Chapter Twenty-Three

 

Scarlett

Scarlett cried for a long time that afternoon. She cried for a long time that night. She cried for a long time the next morning and well past lunchtime even then.

It was only when evening fell the following day that Scarlett’s tears finally dried up, leaving her head pounding, her eyes swollen and her heart crushed to a fine powder.

She should never have let this happen. She should never have taken a walk into the woods with a man like Mister Wolfe.

But Scarlett had, and now she didn’t know what to do.

She was beyond furious with herself. How many times did I try to stop myself? How many times did I say it wasn’t a good idea? That I’d get hurt? And yet I didn’t listen, she thought, over and over again. She had shied away from everybody else’s advice, thinking herself clever enough to make her own decisions.

But no, she wasn’t clever. The only clever one was scheming, lying, heartbreaking Adrian Wolfe.

Her grandmother had called it correctly – he was petty. He’d clearly been thinking about using Scarlett to get back at her grandmother for a while. He had told Scarlett he’d been watching her since the fateful night he saved her in the woods. That he’d wanted her. She’d taken it as flattery. As desire.

And he had taken her for a fool.

Miserably she felt her eyes sting with new tears, though her eyes were too painful to bear them. She flung herself against the pillow, rubbing her face against the fabric even as she willed herself to stop existing entirely.

Scarlett’s stomach grumbled and bit at her insides, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since the morning before and was starving. She felt too sick to eat. Too furious.

Too heartbroken.

For the only reason it hurt so much to have Adrian betray her like this was because Scarlett truly had fallen for him. She had known it for a while, from the moment she gave in and let him kiss her in the woods. She had known it, she had tried to ignore it, and then she gave in. It was all her own fault she had fallen for Adrian’s con.

She wondered how much of his family history was true, if any. Were his parents even dead? Was his village overwrought by disease that only he survived? Thinking on it now it seemed so unlikely. Adrian had even told her his father was a con-man and that he’d taken that up.

Scarlett should have heeded that as the warning that it was: do not trust this man. Ignore him. Push him away.

“Miss Scarlett?” Sam’s voice asked uncertainly, muffled by the heavy wood of the door as he knocked upon it.

“Go away,” she tried to call back, but her voice was hoarse and cracked from disuse. She was so thirsty. It reminded her, unbidden, of how thirsty she’d been only two mornings before, when she was still in the arms of Adrian Wolfe. Thirsty for water and thirsty for him.

And now he was gone, and Scarlett felt like she was drowning in her own naivety.

“Miss Scarlett, you need to eat. At least let me bring you some water.”

Scarlett saw the sense in this. She did not want to die, though she felt like she had died from shame a hundred times over already. So she nodded at the door on reflex before saying, “Fine.”

Sam was carrying a tray laden with toasted bread and a selection of meats and cheeses. There was a bowl of broth, too, as well as a wooden cup filled with water and a steaming mug of tea. He brought it over and placed it on her bedside table; Scarlett picked up the water immediately, drank it in one go, then gingerly picked up the bowl of broth and cradled its warmth in her hands.

“Thank you,” she eventually said to Sam, remembering her manners. He stared at her awkwardly, his shoulders stooped slightly despite the fact the ceiling was high enough for him to stand up straight. Scarlett couldn’t bear to have him see her like this – not after Sam had tried to warn her away from the man responsible for causing her anguish.

“Miss Scarlett –”

“Please, Sam, I don’t want to hear it,” she interrupted, knowing that if she was forced to talk about what happened she’d start crying again.

“I – I didn’t want to tell you I told you so or anything,” he said, head drooping sadly. “I just wanted to ask how you are.”

“I think that’s fairly obvious.”

“This isn’t your fault, Scarlett.”

“It is, and you know it,” she snapped. “Don’t you dare take away my responsibility for my own actions. I did what I did. I’ll face up to it myself.”

Sam seemed torn. He desperately wanted to comfort Scarlett but it was clear that she wasn’t going to listen to anything he said.

He sighed heavily and headed for the door. “Okay, Miss Scarlett. Sorry to bother you.”

“Oh Sam, no –” Scarlett called out, feeling immediately terrible about treating him so appallingly. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I just need to wallow in it for a bit. Thank you for the food.”

She managed just the barest of smiles in his direction. It didn’t meet her red, teary eyes, but it was enough. Sam returned the smile, nodded his head, then left Scarlett’s bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Scarlett collapsed against her pillow. She had no appetite for the soup in her hands but knew she had to drink it. And so slowly, agonisingly, she gulped the lot down, cleaning the sides of the bowl with a hunk of bread which she forced down her throat. She ignored the meat and cheese. By the time she was finished eating the tea had gone tepid, so she left it untouched, too.

Then she heard a noise outside, and Scarlett’s head snapped immediately to the window.

A pair of wolf eyes stared back, amber and gold and so infuriatingly like Adrian’s that she couldn’t bear it. The wolf whined when Scarlett’s face twisted in fury.

“Go away!” she yelled, picking up the mug of tea and launching it at the window. It exploded against the glass, startling the wolf away with a swish of its tail and barely a look back over its shoulder at Scarlett.

But it didn’t make her feel better.

No. All it left Scarlett was alone, with cold tea seeping into the floor like a poisonous curse.

She didn’t care.