Mysteries of Thorn Manor by Margaret Rogerson

Author:Margaret Rogerson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2023-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

She slept in her own room that night, as she had ever since the incident with the roof. Or at least, she meant to—but sleep wouldn’t find her. She tossed and turned, filled with a wild, restless energy, her mind racing in circles. Occasionally she kicked her legs around beneath the covers, but this failed to bring relief. Finally she threw the blankets aside in frustration. She went to the window and pressed her hot cheek against it, letting the icy glass chill her skin.

Before tonight, she hadn’t truly felt trapped inside the manor. Now she would give anything to take a brisk walk through Hemlock Park, scouring her lungs with cold night air, cooling her fevered thoughts beneath the wintry glittering of the stars.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Nathaniel as he had looked that evening, the firelight tracing his angular features, his closed eyes shadowed beneath his hand.

Her heart ached. She knew that what she was feeling was love, being in love with him, but didn’t understand why it felt this way—like being on a ship with land a distant green sliver on the horizon, the wind tearing at her hair, unsure whether she was casting off from shore into unknown waters, or whether she was finally returning home. She couldn’t tell which, because it seemed like both at once. It was a feeling almost like madness.

She had never thought a great deal about what her future with Nathaniel might involve. Now she was unable to stop.

If the Lovers’ Pact worked, would they end up marrying?

Did she want to get married?

She could hardly wrap her mind around the idea. She was only seventeen. If she and Nathaniel married, their life together would span far more years than she had even been alive. How many—fifty? Sixty? With the decades claimed by Silas’s bargain returned to them, they might both live to their eighties. The enormity of those numbers seemed made-up, impossible to comprehend. Overwhelmed, she buried her forehead in the crook of her arm.

A terrible thought came to her then: after a life spent together, they would both die, but one of them would die first. One day, one of them would have to lose the other. That was what it meant to love.

Suddenly, her room was stifling. She couldn’t bear it any longer. She tore herself from the window and strode into the hall, the floorboards mercifully cool beneath her bare feet. She began to descend the stairs, her hand sliding down the smooth banister, judging her progress in the dark by its familiar bumps and whorls.

And stopped halfway down, arrested by the sight of Silas standing in the foyer below, as pale and unearthly as a specter. He wasn’t wearing his servant’s uniform, but rather the suit she had once seen him wearing in the city streets, his hair tied back with a matching black ribbon. He had removed his gloves; one of them peeked from his pocket, a neatly folded square of pearl-gray kidskin.

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