Star's Crossing

39: No Map, No Compass

It'd been nearly a week since the incident. Which? The chase? The letters?

The kiss?

Mare had yet to leave her room for anything more substantial than a bath. Her father remained in Boston, and despite Matilde's most valiant attempts, Mare was quite attached to the idea of sulking right until the moment he returned.

But her sister's advice was not entirely wasted. She sat across the room now, chess game gone cold at her fingers, a bowl of ripe cherries at her side, a sheaf of papers in her lap. Matilde had a cherry halfway to her lips, her eyes shifting wildly from one side of the ink-stained parchment to the other.

"Mare," she said, brows shot to her hairline, "this didn't..."

"Happen?" Mare sat with legs crossed in bed, a journal balanced on her knee, a cup of coffee steaming on the night table. "Which part have you reached? The fall?"

"My Lord, Mare. A rake would faint reading this."

Mare laughed at the awe in her sister's voice, which shone brighter than her surprise.

"Mare, you are scandal after scandal. Who'd have thought?" Matilde pulled a pit from her teeth, turning the page ravenously. "I wish you'd switch their names back. I'm dying to solve the mystery."

Mare dotted her last sentence with a flourish and placed the page face-up to dry. "If you knew their names, you'd believe the stories less than you do now."

"Can you imagine if mother dearest got her harpy hands on this?" Matilde pointed a cherry stem warningly in Mare's direction. "I do hope you've located a better hiding place than the last, unless you'd like me to read a pile of ash."

"She'll be toasting this book over my dead body." Mare's blood still ran hot at the notion of her mother. She was quite certain she'd never share another word with her, even if it meant taking meals in her room for the rest of her life. "She will not silence me any longer."

Matilde's smile warmed and she turned back to the pages of Mare's novel. "What will you call it?"

Mare sat back, pen to her lips. A breeze stirred the pages from the open window, and the honey-sweet drench of jasmine followed. "I suppose," she said at last, "I won't know until it's over."

Matilde bit into another cherry. "Well. Pray tell that doesn't come too soon."

***

It was a full week before Mare stepped into the daylight again. Her mother was out in town this afternoon. Otherwise Mare would never have given her the satisfaction.

She dressed plainly and let her hair down loose, and forced her mind far from the world in her pages. For just this moment she wanted solitude, which these days felt far-flung and elusive as true love. Or for that matter, truth at all.

Mare spent much of her outing by the water, poised on the cliffside as the brisk cool whipped off the waves and played the hem of her dress high. It was an exemplary afternoon, teasing the impending draw of autumn with a cool wind and a slow burn atop the trees. It wasn't until she began back down the road as twilight approached, that she spotted him.

Her gut twisted at her first notion—Teddy. But as she began to shy from the path she saw the glint of his curls was gilded, the line of his shoulders sloped, lazy.

Geoffrey.

Mare hesitated, but her curiosity got the better of her. She'd heard from neither Teddy nor Camden in the last week, and only Alison had sent a call card, to which Mare's mother declined. But Mare was not sure where she stood with Geoffrey. Last they'd spoken was at Alison's strange gathering, over whiskey and secrets.