We hardly said anything on the drive home, and when he pulled in my driveway, Ryan didn’t even shut off the car. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, and all I could do was nod and tell myself he wasn’t kissing me good night because I smelled like a Red Lobster.

When I walked through the front door, it was 9:45. Mom and Dad were exactly where I’d left them, although Dad was now asleep, his head tilted back, softly snoring. Mom sat up as I closed the door. “You’re early.”

“Movie wasn’t very long,” I said.

Mom clearly had more to say, but I jogged up the stairs before she had a chance. I’d desperately wanted a shower, but once I was in my room, the idea of getting undressed was exhausting to me, so I just slumped down on my bed, bisque, tweed, and all.

It had been one week since I’d sat at Miss Annemarie’s and told Saylor Stark that I could be a Paladin and a regular girl. That nothing had to change.

“Nothing does,” I muttered to myself. So tonight had been bad. And odd. And, I thought, remembering sitting across from David in the lamplight of the tearoom, unsettling.

But it was one night. And we only had two more weeks of this left before Cotillion.

I could do this. I would do this.

I drifted into sleep, David’s jacket still wrapped around me.

Chapter 30

“AGAIN,” Saylor said, her tone of voice exactly the same as it was during Cotillion practice. But this time, instead of walking down a flight of stairs in heels, I was practicing sword fighting. Also in heels.

To tell the truth, whacking things with a sword felt really good today. Ryan hadn’t called on Sunday, and then at lunch, Amanda and Abigail had been talking about The Promise and how good it was. “I still can’t believe you missed it to see something called Hard Fists,” Abi had said to Mary Beth.

Mary Beth had darted a glance at me as Amanda elbowed her twin, and I pretended to ignore all of them. I also ignored the stab of guilt that pierced my chest when I saw David in the halls. I had not almost kissed him, I reminded myself. He had almost kissed me, and if he had, I would have pushed him away and made all sorts of shocked sounds, and not kissed him back, even a little bit. I was positive of that.

Then, when I got to Saylor’s, I’d been treated to a lecture on how possibly chasing Blythe had been foolish and irresponsible.

So yes. Smacking things with sharp metal felt good. Or it had for the first hour at least.