I Am Her Revenge (11 page)

I watch the
rise and fall of Ben’s chest until the sun begins flickering on the horizon and shake him awake when it has bathed us in a golden light.

He wakes with a start, sitting up and looking around in confusion. We lie on the damp earth on top of a hill, the land stretching out around us. We are startlingly alone. It’s a gold-and-brown morning, and the wind is kinder than usual as it brushes over us. He doesn’t know what to make of this new world I’ve led him into.

I wait, silent, until he turns to me. Some of the confusion fades from his eyes, and he leans into me, claiming my mouth again with his. My lips are almost rubbed raw from last night, but I let him kiss me now, sweet and gentle.

I pull away softly. “We should get back,” I say, letting regret seep into my voice.

He nods, cupping my chin in his hand and leaning his forehead against mine. “Only if you promise we can come here again.”

I brush against his cheek softly, a flutter of a kiss. “I promise,” I say, though the thought of another night like this one sends a shiver up my spine that I can’t define.

We walk back to school hand in hand, his long fingers wrapped securely around mine. I want to pull my hand back, reclaim it as my own, but I swallow that feeling and keep it in his. It seems to make him happy.

At the wall, we separate with a deep kiss. He looks into my eyes and seems to like what he thinks he finds, because a bright smile lights up his face. We part without a word.

I scale the wall behind Faraday, and just as my head clears the top of it, I spot Jenkins lumbering out the back door. I duck down, my feet scraping off the footholds, and I have to clench my fingers on the top of the wall to hold on. By the time I find my footing again and peek my head back up, Jenkins is gone.

I clear the wall and creep into the dorm, hoping no one is up early. It would help my strange reputation if someone saw me sneaking in, but I don’t want to deal with anyone else looking at me right now, judging me, forcing me to acknowledge her presence. I want to lock myself away somewhere, alone. The halls are thankfully empty in the early morning stillness, and I get through them without any hassle.

But when I get to our room, Claire isn’t nestled up in her blankets, sleeping off another hangover, as I expected her to be. Instead, she is sitting at her desk, typing furiously. She doesn’t even look up. “Forgot a biology lab write-up due today,” she mutters. “Where have you been?”

“Nowhere,” I murmur. I try to sound nonchalant, but something in my voice catches her attention. She looks over her shoulder at me, confused, and then her mouth drops.

“What on earth . . . ?” She looks me over like she doesn’t quite believe I’m real.

I look down. My clothes are covered in mud, practically caked with it. I know I probably have smudges on my face, too, and when I brush a hand over my hair, I feel how matted and dirty it is. I must look like a wild animal.

I smile sheepishly, which I know Claire will find endearing. “I should probably take a shower,” I say, grabbing my towel before she can ask what I’ve been doing.

Mud swirls down the drain as I wash last night off of my body. I can’t wash off the feel of Ben’s lips on my skin, though. I wonder if I even want to. I close my eyes, replaying the night before. I was acting, wasn’t I?

I can’t remember what I was thinking when we kissed. Or even if I was thinking anything at all. I know I started kissing him because I was supposed to, but then . . .

I’m traveling down a dangerous road, I tell myself, stepping out of the shower and twisting my hair up in a towel. I can’t give my heart to a boy who will most certainly break it. Not again.

Claire says nothing
about my frenzied sunrise appearance. But all throughout the day I catch her glancing at me with her head tilted to the side, considering me, everywhere: in English class, in the dining hall, when we pass each other in the hallways. It sets my teeth on edge. I feel as if she’s on the hunt for me, as if she’s about to uncover my true identity and warn Ben about me. She’s adding up all the details that have puzzled her, and it’s only a matter of time before she comes to the correct conclusion.

Claire isn’t the only one watching me in the hallways over the next two weeks as November wears on. Ben and Arabella seem to appear wherever I am, one of them smiling sweetly at me, the other one practically growling.

I can’t find Arthur anywhere. His shed is always shuttered and dark, and there’s no trace of him on campus. Did he see Helper and get away in time? Has he left me here? Or did Helper find
him
?

I can’t think about that. I won’t think about it. He’s fine, and I have to focus.

It’s never difficult to convince Ben to run away to the cottage. We disappear into the night, and he takes Molly whenever I give it to him, kissing me until we fall asleep.

One night, after two weeks of sneaking around together, we sit on the small hearth in front of a fire that I built, and his kisses become more insistent, more passionate. He eases me down to the floor, his body covering mine with its heavy warmth, and for a moment, I let him. I pull him close to me, but when he slips his hand up my shirt, I push at him gently. “I—I don’t want to sleep with you yet,” I say, biting my lip as if I’m flustered. I keep my hand on his chest and my eyes on his, a hint of uncertainty in my expression.

He watches me, his eyes dark, and for a moment, the only sound in the room is our deep breathing and the crackle of the fire.

“I want to wait until we’re in love,” I continue.

This is part of Mother’s “playing hard to get” lesson, something that she swore would make him more obsessed with me. Anne Boleyn used the same tactic when she was trying to steal King Henry VIII from his first wife, and it certainly worked for her.

Ben gives a thoughtful nod and a reassuring smile, lifting me back up so that we’re seated once more, shoulder to shoulder. “I can wait,” he agrees before wrapping me back up in his arms, my side pressed to his. “For you, I can wait.”

I bury my head in his chest to hide the surprise on my face.

It’s getting harder to control him at school, however.

The next afternoon, I spot him with his usual crew between classes, when the halls are filled with the clattering of lockers and overexcited conversation. His friends, Liam and Colin, are laughing and slapping each other’s backs as they watch a girl shoot what she must think are seductive glances at them. It’s the girl who kissed Ben that first night out on the moors, I realize, and my eyes snap back to him, worried. Ben, though, leans back against his locker and seems bored by it all. Until he spots me, and then his face lights up, a broad smile stretching across it. The girl simpers, thinking it’s meant for her.

He steps toward me, like he’s coming to embrace me right there in the hallway. In front of his friends, his admirers, the world. He must have forgotten who I am, how people see me in this school.

I spin on my heel and hurry away.

“So should we, uh, tell people about us?” he asks a few nights later at the cottage before I can offer him anything to alter his mind and hook him to me.

I’ve been coaxing a small flame to life in the hearth, and at his words, I stand and face him. “What?” I ask, feigning surprise. As if I didn’t notice his acknowledgment of me in the hallway.

“I just—I’d like you to be my girlfriend, and I . . . I want to tell everyone.”

He looks not at me but at a spot on the ground. Which means he can’t see the sudden flash of horror that I know travels across my face.

I have to think quickly. Mother would recommend that I push him away. She would want me to tell him I can’t be his girlfriend, then leave the cottage and refuse to look at him for a week. Tormenting him and playing hard to get would make him want me even more.

A girl like the kind he’s used to would gasp and swoon and say yes immediately.

But I can’t do either. I can only stare at him. The wind howls outside, as if it, too, is impatient for my answer.

Finally, he looks up, meeting my gaze. “Well?” he asks with an uncertain smile.

Mother is wrong. Pushing him away, running away from him, not talking to him—that will only hurt him. It will be harder to get him back if I’ve hurt him like that. There’s something in him that reminds me of a kicked puppy. It’s hard for him to trust. There are moments when I recognize myself in him.

So I head for the middle ground. “I want to be your girlfriend,” I tell him, earning a relieved smile. “But—”

“What?” he interrupts, encircling me in his arms. “No buts. Buts aren’t allowed.”

He pulls me in for a kiss, and it takes me a moment to end it and look back up in his eyes. “
But
,” I continue. “I don’t want people talking about us all the time. I feel like it could ruin us.” A secret relationship, when done right, can be a powerful aphrodisiac.

“Who cares what they say?” he asks.

“I just—I want to keep us a secret for a while. I don’t want to attract too much attention.”

“Too late,” he teases. “You’re much too beautiful not to attract attention.”

I put a hand on his chest, pushing him back. “Ben,” I say, as if exasperated.

“All right, all right,” he says, putting his hands up in mock surrender. “I won’t say anything to anyone. As long as you agree to be my girlfriend.”

“Done,” I say, nodding my head solemnly before rewarding him with a glittering smile. The smile hides the panic rising within me. I’ve disobeyed Mother, and if this tactic doesn’t work, I can’t bear to think what my punishment might be.

When Arabella hip-checks
me in the hall the next morning on my way to class, I know I have to respond. My books scatter across the floor, and my palms slap the cold marble ground to break my fall.

There’s a hush, and then some laughter. “Watch where you’re going, slag,” Arabella singsongs.

I pick myself up, gather my books, and stand slowly. Arabella has already retreated out of sight, but I smirk, showing the others that I’m not cowed by her bullying. I even roll my eyes, as if her antics do nothing but bore me. And then I saunter down the hall to the chorus of whispers and speculation.

“Are you okay?” Claire asks as soon as I enter our room after dinner. “I heard about what happened.” She looks at me with such genuine concern, and it hits me that she truly considers me a friend. She worries about me. She has no idea what I am.

“I’m fine,” I say, waving my hand in the air like I could wave the memory away. “Just Arabella being Arabella.”

Claire purses her lips. “She’s a hard enemy to have,” she says quietly. “It might be best to stay out of her way for a little while?”

“I’m never in her way. She just makes it her business to attack me.”

“You did start that rumor about her giving her knickers to the gardener,” Claire points out dryly, an amused smile playing on her face.

I shrug. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll stay out of her way.”

“Good. I’d hate for Arabella to run you out of here.” She wrinkles her nose, as if the very idea has disgusted her.

I laugh. “That won’t happen, trust me. I’m tougher than I look.”

Claire studies me for a moment, like I’ve revealed something important. “It should be a wild night on the moors, if you want to join?” she offers finally.

“No, thanks,” I answer quickly.

“Why not? Are you going out tonight to roll around in the mud or whatever?”

I sit at my desk, facing away from her. “No,” I answer.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive. I just—I mean, what are you really doing when you go out there?”

I consider how to answer and finally decide that some approximation of the truth wouldn’t be bad. She’ll figure it out soon enough, anyway.

“I’m meeting Ben,” I say, watching her face carefully. Waiting for the disbelief.

It comes swiftly. She laughs, her mouth opening to reveal her straight, wide teeth. “Very clever,” she comments.

When my expression doesn’t change its intensity, the smile falters on her face, then falls. “Wait, you’re not serious?”

I purse my lips and nod. “He and I have a thing going,” I say with a shrug, like it wouldn’t create a tidal wave through the social structure of this school.

“A
thing
?” she repeats, like the word is unfamiliar to her. Did I use the wrong phrasing? I can’t tell.

“It’s a secret, so don’t spread it around, okay?”

She juts her lips out, a word about to form on the ends of them, but she holds it in.

I wait for her to gather her thoughts. To decide what question she wants to ask first. “Why is it a secret?” wins.

“Because I want it to be,” I answer, stacking my textbooks on my desk in the order I need them. “I don’t want the whole school talking about us like we’re public property. I don’t really know what he and I are yet, but I know I don’t want the scrutiny.”

She nods slowly. It’s actually a reasonable argument. “How did it happen?” she asks next. There’s a smile forming on her face, and she sits on her fluffy pink bed, getting comfortable. This is the point where I’m supposed to dish, and we’ll giggle, like all those teenage romance movies Mother made me watch as research.

The idea tires me, but I oblige. “We got to talking about a Tennyson poem once, because we’re in English class together, you know? And he’s . . . he’s smarter than I thought. He was easy to talk to. And it became something more.” I stop, hoping that’s enough.

She’s watching me with her mouth open in wonder. Like I’m telling her a love story. “So where do you sneak off to?”

I smile, as if the thought of it gives me butterflies. “Just somewhere.”

She doesn’t pry; that’s not the interesting part anyway. “So when you came home that morning covered in mud . . .” Her voice trails off in a question.

I nod and hide my cheeks in my hands. I feel a blush rise there—a real blush. It confuses me. “He’s different when he’s with me,” I say. Maybe I shouldn’t be revealing so much, but her curious, happy expression opens up something inside me. “He’s so warm and sweet. I never expected him to be like that, because he’s so cocky with his friends. He keeps surprising me.” I stop myself, pursing my lips. Am I beginning to care for him? I can’t be. It would ruin Mother’s plan. It would ruin me.

“It sounds serious,” she says with a teasing smile. “You sure you know what you’re getting into?”

“No idea,” I admit.