my room, cleaned and mended, so I put it on.

There’s a couple of texts from my friends waiting.

Laine:

We’re worried. Are you sure you’re okay? Want me to send Jax? He's very intimidating when he wants to be…

Nola:

Do you need us to come and get you? Because we can easily break into that castle. I’m not joking.

I hesitate to reply. What would I say? There’s nothing new to update, and Nola will actually turn up if I start offloading my emotional baggage.

Grabbing Severin’s phone, I slip it into my dress pocket. Without the password or Face ID, his phone is useless, but maybe I could get close enough to him to unlock it…

My heart beats in an irregular rhythm just thinking about that. There’s no way I would ever get close enough, not unless I let him kiss me again.

Oh, you would love that, wouldn’t you?Nell hisses.Because it just wouldn’t be a kiss.

My body feels too hot all of a sudden, tight in my old dress.

“Leave me alone!”

Nell seems to listen because I wander through the dreary corridors of the house in silence, at least in my head.

On the other side of the misty glass, through the tall windows, dark clouds roll in across the sky in the distance. It’s getting ready to bellow again. But a helicopter in the distance grows louder, drowning out everything else.

Dawn.

Severin said the helicopter would come here at dawn to take Tobias Ragg away. I clutch his business card gingerly, in my dress pocket, where it’s already starting to burn holes.

It was nice to chat with the journalist for a little while. Someone who doesn’t look at me like I shouldn’t be here. It turns out his mother and mine know each other, as they are both in the Wych Women’s Society. He’s also been to our family bakery a few times, tried my mother’s famous pies, and loved them. Not while I was working there, of course.

When you get past his passion for his job, Tobias Ragg is surprisingly easy to talk to: he absorbs every word, looks at you while you speak, doesn’t interrupt, and actually listens. But I didn’t really get a chance to talk to him properly, last night.

Not with Severin watching us.

I swear that man can read minds.

I was too afraid to ask Tobias about Nell at the time, but this might be my last chance now.

When I get to the helicopter pad, Mundel is there talking to the pilot, holding his hat against the wind, but Tobias Ragg is nowhere to be found.

I stay near the treeline, watching, but he never materializes. Soon, the helicopter lifts up, hovering so precariously that it looks like it might smash into the trees. But it rights itself and then flies off.

Mundel turns to see me at the edge of the helipad.