Page 155 of Because I Killed Him
“Miss Hussey already suspected I had a girl,” Edmund says, ripping the wire free. “Now she’s sure of it.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to make it worse.”
He shrugs. “It was already worse.” He smooths the wire flat against his knee, then extends it toward me. “Pick a shape.”
I blink at him, confused. “Aren’t you angry?”
“A little, sure. But only at your earring.” His eyes hold mine, still bright from the brandy. Then, softer: “Go on. Choose.”
I study his face, expecting at least a shadow of resentment. My mistake has thrown a wrench into his already strained arrangement with Irene, yet he sits there smiling, as if he’s just been told the Vanguard program is being relaunched.
“You choose,” I say.
Edmund studies the wire as the campus blurs past us, light scattering over his cheekbones like showers of prisms. At the next red light, he starts bending one end into the shape of a petal. I lean closer, drawn in by the gentle way his large hands move. Every curl of the wire is careful, almost delicate, reminding me of how he held my waist on the surfboard. He’s so big and bullish, like a firework in the middle of a library, yet somehow, he knows how to dim himself enough not to burn me.
I let my head rest against the window as he bites through a piece of wire to begin the second petal. Part of me wants to stay silent and let him work, but another part is tired of guarding secrets that no longer matter.
“Irene didn’t just suspect you had a girl before she found the earring,” I say. “She was convinced of it.”
Edmund’s fingers keep moving, though a small crease forms at the corners of his eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because she offered me a deal at the Speakeasy. She said she wouldn’t kill me if I agreed to spy on you and hand over the names of your mistresses.”
His hands pause on the half-formed petal. “Mistresses?”
“Yeah. Irene thought you had more than one.”
Edmund tips his head back and breaks into a loud, amused laugh. “Didn’t realize she gave me that much credit. And you, Miss Waldsten—lucky you turned her down.”
“Why?”
“Because I would’ve caught you.”
I frown. “How?”
“You’re a good liar—almost as good as Dickie—but you’ve got a tell.”
I feign calm as I reach for the champagne, pop the cork, and sip from the bottle. “What do you mean?”
Edmund points to my ear. “You pull your left earring when you lie. Sometimes just before, sometimes right after.”
Every lie I’ve told him races through my mind, especially the one about why I quit fencing. Did he know I was lying then? And if he did, why didn’t he say anything until now?
“What else do you think I’ve lied about?”
He bites the wire again, grinning around it. “No. I’m not gonna embarrass you like that.”
It’s too late. I’m already embarrassed enough to stick my head in the console and slam it shut. But maybe I deserve it. After all the lies and false fronts, maybe this is my penance. I shrink lower in my seat, my throat burning as I run through every moment that I tugged that damn earring without realizing it. Mom does the same thing when she’s nervous.
I slide off my jacket, suddenly too hot. “Doesn’t it bother you that I’ve lied?”
Edmund leans back and turns the wire faster between his fingers, as if he’s trying to finish before we reach the stables. “Didn’t expect you to be straight with me when we first met. Half the time, you looked like you wanted to bite my head off. But now? Yeah, I’d rather you were honest.”
“I don’t like lying,” I say, and I mean it. “But sometimes I need to lie.”
“When do you need to lie?”
My heart pounds hard enough to shake the answer loose, the truth I don’t dare speak aloud. “For low-citizens, lies and secrets are sometimes the only way to survive.”
