His to Keep by Lydia Goodfellow
Chapter Twenty-One
Winter arrives before I know it. As the temperature dips, frost creeps into the corners of the windows, dusting the branches of the trees outside. When not even cocooning myself in the blankets at night does anything to battle my shivers away, I’m forced to beg Father Aaron for warmer clothes. He said he would, though it’s obvious he’s still annoyed with me for running. Maybe he only agreed because he doesn’t want me to die of hypothermia before the ceremony. That would be tragic.
I wake to fuzzy, warm pajamas, socks, cardigans, and knitted sweaters the following morning. Placed neatly at the foot of the bed, there’s a note beside them that reads: my angel. My stomach rolls. That he’d been in the room at some point during the night and maybe even watched me sleep.
Too cold to rid my stomach of what little food there is in it, I stop thinking and reluctantly pull the thickest sweater from the pile over my head. Next, the long socks that cover to just below my knees. Already, I feel warmer. Even Callum got new sweaters—black and gray ones, while mine remain lighter colors of whites and creams.
At dinnertime, already sensing a change in the air, Father Aaron reveals the weather forecaster warned snow is predicted to fall in the coming days. He’s to take John into town to stock up on essentials just as everybody else has been advised to do. While they’re gone, he wants Callum to bring up the coal and firewood from the basement and me to assist Penny in cleaning out all the fireplaces in the house.
“I assume you’re wondering why I’ve decided it’s time for you to get used to the rest of the house, Ava,” he says while we’re eating. A grin shapes his lips as he puts a meaty cutting of steak into his mouth. “I had new security installed, courtesy of a friend of mine. It’s now safe for you to get to know your surroundings. I hope it makes you happy to no longer be confined to one room.”
My first thought is I’m trapped, only to be distracted when he reaches over and covers his large hand over mine. My body freezes, and I try so hard not to look at Callum, who’s gone rigid beside me. While I know it shouldn’t, I marvel at his reaction. We haven’t kissed again since that night, even keeping a little distance from each other. But knowing why he’s so tense excites me. Makes my chest flutter despite hating the clamminess from Father Aaron’s hand on mine.
“You won’t be allowed outside until I believe you deserve it. I hadn’t wanted you to see the fence yet. You ruined the surprise.” Patting my hand, he finally removes it, and Callum looks away, stabbing his fork into a carrot. “A gift,” Father Aaron continues. “I know how you long to be outside, but I couldn’t risk you running. I know it will take you a while to understand that I’m trying to protect you from the outside. I hope one day you see that. For now, the house is free to explore.”
Slicing into his meat, I watch blood ooze from the morsel on his plate, hating him with all my being. Somegift. Nothing he’s doing is protecting anyone. The abuse he’s reigning down is destroying us. But I’ve learned now, and I know nodding my head is better than not. When I do, it pleases him, and I think maybe a part of me died the day I saw that fence. Perhaps I’ve always been meant to be compliant and weak. As if Gran had been preparing me for this life all along. The thought annoys me, and I vow that Father Aaron won’t destroy me. I’ll ruin him first. I just don’t know how yet.
After dinner ends, I begin what feels like a new chapter in this house. From what I can tell, the security is high-tech, with coded keypads on the doors. I imagine they’re alarmed, the windows too, and I know that means I truly am stuck in this house unless I somehow acquire the codes. But then the fence is another barrier I have to contend with.
After Father Aaron leaves with John to go into town, and Callum stalks off to do his jobs, I glumly follow Penny into the living room. It feels weird not going straight back to the room and being locked inside. Maybe a tiny part of me wishes I could go back up there. At least I can shut the others out.
“We’ll clean this one first,” Penny says, pointing to a vast, unused fireplace that’s seen better days. “It connects to the pipes and heats the bedrooms.” Giving me an apron to cover my clothes with, she hands me a brush and shovel. “Brush up the ash and put it into the metal bucket. I’ll be back with water to clean. There’s a beautiful design beneath all this black soot, and it will please our Lord if we remove it.”
When she leaves, I set to work. Charred wood and dust make me cough as I remove the grate and brush ash onto the shovel before dumping it into the bucket. As I’m finishing brushing the last remnants, Penny returns with a bucket of water with suds. She hands me a cloth while she picks up the scrubbing brush.
“Wipe after me.” It’s the most authoritative I’ve ever heard her be, and it confuses me how she can go from crazy to this. How she can try and poison me with food and then burn my legs with hot soup. Is this the real her? A calm, calculating woman who maybe acts insane but really isn’t beneath it all.
After she scrubs an area, I wipe away the traces of black soot, seeing a swirly gray and black design beneath the dirt. And she’s right, it is a beautiful design, which is a surprise to me. That something pretty can be in this house at all. We work in silence for ten minutes, and I think back to the days after running. When I told Father Aaron that Penny had opened the door and told me to run, she wasn’t punished for it. Not in the way he usually does by beating her until she’s bruised and swollen. I’m not entirely sure he said anything to her, and part of me thinks it’s because of the fence.
I’m relieved my confession didn’t cause her harm, given what I know about her now. She’s been through an ordeal I can’t even begin to imagine. But still, a tiny voice of doubt in my head whispers that she planned it. To get me into trouble like John often does with Callum. I know she hates me. Her eyes don’t hide it. Every time she looks at me, hatred stares back. Maybe I’m a threat to her, I’m not sure. Being alone with her now is unsettling. Like if I were to turn my back for just a second, she’ll stab me.
“Penny?” Her hand ceases scrubbing, and she slowly looks up at me with wide eyes. It’s the first time I’ve ever addressed her. Spoken to her. I shouldn’t ask what I’m about to, but I must know. “Did you know about the fence when you told me to run?”
“Don’t talk to me, Satan whore,” she sneers. “You shouldn’t be here. Not you or—”
“Penny,” Callum’s voice sounds across the room, making us both jump. He’s back, arms full of firewood and a bag of coal at his feet. A wordless exchange happens between them both, and grumbling something beneath her breath, she turns away and continues scrubbing.
Making his way into the room, Callum dumps the wood into the crate next to the fireplace and then goes back for the coal. Once the heavy bag is heaved into the coal bucket, he says, “I’ll take Ava to clean the library’s fireplace. It’s started snowing.”
A library?
Nodding his head for me to follow, I put the cloth back into the bucket and rush after him, going down a different route of the house that I’ve never been to before.
“This place is deceiving,” I say with a shudder, soaking in everything we pass, coldness sweeping my shoulder blades from all the creepy, dark décor. No natural light filters in because of the shutters, and I wonder how different this place would look with them open. Instead, the occasional gloomy oil lantern on the wall lights the path. Does Father Aaron not like using electricity? “You wouldn’t think it was this big from the outside. Maybe that’s the point…”
Callum turns to glance over his shoulder at me. “The point?”
“Yes. It’s confusing and dark. Almost like it was designed to keep people hidden away. Forever lost to the world.”
“Poetic.” He makes a left turn. “Maybe we can find you a book of dark little poems?”
“Don’t tease. I doubt our favorable Lord would entertain poetry in his house of doom—dark or not.”
“Wait until you see.” He opens a door and stands aside so I can go in first. The moment I step inside, my mouth drops open in surprise. Rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves are filled with books, so many of them, it’s like I’m floating in a dream. “It looks like the library room right out of Beauty and the Beast.”
“Beauty and the Beast?”
I turn to him, about to demand that he can’t be serious about not knowing what that is when I stop. He’s closed the door and is now leaning back against it. Reaching behind his back, he turns the lock. The click sounds, and my stomach tumbles. “You’ve…um…never heard of Beauty and the Beast?”
“No.” And he probably doesn’t care. He doesn’t look like he does. Trying to distract me from the wings soaring inside my stomach, I go over to one of the shelves and pull out a book at random. I flick through the pages, maybe to see if this isn’t my imagination and is indeed an actual book. It is, of course, and much to my surprise, it’s a romance. As if sensing my unspoken question, Callum reveals, “My great grandfather had this room specially made for his wife. My father doesn’t like to come in here.”
My heart jumps to my throat. He’s now standing beside me, hands behind his back, blue eyes looking shades darker in here. I swallow hard. “Not even the library in town has such books as these. Read this.”
He takes it off me, and as he reads, one of his eyebrows rises as his eyes lift to meet mine. “Anyone would think you’d like me to caress your swollen brea—”
Gasping, I snatch the book from him and shove it back on the shelf, face burning with so much heat, I know I’m bright red. “Let’s clean the fireplace.”
I go to walk away when he grabs my arm and suddenly pulls me back. Pressing me up against the shelves, I’m no longer breathing as his arms trap me in. He stares down at me, and being this close to him makes my head spin. We’ve both tried to be friends. Even when I’d catch him staring at me, torment on his face, we’ve not done anything since that night. Even when I’ve felt the same. Wanted him as I’m sure he wants me. Yet, here he is, breaking all the boundaries we’ve built between us.
Saying nothing, he grabs my hand, the same one his father touched, and lifts it to his mouth, kissing my knuckles with his lips. “I hate it when he touches you.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
“Do you hate it when I do?” I shake my head, and he sighs. “You should.”
“I should…but I don’t,” I admit, putting my hand against his cheek and rubbing my thumb against his soft skin. His eyes close for a moment, and when they open again, they burn bright, making them look cerulean even in this sad room of forgotten, dusty books. Leaning up onto my tiptoes, I peck him on the lips. Realizing what I’ve done and our promise to be friends, I gasp and pull away. But he grabs me and slams his lips against mine, kissing me harder than ever. My back falls against the bookshelf. Books topple to the floor around us, but neither of us can seem to stop. His arms encircle my waist and then mine around his neck, shifting his knee so that it’s now between my legs, anchoring me in place so that my spine isn’t scraping off the shelves.
The sudden contact makes me gasp, and I find myself moving against his thigh, grinding my heat into him. Chasing the burning feeling that hasn’t ever gone away since the night I saw him touching himself. Moaning, I squeeze mounds of his sweater as he trails blazing kisses along my throat, his hands cupping my breasts over my top, just like how the man did to the woman in the book.
“Callum,” I groan his name, my movements becoming jerky and sloppy, the pulse intensifying the more I rub myself against him. “I’m…I’m going to….”
A bang in the distance snaps us both out of it. My body turns to mush as Callum rips away from me and moves at lightning speed to the door to unlock it again. Bending down, I pick up the fallen books and shove them precariously back onto the shelves. Father Aaron may not come in here and know what resides on these shelves, but I certainly don’t want him to see what might have influenced us just now. We both then rush over to the fireplace and set to work, even though dust gets into my eyes and Callum drops the shovel, causing a loud clatter on the floor. My head is spinning as I try to keep composure, hearing footsteps coming closer to the library.
The door opens, and Penny pokes her head inside, eyes narrowing when she peers at us. I’m sure she can see the deceiving blush tinging my cheeks and Callum’s tousled hair from where I grabbed it.
“We’re almost done,” Callum says to his mother, not looking at her, for I’m sure if he were to, she’d see sin painted in his eyes.
Wordlessly, she backs out, like a ghost dispersing into the darkness. When the door closes, I glance at Callum and whisper. “I think she knows.”
He sighs. “We can’t do this again, Ava.”
I nod. He’s right, but how can we stop when it seems neither of us can? Getting up, I nudge him playfully to lighten the mood. “You started it.”
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “And now I’m finishing it.”
No, I think to myself, Penny finished it. Almost as if she knew.
* * *
That evening,after the fires are clean and lit, John and Father Aaron return just as the heavy flurries of snow begin to stick to the ground. Callum and I go to our room, this time with no John behind us demanding we hurry up. The door remains unlocked, and it’s strange to know that I can go anywhere in this house with or without Callum. The thought unnerves me. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be braver to explore, but for now, I’m content where I am.
Callum goes into the bathroom just as I settle into bed. Lying down, I will sleep to come, but I can’t get what happened in the library out of my head. I can’t lie. The risk we took excited me, making me want things I know I can’t have. Like right now. My body aches, and it’s so overwhelming I want to cry or scream. Whenever I close my eyes, I see us together. Callum touching me over my clothes while giving me dizzying kisses. Something I realize I want so badly again.
Without realizing it, I’m rubbing myself with my hand over my dress, seeking the nice friction I’d felt in the library. My mind is a series of visions of Callum doing the same in the bathroom right now. Relieving himself to rid the temptation. But as I lie there, I realize it’s not the same and stop. A part of me has the urge to throw open the bathroom door and beg him to get rid of this. Whatever this is that I crave. Close to tears, I force myself to go to sleep, dreaming about doing sinful things in the library with the devil.
Speaking of. The bathroom door opens softly, and my eyes open again. Callum walks out with a towel wrapped around his hips and hair pushed away from his face. Grabbing clean clothes from his drawer, I look up at the ceiling as he dresses, despite the burning curiosity to watch.
In the distance, the clock chimes when it reaches eleven, and just as I think it’s about to be another night of pretending the bed dips, and Callum lays down beside me. My face flames. All he’s wearing are his pants. The rest of him is bare. My stomach knots, wanting so much to reach out and touch him. Instead, our eyes lock, and I’m frozen. Lost in endless blue. What a mess we’ve created.
“You’re not fair.” I lightly draw my finger across his forehead, moving some fallen strands of hair from his eyes. His eyelids lower, and he breathes out through his nose as if my touch has a relaxing effect on him.
“I like it when you look at me,” he says. “How your eyes light up, and your lips part a little. I like that I’m the only one you look at like that. Even if I do disappoint you.” He puts his finger on my lips, his hand smelling of soap, and gently pulls my bottom lip down. “You want something I can’t give you.”
My lip flicks back up as he lets go, and I sigh sadly. “You can, but you don’t.”
“Because I’m not good enough for you. I don’t deserve you.” He looks annoyed.
“I don’t believe that. Is it not my choice to decide whether you’re good enough or deserving?” There’s disappointment in my voice, and I am disheartened. “I like you. Is that so wrong?”
“You know it is,” he mumbles, and my heart sinks. That I just admitted that I liked him, and he said it was wrong.
Turning away from him, I just want to sleep and escape from all these confusing thoughts. “I don’t want to talk anymore.” And for the first time, I mean it. One minute he’s kissing me, and then he’s pushing me away. This game of tug of war is draining.
I think I hear him mutter an apology, but I don’t listen to it. I’ve already fallen asleep. And like I’ve done every night since drawing the line of friends between us, I dream of wicked things about the man that stays next to me, probably dreaming about the same things.