A few moments later, I find myself being dragged back to the kitchens by my hair.
Clarissa makes me clean the waste bin with it.
My black hair reeks of spoiled fruit and rotten eggs by the time I’m finished.
It’s the egg stench that makes me gag. Every time I move or a draft sneaks through the cracked window of the kitchen, the odor rolls through me, making my bones quaver.
It takes me an additional hour bent over the kitchen basin with a pitcher in hand to rinse the filth out of my hair, but no amount of scrubbing keeps the stink from crashing over me in waves, causing my stomach to churn.
I’ve about given up when a shadow appears in the kitchen doorway.
The kitchen itself has been empty since dinner. The task took all afternoon, and Clarissa commanded the staff to leave me be once they were finished prepping tomorrow’s meals.
I flinch, wondering if it’s Clarissa intending to drag me to my bedroom by my hair again.
“Your father still lives. He’s sleeping peacefully.” I recognize Derek’s voice before he steps into the dimly lit kitchen.
My shoulders sag in relief at the news. Clarissa forbade me from visiting him until the morning, and even then, only if I finished my tasks. If Derek’s report was any different, I’d ignore Clarissa’s commands and run to him now, but I fear if I disobey her, she’ll keep me from him when the hour of his death draws near.
“Thank you for checking on him for me.” My voice is hardly a whimper, but I’m truly grateful. Derek steps toward me, and my muscles go rigid. I’m certain that if I move at all, he’ll smell me.
It’s a foolish thought. I’m just a girl, and Derek is practically a man. Twenty-three, to be exact; his birthday was last week, and I slipped a handmade birthday card under his bedroom door, too embarrassed to sign my name.
My cheeks flush hot when he’s around, and I don’t want him to think I stink.
Derek is one of the servants Clarissa brought with her into the marriage, but he’s different from the rest. He’s tall with naturally pale skin that browns in the summer, and his blue eyes are kind. And he doesn’t rat on me to my stepmother.
“Why’s your hair wet?” he asks, advancing and taking a strand of my soaking hair between his fingers.
My heart thuds and my cheeks warm. Half-mortification, half something else entirely.
“Clarissa made me clean out the waste bin with it.”
I wait for him to drop the lock of hair in disgust, but he doesn’t. He only frowns, his forehead wrinkling. “Fates, she’s cruel.”
His gaze flicks to my face, meeting my stare, and he tucks the strand behind my ear, his warm fingers lingering against the bone.
There’s a tingling sensation all over my body. One I sometimes get when Derek smiles at me, but a million times stronger.
“You should get away from me,” I whisper, hating the words even as they slip from my lips. I don’t want him to get away; not at all. But he’s already so close I can feel the edges of his body heat, and I know if he comes any closer, he’ll smell me, and then he won’t want to come close again.
Derek cocks his head to the side. “Why would I want to do that?” His mouth curves into a playful grin that has my heart skipping.
A lump rises in my throat. There’s no way I can make myself tell him, not without shriveling up and dying.
But then his nose twitches, and I die a little anyway.
“I’ve been trying for hours, but I can’t get the smell to go away.” My words are rushed, and I fumble for better ones, words that will explain why I’m not a filthy, disgusting child.
But Derek’s smile is warm. He drops the lock of my hair and leans in, and for a moment I’m terrified because I think he might kiss me, but then he reaches behind me and produces a pair of kitchen scissors. “I think I can solve that for you.”
My breath freezes in my chest. Never in my life have I been allowed to trim my hair more than an inch at most.
“You’ll be in trouble with Clarissa if she finds out,” I warn him.
His voice drops to a hush. “Then it’ll be our little secret.”
Unease grips my chest, but the stench is shoving its way down my throat again, threatening to suffocate me.
And Derek is right. I do want it gone.
“Okay,” I whisper.
I let out a lone whimper when the scissors crunch through my wet hair.
A single lock falls to the floor.
It’s not long before there’s a pile of wet, black locks tickling my bare ankles.
“There,” Derek says, running his fingers through my cropped hair when he’s done, tousling it. I can’t breathe. “I like your hair better this way.”
I don’t know what my hair looks like, but as far as I’m concerned, it could look like rats had made a nest in it as long as Derek’s blue eyes sparkle like that when he looks at me.
“You like it?” I ask, my chest constricting.
“I like you.”
My gut twists, terror and elation wrestling with my insides.
