The Sweetest Dark

CHAPTER 4




Lora.

That was her name. He’d caught her choked murmur just before she’d darted away, bolting like a rabbit after Hastings. She actually overtook the old man, only hesitating by the main doors until he could open them for her.

The image of her turning around that one last time, throwing that swift, frozen look back at him, with the atrium light spilling a dull tarnish behind her and her hat crushed in one hand—

He’d frightened her. He’d not meant to.

Jesse propped his elbows on the sill of his open window and regarded the tangle of woods that whispered to him to come out, come out now. He wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of the night here in his cottage, he knew that already. But in his hands he held one of the fleece blankets he’d put in the carriage for her, and he was unwilling to relinquish it quite yet. After a few long minutes more of watching the dark, he brought it up to his face.

Loosestrife, he thought. Delicate spiky flowers, sweet and spice.

Lora.

A pretty name, even if it wasn’t her true one.

He stood, draped the blanket over the chair behind him. With a single practiced vault he was out the window and out of the confines of roof and walls, bare feet in moss, fresh air on his face. An easy run that sank him deep and quiet into the dark.