“Stasi.”
I turn from where I’m wiping down the skirting boards. “Yes?”
Ellen looks a little ruffled, unusually so. “I wanted to get the silver downstairs into the kitchen so I can clean it. Could you help me carry it down?”
I blink. “Sure. I can help with that. All of it?”
There are at least three cupboards full. Ellen nods gratefully. “Would you?”
“Of course.” Wiping off the last of the wood, I tuck the cloth into my basket and stand, stretching out the kinks in my neck. “I’ll get the first lot now.”
It’s mid-morning. There’s no reason for any of the Tate brothers to still be hanging around in the dining room.
But when I walk in, a pair of violet eyes lock with mine.
“Kit,” I breathe. I haven’t seen him since my little stint in Silas’s bed. He straightens in his seat, eyes scanning me. It feels like he’s inspecting me.
“Stasi.” He smiles. “You’re well?”
I nod, taking in the papers spread across the table with growing curiosity. “I don’t want to disturb you.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not. Do whatever you need to.”
Slowly, I move around him, feeling his eyes on my back as I reach into the first cupboard for the cutlery.
He breaks the silence. “Ellen’s doing her spring cleaning, huh?”
Gathering up the spoons, I turn and place them down in the small amount of free space left on the table, at the other end to where he sits. “She is.”
The papers are spread almost to where I’m standing, and I glance over one with mild interest. I haven’t been given access to any news since I’ve been here.
My attention snags on the photograph of Ella.
“You can look.” Kit’s voice is soft. “If you want to.”
“I…,” Curious, I take him at his word and draw the page towards me.
The words jump out as I scan them, and my eyebrows raise before I can stop myself, a small laugh slipping out. Kit’s eyes are focused on my face when I glance up.
“Would you know anything about that?” He points to the words in my hand.
Swallowing, I drop it as if it’s on fire and spin back to the cupboard, grabbing blindly for the first thing I can reach. “Why would I?”
“Stasi.” His voice is firmer now. My shoulders tighten as I feel him moving closer. Tanned hands wrap around mine as he takes the set of bowls from me.
He’s so close.
“You don’t need to help,” I whisper. “I’ve got it.”
But he doesn’t move.
“It’s curious,” he murmurs.
The words brush against my neck, making me shiver. “What is?”
He hums, and I swear I can feel the vibration, feel it soak into me as he moves a little closer. His lips almost brush my ear. “That your sister seems to be losing staff by the dozen. Seems they don’t want to work for our precious, supposedly sugar-sweet princess. Any idea why that would be?”
I stiffen.
Pain. So much pain.
“No.” My tone is abrupt, and Kit pauses. “And she’s not my sister.”
“I don’t believe you.” His words are blunt, and I take a breath. A deep one. My tone is dry when I respond.
“You’re not the only one.”
I duck out from under his arm, but he follows me around the table. “Tell me the truth, Stasi. I’m here, ready to listen.”
I huff out a small laugh, picking up the cutlery and placing it into the bowls. “Now you’re listening? How very kind of you, Kit.”
“Stop that.” I grip the silverware as he takes the other side. His eyes bore into mine, and I can’t look at them as my hands are freed. He grabs them, stopping me from pulling away.
“In your statement,” he says slowly, gripping my fingers. “You told the authorities that Ella was the one who made you do the work. That they had it the wrong way around.”
I jerk my head up to look at him. “How did you get that? Those records weren’t made public.”
Undoubtedly at Ella’s request.
His lips part, as if in confirmation. His eyes slowly widen as he stares at me. “It’s true, isn’t it? It wasn’t you. It was her.”
I can’t do this.
I can’t listen to the words I was so desperate to hear, for so long. From anyone.
But especially not from him. The backs of my eyes begin to burn.
“Does it matter?” I whisper. “Leave it alone, Kit.”
His head jerks back as if I’ve hit him, his voice incredulous. “Does it matter? Of course it fucking matters. She’s lying.”
My throat aches. He’s still holding onto my hands, refusing to let them go even as my eyes dampen.
“Do you know how long I waited,” I murmur, “for someone to say that?”
He doesn’t respond. But his hands tighten around mine as he waits. As if he’ll wait forever.
“So many weeks,” I say softly. “I sat in that cell, and I waited for them to realize. I spoke to everyone I could. I told them everything. And nobody listened to me. They stopped asking, then.”
Jealousy, they called it. Trying to save my own skin, by throwing my sweet, abused sister under the bus. And how awful a person I must be, not to admit to it even after I’d been caught.
“Every word I spoke was twisted.” The words feel sharp on my tongue. “Everything I said, they poked at and ripped apart.”
Until I stopped talking altogether.
Because what was the point, when they were so convinced? The whole fucking world was convinced.
I was the villain, and she was a hero.
“Stasi,” Kit breathes my name. He sounds… agonized. “We didn’t know.”
And how the words fucking hurt. They pierce the shield around my heart, jagged spikes driving in with force. They didn’t know.
“They couldn’t find a single character witness,” I whisper. I can’t look at him. “Did you know that? We moved around so much. I never got to know anyone well enough for them to risk speaking up for me.”
The only people who might have spoken up for me, who knew me well enough to know that I would never have done that – was them.
They didn’t know. But they fucking should have.
“I’m sorry.” His voice is low. Pained. “If we had known – we would have—,”
Except he stops. Realizing.
“No, you wouldn’t.” And it hurts, still. “You had your chance to speak up, Kit. But you didn’t.”
They bought into the story just as much, if not more, than anybody else.
I study his hands. So strong, so sure. As if I could place my worries onto them, and he would carry them for me. But that’s a lie.
“When you walked into the throne room that day,” I say quietly. “I thought for a second that you might be there for me.”
Kit closes his eyes. Swears under his breath. “Stasi…”
Because he knows exactly what I’m saying. They weren’t there for me. They were there to take me. To punish me, to twist the knife a little further. And how Ella would rejoice if she knew just how much that little plot twist in our lives would hurt me.
I pull my hands away from his. “So no. It doesn’t matter, Kit. This conversation, whatever you think you’ve solved here – none of it matters because it doesn’t change anything.”
I’m still here. Still tied to this house, to them, forced to serve the men I once loved. To work my debt off, for a crime I didn’t do.
For a crime that was done to me.
The whole world thinks I’m a monster, and even if Kit thinks he knows the truth, I know that Silas and Rafe won’t believe it. All they have is my word, and a few newspaper articles.
And God knows that my word means nothing in this house. For that, I have nobody to blame but myself.
I swipe my hand over my eyes, brushing the dampness away. Tucking away the pain, pushing it down far enough for me to function. “I need to get this to Ellen. She’s waiting.”
But Kit’s voice rings out as I tread heavily towards the door. “This isn’t done, Stasi.”
Hope is a delicate thing.
Like glass.
So delicate that once it shatters, it will never be the same again.
My hope has been shattered so many times that I can’t even see the pieces anymore.
Except now, I don’t want those pieces. I don’t want to risk picking them up again. They hurt too much. Cutting, slicing, wounding.
And most of all… I don’t want to be disappointed again. Especially by them.
I don’t think I would survive it.
So I turn my back on the one person who might actually believe the truth.
And I walk out.
