Page 61 of The Worst of Them

Cecily’s hand tightened around the strap of her pack. “I’ll sleep outside.”

He cursed and slapped another coin on the counter. Cecily lurched, aiming to push Jack’s coin back at him, but the barmaid snatched it and started walking away.

“No,” Cecily said, scrambling for her money. She wouldn’t be in debt to him on top of everything else. “I can’t let you⁠—”

“I don’t want your money,” he grumbled, pushing away from the counter and heading for a flight of stairs in the corner of the room. “I want you to stop being so damn difficult. It’s not my fault you’re stuck with me.”

Her face burned anew as she followed him up the steps. She wanted to snap back at him, but she was exhausted and heavy, and something in her had weakened. The walls she’d built around herself had crumbled more than she thought, and the hurt kept going and going and going⁠—

It threatened to swallow her, and she didn’t know how to make it stop. It had only been a day since she’d overheard the Copsons talking about her unsuitability, and only half a day since Morgyn’s taunts, mere hours since she and Jack had torn into each other because of them.

She was no better off. She was worse now, and condemned to be so indefinitely.

Jack halted in front of a door, and Cecily moved past—only to discover her room was next to his.

She stared at the door, wondering again if she might run. Meanwhile, Jack’s gaze seared into the side of her face, heavy and close enough to make her sweat.

They stood like that for a long time, him watching her while she attempted to shore her defenses. It was as effective as reaching for a brick and finding handfuls of bone-dry sand.

What would it have been like if she had never let him earn her trust? Or if she’d simply never known she was a game to him? If he’d never called her a viper or wished her dead for all the ways she’d used her words as weapons.

Jack lifted the bottle, extending it to her. She shook her head.

“Ah,” he said in a low voice. “Too pious?”

She huffed an angry breath. It came with tears, and this time, she could not force them down. They pooled in the corners of her eyes, and she swallowed in a vain attempt to somehow pull them back in.

Tears, when she hadn’t cried in so long. How had Jack deserved them?

“Say something,” he murmured.

I can’t stand you.

I don’t want to fight.

You break my heart.

She grabbed the bottle, careful not to touch or look at him, and lifted it to her mouth. The liquor washed over her tongue, bitter and biting, and she lowered the drink to cough against the burn in her throat. Jack reached for it, but she turned away and drank again until the ache in her chest had dulled. With another ragged cough, she thrust the bottle back at him, went into her room, and shut the door.

Inside, there was a small table with a bowl, a pitcher of clean water, and a bar of soap.

Cecily hadn’t cried—truly cried—in a long time. But at the sight of a few small comforts after so many months of hell, she sank to the floor and wept.

15

SHOARD DEFENSES

Cecily was enjoying the morning in her lavender parlor when someone started knocking on the door. Setting aside her teacup, she stood and drifted into the corridor, heading for the front door. The footman nodded to her as she passed over the threshold…

“Go away, Jack,” she groaned, squinting against the morning sunlight streaming through the window.

“It’s Hester.”

Heaving a sigh, Cecily slid out of bed and plodded to the door. She’d washed herself last night, but her clothes were still dirty and rank, shapeless and bloodstained from whatever body Hester had taken them from. She hadn’t had time or space to wash them, nor any inclination to sit around naked while they dried.

She unlocked the door and let it swing open as she returned to bed. “How’d you find me?”

Hester followed her inside. “Greyson said this is where Jack usually stays, so I described you to the barmaid and she said you were here.”