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Once the most accomplished and coveted debutante in London; renowned for her beauty and grace, even in the halls of the royal household, engaged to the sole heir of one of the wealthiest families in the county; Edward would not have been permitted to stand within six feet of the lovely Miss Conyngham not more than two years ago.

Now he was here to wed her that very afternoon and bring her home to the crumbling ruin of his estate back in Durham tomorrow morn.

For a great and mysterious misfortune had befallen the Conynghams’ only daughter a little over a year prior, rendering the celebrated young lady to nothing but a reclusive ghost to the rest of the nobility. Her family had quickly spirited her away to their ancestral country home, keeping her well hidden from all her former friends and suitors.

It wasn’t long after her departure from London that her auspicious engagement to Lord Jacob Carnegie, the Fourth Earl of Farhaven, came to an abrupt end, severing the last of her and her family’s ties to polite society.

The rumors, of course, were elaborate, if not sensational. Some people even believed the girl had actually been murdered, attacked by thieves and left for dead on the side of the road. Most guessed she had run off with a lowly foot soldier, forsaking her virtue in a torrid affair and had fallen pregnant.

It wasn’t until Edward’s uncle had written Lord Conyngham with his preposition that a brief explanation was given for the girl’s disappearance and fall from grace.

It was divulged with the request of the utmost discretion that Christina and her lady’s maid had both been abducted on a return journey to London from visiting the Calvert family.

A notorious fugitive known as Creel had attacked and killed their driver and footman, taking the young women and keeping them captive for nearly eight months in his family’s abandoned manor house before they were finally found and liberated by the Sheriff’s men.

Creel’s trial was ongoing, but there was no doubt he would hang before the first frost of winter.

Lord Conyngham did not know what tortures befell his daughter aside from what little her lady’s maid shared with him, for Christina had not uttered a single word since her deliverance and return.

Her parents had called upon the finest doctors in London and Derbyshire, but not one could find a reason for the girl’s sudden silence. There were no signs of harm done to her throat or tongue, nor any damage to her head.

She could still communicate perfectly fine through her writing and drawings. Her father brought in books to instruct her and the servants how to sign with her fingers through gestures and expressions which she picked up quickly.

Unfortunately, her silence was not the only thing she suffered from. Since her return she suffered from fevers and fainting spells, sleep walking and having a handful of hysteric episodes from experiencing relentless night terrors.

Her father warned them before their arrival that she was no longer the same beautiful and witty young lady who had once charmed all the young knaves in the countryside… She had become a frail shell of herself, reserved and meloncholly… some might even say mad.

But that was no matter to Edward’s uncle. There was nothing wrong with the girl’s title or dowry, and that was what was needed for the survival of Blackthorn Hall and all the tenant farms who toiled their land.

His uncle had managed best he could after Edward’s father had squandered both their inheritance and brought endless scandal to the family name, but the money was now all but gone and there was nothing left for them to do but align themselves with a prosperous noble family.

Edward had to marry and produce an heir or all would be lost.

As wicked as it was to say, the Congyhams’ demise would be their salvation.

“We’ve trapped this poor girl,” Edward had whispered on the carriage ride over.

“Well, her father assured me that she agreed to this,” his uncle had told him as he stuffed his pipe. “Despite her mother’s disapproval to the match.”

Still, she had little choice in the matter. She and Edward were doomed to be locked in the same cage together it seemed.

How disappointing he would be to someone who once held the world in her hand.

At his short nod of approval, the footman opened the doors of the library for him, announcing his presence to the young lady who was already standing, perusing the shelves.

Lady Christina jumped a little at his entrance, despite having been waiting for him. Perhaps he had stalled at the threshold longer than he thought he had.

She glanced up from her books and Edward went still, taken aback by her beauty, her otherworldliness.

They both just stood there, staring in silence for so long, Christina’s lady’s maid cleared her throat, waking them from whatever spell that had been cast over them.

Edward remembered himself just as Christina curtsied low and demure.

“Forgive me,” he said softly. “I did not mean to startle you.”

Christina shook her head gracefully, the gold ringlets of her hair bouncing about her as if to say Not at all.

Edward opened his mouth to speak, to tell her of all the things that had been on his mind during his journey, at the door just now, for he knew the lady could not say anything in greeting.

His Uncle Warren could attest that he was never one for lack of something to say, but for the life of him, he could not even form a single syllable for both their sakes.

God above, she was so lovely, despite her obvious fragility, like something out of one of his novels.

Some tortured heroine, Ophelia or Guenivere come to life. Her wispy hair was spun of fire and gold, her thin figure poised and sinewy; her face pale, but so, so queenly and delicate. He could imagine it would feel as soft of dove feathers to caress her.

But it was her eyes that held him captive, for they were the very hour of midnight, dark and haunting, filled with ghosts.

Christina’s pouting lips parted, exchanging a glance with the ruby-haired maid who stood a few paces to the left of her.

The maid only shrugged her shoulders, looking as if she had already decided that Edward was a fool.

Then the lady began to move her fingers. The motions were so artful that Edward found himself bewitched by their dance. It was like she was sewing a gown or painting a picture, crafting words into thin air.

The maid nodded to her mistress before lancing her sharp, icy gaze back to Edward. “She says she hopes you’ve not had a difficult journey, sir.”

He glanced between the two women and valiantly tried to wedge his heart out of his throat to answer. “Y-yes! No! I uh mean, it was, it was a rather uneventful trip, if not a little grey and a few thunderstorms in our path…”

He chuckled awkwardly. What in God’s name was wrong with him? Had he never spoken to a woman before? He had, of course, but never one that could not answer him back, and certainly never one that was going to be his wife.

He bowed his head toward her reverently. “But very much worth it…if I may.”

Their eyes met once more and he felt his heart settle back in his chest, amazed and a little delirious that such a beautiful and enchanting creature was real, that she was to be his.

Christina gave him an amiable little smile, her face blooming becomingly with a bit of color.

He had the inane urge to embrace her, to pick her up and spin her around the room. But then he would surely frighten her, and that was the last thing he wanted.

“I was wondering,” he began, taking a careful step forward, reaching out a hand to her. “If we could have a moment alone together.”

Christina’s maid did not take to that idea at all. Seizing up as if ready to challenge Edward to a brawl, she drew close to her mistress, taking her arm rather intimately into hers as if she were a bosom companion rather than a servant.

Edward was certain that this was the maid who had been held captive alongside Christina. Her wintery eyes held the same horrors and were bruised by the same sleepless nights.

Regardless, there was a ferocity in the girl that burned protectively for her mistress. “Lady Norwood would not approve, sir.”

Edward had only been acquainted with Lady Norwood for about an hour, but even he could attest that she was a cruel and rotten creature. He found he had very little care about her approval.

Chrissy’s sunny smile dimmed the moment she crossed the threshold into her English class, noticing that Eddie had moved from his usual seat beside her. Her heart, that had just been skipping along excitedly in tandem with her feet all the way down the hall, sank slowly down to her stomach.

Had she done something wrong?

She quickly racked her brain over the last week, trying to remember what she might have said or done to make him not want to sit next to her anymore… she had laughed a little loudly yesterday when he took on an English accent while reading through one of the scenes they had been assigned to memorize together (that they will then later have to perform at the end of the semester). God, she had even snorted, it was so embarrassing… but Eddie had only laughed louder, getting a reprimand from Mrs. Barkley.

He hadn’t seemed mad at all then, he was smiling ear to ear, with each and every one of his teeth, but maybe he was really annoyed with her that she got him in trouble after all?

Or maybe he was upset that she couldn’t study with him Friday night. She had tried so hard to get out of dinner with Jason’s parents, but Jason made it very clear that rescheduling wasn’t an option when he drove her home after school. Eddie insisted it was fine and not to worry, but even over the phone she could tell he was disappointed. She should have tried harder. She should have spoken up instead of giving into Jason again.

Chrissy was jarred out of her thoughts and concerns when Greg Dawson and Mallory Bush brushed past her with curt apologies under their breaths. She was standing frozen in the doorway, blocking entry to the other students who were starting to filter in. Cheeks burning, Chrissy finally moved, slowly approaching Eddie who was now sitting at the desk directly behind hers, doodling dark, vast worlds within the columns of his notebook.

Somehow hearing her quiet, reluctant shuffling, he tilted his head back to look up at her and she went still again.

He grinned, looking especially impish at this angle with his long hair falling back. “Hey, Cunningham.”

Her stomach did a little back flip whenever he called her that.

“Uh hi,” she murmured softly, hoping he couldn’t see the blood she felt creeping up her face. Trying to appear calm and unbothered, she skirted around him to her seat, shrugging off her backpack and setting it on her desk.

“…Why are you sitting back there?” she asked him with feigned casualty, trying valiantly not to glance back him, lest he see right through her facade.

Unfortunately, his lack of response eventually baited a cautious peek over her shoulder.

“Barkley made me move,” he was still smiling, but she could see he was not very happy with this new arrangement as he leaned his chin back into his fist. “Apparently, I’m a loud mouth menace corrupting our sweet, innocent cheer queen with my rabble-rousing.”

“Munson.” Mrs. Barkley warned lowly as she entered the classroom.

“Your words not mine, Susan,” he countered sharply with a a pointed glare as she passed them.

Chrissy felt a small wave of relief… it was still a bummer that he couldn’t sit next to her, but at least she hadn’t annoyed him or drove him away.

“My words, your embellishments, as always,” Mrs. Barkley noted as she unlocked the utility closet.

“Bestowed upon me by your sage tutalige, goodly matron,” he proclaimed dramatically with a flourish wave of his hand.

Chrissy quickly stifled a giggle into her palm, turning to pull out her notebook and copy of Romeo and Juliet.

Mrs. Barkley shot Eddie a tired and unimpressed look as she untangled the cord to the VCR.

Chrissy snuck another silent and pleading glance at him, she really didn’t want him to get thrown out of class, it was already bad enough they couldn’t sit together.

Eddie relented with a pout, falling back in his chair.

“This makes me sad,” she whispered to him, mirroring his dejected face.

Eddie’s grin returned, with all the more cheek to it. “Oh, don’t worry, Cunningham, I’m perfectly capable of corrupting you from back here.”

Chrissy ducked and turned around to sit down, smothering an amused, anxious squeak. He whispered it so Barkley wouldn’t hear, but the softness of his voice made him sound quite serious.

She shook her head as she finished unloading her book bag and lining up the desk with her books, pencils and highlighter.

Eddie liked to tease her, that was all. He liked to make her laugh and coax her out of her shell ever since their unlikely friendship rekindled back in March… he was always being silly.

That was all.

But she could feel his eyes on her and she wished that she had worn her hair down so that he couldn’t see the redness of her neck or ears.

“Alright, class, since we finished the last scene of the play last week and I have your tests from Friday to finish grading, we’ll be watching the first part of Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliette.” Barker announced as she pushed a tape into the VCR after getting the stand set up in the corner of the room.

There were collective groans throughout the classroom, but Chrissy wiggled excitedly in her chair as she settled in. She loved this film, even when she was little and didn’t understand a word they were saying. If only Eddie was sitting next to her, it would almost be like they were at the movies together. She could imagine it all vividly as Mrs Barkley switched off the lights.

It was very dark, Eddie would let her get her own bag of popcorn and a soda, and maybe some Skittles—they could share a bag. She glanced forlornly at the empty seat beside her and sighed quietly to herself.

The old film lit up the room in a muted blue and red with its vibrant technicolor and sultry flutes, with its award winning costumes and stunning young actors. Chrissy was absorbed, not even hearing the collective snores and tentative whispers of gossip that filled the room as the first twenty minutes passed.

She wondered if Eddie liked the movie, or if he was asleep like most of the other boys. He seemed to actually enjoy this class and the different Shakespearean comedies and now tragedies they had worked their way through, often taking different notes down for material for his Dungeon and Dragon campaigns.

A lot of time, his attention span wouldn’t let him navigate the narrative through all the prose, but his midterm had been entirely on the character of Ophelia and he had received an 89 on his essay about her tragic demise. While Chrissy listened to him read it aloud, she had thought for a moment he might have written it about her.

But, Eddie was being abnormally quiet, usually around this time she would at least get a note or a drawing pressed quietly into her palm to read. She debated risking a glance over her shoulder to check on him. Barkley hadn’t even glanced up from her desk as she powered through the stack of tests she probably should have finished scoring over the weekend. Before Chrissy could work up the nerve, she felt the gentlest pull at the end of the curl of her coiled ponytail as Eddie rolled her hair between the pads of his thumb and pointer finger.

Chrissy didn’t move, maybe she had imagined it, maybe the film and the budding romance had gone to her head. Eddie never touched her much, outside of an accidental brush of hands or a brief caress of shoulders when he moved her out of the way so she wouldn’t get run over by the thundering jocks in the hall. He knew she wasn’t very keen on being touched and everyone around her hardly ever heeded the weak boundaries she tried to put up for herself.

But, she wanted to tell him, tried to show him in small ways, that she didn’t mind when he touched her… in fact she liked it, it made her feel safe, like she was actually his friend and not just some vapid l, dumb cheerleader he didn’t mind being around. She’d touch his shoulder goodbye after class, let their arms press against one another when they waited in line to checkout their books at the library and after a little while she even gave him a hug when she passed him in the parking lot a few weeks (he was a very good hugger).

But Eddie had never initiated…

Her mind went completely blank when she felt his fingers climb higher before combing their way back down the spiral.

The screen in front of her blurred into colorful pixels as heat spilled down her spine. She felt him lean up behind her, felt his breath in her ear as his fingers brushed through her hair again.

“This movie is so boring,” he murmured by way of explanation as he just went on fondling her locks, as if trying to memorize the texture of them with the pads of his fingers.

Chrissy’s lips parted to say something, anything to make this all safe and friend-friendly. “Oh um, I d-don’t know? I like it.” she stuttered with a little nervous laugh, her fingers finding the hem of her floral skirt and smoothing the fabric down her legs.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Eddie was her friend. They were friends. And her hair had been played with in class before, lots of times actually, and she had played with others too… but those friends were girls and that had been in middle school. They would brush and braid one another’s hair with ribbons and put in sparkly hair clips they kept hidden in their pencil cases like they would with their dolls and Barbies at home.

However, a boy had never casually played with her hair like this before, not even Jason had— her racing thoughts came to a staggering hault when two of Eddie’s long, jointed fingers dug gently into the center of her scrunchie, drawing a small circle into the back of her scalp with his nails. Chrissy’s mouth fell open all the wider in shock.

Wordless, breathless shock.

The warmth from her spine pooled into her stomach as she caught his gaze in the corner of her eye, unconsciously tilting her head back into his gentle pull.

She was going to faint.

“Your hair is so pretty,” he mused under his breath, barely audible, like this was nothing out of the ordinary for them.

“Ehm…thank you,” she managed to whisper weakly, searching his gaze, wondering what he was doing, thinking.

She knew if she asked him, he would stop all this immediately, pull his hand away and never speak of it again…but the way he was scratching and rubbing the back of her skull must have rendered her brain into nothing but goo because she just sat there stupidly, staring at him. The room was so dark she could barely make out the shine of his eyes, but she knew they were fixed on her.

“Does it hurt wearing it up high like this all the time?” he asked her, leaning back into his chair where she couldn’t see him.

“Um-sometimes—a little—not really.”

What is even happening right now?

She fidgeted nervously, making sure the supplies she didn’t need because they were watching a movie in the dark were still neatly lined up in front of her.

Her eyes darted around to see if anyone noticed Eddie’s fingers in her hair—but no—the room was too dark and the movie seemed to have lulled everyone else to sleep or into a mild daze, because no one was paying them any attention.

It was just she and Eddie, faintly lit by the light of the fuzzy blue Veronese moon. Chrissy’s eyelids fluttered as she released a shaky exhale, letting her body relax a little and her attention return the movie.

They were safe.

Oh it is my Lady, oh it is my love, oh that she knew she were.

Chrissy suppressed a soft moan as Eddie continued his ministrations, she didn’t want him to get into any more trouble, but she didn’t want him to stop either, it felt so nice and maybe—

Just then, the same two fingers rose to the top of her head, dragging down the split of her hairline till they snagged under her scrunchie and pulled her hair free of its knot, letting it all spill down her back in rosegold waves. Chrissy caught a strangled, shocked noise in her throat, only the faintest of whimpers escaping her as she gripped her desk. Her fingernails scrapped the wood as she pressed her thighs together at the tension pulling at the back of her head being released all at once.

Oh. My. God.

Hot, bothered and nearly having a panic attack, Chrissy looked over at Mrs Berkeley, who had perked up at the small noise only to turn back to her work without another word after after a quick scan of the room.

Eddie… she tried to plead, but didn’t dare open her mouth again. Suddenly his other hand rose from behind her and smoothed over her brow as both hands ran down the length of her hair together, all ten fingers raking through her, gently scrapping her skin, grazing her neck.

Helpless, the poor girl could only flutter her eyes closed and tilt her head slightly back as Eddie continued to comb through her hair till it crackled with soft static. His hands were so big that he could barely fit all his fingers over the circumference of her head, his callouses and nails tenderly claiming the entire surface area of her skull.

It felt amazing.

He felt amazing.

Just as she was nearly lost to the slow rhythm, he did something new, turning one hand palm up and scooping underneath her hair at the nape of her neck, curling his fingers as he pulled back through. He kept alternating under and over, under and over, the cool metal of his heavy rings grazing her skin.

Chrissy pressed her lips together, smothering another moan into the softest of hums.

She could hear Eddie’s smile in the short, soft exhale he released through his nose behind her as his fingers slowed right at end of her curls, leaving her hair suspended in air between them. She just knew he was smiling to himself, probably the same smile he would give her whenever she caught him staring at her when he should’ve been paying attention in class. The one that was somehow both cocky and shy all at the same time.

But when she slowly turned back to look at him, any smile that may have been there was gone as he stared at the strands still between his fingers, rolling them contemplatively, before letting them go. When his eyes lifted toward her, they were dark and serious…sad. But only for a second: He was quick to smirk at her as if this was all just a game they were playing.

Keeping everything safe between them.

She let out a breathless, shaky laugh.

He was unbelievable. But she would play along.

“Having fun?” she muttered.

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. “Lots.”

Her smile warmed as she risked a few more seconds to simply gaze at him. “Well, don’t stop on my account.”

His blinked in surprise, his dark eyes widening briefly, before reaching his hand to the side of her head, skimming her hairline.