Perception ✔

11 Fugitives & Beaus

Arabella had a boyfriend. I came to that grim conclusion by the fall. Perhaps I would not have noticed it if not for writing a letter to Gareth that went unanswered. But Arabella was the first to meet the post, running to hide and read her precious correspondence. Now sixteen, her interest in dances and events all but dried up, to Mother's disappointment and worry.

But I truly confirmed it one night in one of the most bitter days of winter, when she rose from her bed and dressed in the pitch black. She was out the door quietly.

This was not my imagination, and it hadn't been my imagining for some time, I concluded.

When I sat up in my bed and peered out the window, a lamplight in the distance waited for hers to meet. Then they ventured behind the barn.

I slipped out of bed with a shiver. My head told me to alert our parents, but my heart couldn't betray her. I'd catch her with him and force her to stop.

The rumors were already bad. I hadn't caught wind of them but knew they were one of the reasons Bella lost interest in the parties. This extra lamplight was the second cause.

Using the familiarity of the property as my guide, I carried my own lamp unlighted, matches in my pocket. Chatter closed in, then something ran past, one lamplight.

Arabella hurried back into the house.

I could have left it at that—could have walked away. Instead, I summoned my courage to continue. Once the barn was close, I could make it out well enough. I collided into something that nearly took my spirit.

"Calm. Calm down!"

That voice I knew. I trembled as I waited, and a lamp lit to show Gareth's bruised face.

I nearly stepped back. He had one black eye, hit so severely that it nearly closed.

His lip was also split.

He looked a fright but then something else took up my attention. "You've...come to see Arabella?"

The fire danced in his blue irises. "I came to see you," he affirmed.

But my eyes drifted back toward the house to where Arabella'd disappeared.

"I've come a few times but...your parents turned me away," Gareth confessed. After a moment, he asked, "What are you doing out here?"

I could have asked him that; this was my home.

A noise had me freezing dead in my tracks. Gareth stepped before me. Lamp clutched tightly, he held it up and demanded, "Who's there?"

There was a quiet for eons before someone moved.

I stifled a shriek. Gareth dragged me behind him, and I gripped his shoulder.

"Stay close."

Thundering footsteps closed in, but it was no run, it was a march. Finally, a lamp lit and Edmond's serious expression, one of a deadly hate, came into focus.

"Unhand her," he commanded.

Gareth gasped. "Who are you to put demands on me? And what are you doing out here at this time of night?"

The muscles in Gareth's arms tensed, signaling me that whatever bruises he'd come with, weren't accidental and he was prone to gain some more.

"It's all right," I soothed, "it's only Edmond."

Gareth whipped his head around to regard me in awe and betrayal. "And he comes to your house in the dead of night—?"

"You're at her home in the dead of night," Edmond fired back.