//CLARA//
Casimir had turned away again, working at his own shirt with mechanical precision.
"The truth serves no one." He buttoned what buttons remained, adjusted his coat to hide the worst of the damage.
"We were walking. You fell near the creek. I assisted you. Your dress tore on a branch." He faced me, and his expression had settled into something mask-like, controlled. "It's plausible enough."
"And if Aunt Cornelia notices the bruises?"
"She won't." His voice wavered, just slightly, on the denial. "She's still too busy sulking in her room. That will give us temporary peace."
I studied him. The man who had held me against a tree and demanded I touch myself while he watched, who had confessed to spying on me through my window, who had spilled himself across my back with a groan that seemed to tear something vital from his chest—this man was assembling himself back into respectability, piece by piece, and I hated it.
