Page 18 (1/2)

For a moment, she believed that no ht becoe his mind She could taste it in his kiss

But then he pulled away "As you can see," he said hoarsely, "this is nothing more than selfishness on my part There’s no room for you in my life But this way, at least I’ll know that you’re safe"

He was fooling hie She’d vowed to win him from Clermont She’d be daht hie his ainst his cheek "There’s no romance at all"

"None" And this tiht

SERENA HAD LEFT HER SISTER thisbetween them unsettled She hadn’t knoould happen to her, what Hugo Marshall intended, and whether Freddy would ever speak to her again And so when she pushed the door to her sister’s roo appeared to be back to strict order Freddy’s gloves were neatly laid atop one another on the table in the entry; her half boots, dry and unused, stood underneath When she peered around the doorfra at her, nor of the valise that had landed at her feet It had all been packed away

Serena stepped cautiously into the front roo at the , her hands full of linen that seemed far finer than the usual charity work she did The fabric was a golden-orange, with a subtle damask pattern woven into it

"Frederica?" Serena asked

"There’s bread in the box and freshup soht make us a supper of that"

Jimmy was the boy who lived downstairs; Freddy paid his But even thirteen-year-old Ji to talk to hiry Instead, she was hiding behind a façade composed of the commonplace She had already retreated inside a thick shell built froer, nor tears--would coax her out

"Freddy," Serena tried, "I’h to frown "You should be I’ve told you not to call lanced down sharply and s on "It’s not ladylike I don’t wish to answer to such an appellation"

"You were right I put you at risk, and--"

"You always put things at risk If you fell out of a tree as a child, I’d clean you up and bandage your knees, and next I looked you’d be out cliain You never learned your lesson"

Oh, she’d learned her lesson: Climb harder

Somehow, Serena didn’t think that was the lesson Freddy had expected her to learn

"It’s always the sa," Freddy said "You fall, I catch And before you’ve even healed up properly, you’re out looking for a neay to fall"

Freddy clucked her tongue disapprovingly, and Serena stared at her

Here she’d been thinking that Freddy was daht that Serena was unprotected Was that how she see froive up? The vision this invoked of herself was so alien that Serena was robbed of a response

How could they be sisters? It seemed impossible that they should view the world with such fundamentally different eyes