As a teacher at St. Joan of Arc, it was expected that she attend mass regularly and live her life according to the good Lord’s will—but in Kate’s case, Circumstance turned a blind eye. It was difficult, it seemed, for the diocese to find a teacher of Kate’s calibre willing to devote a year of her life to living relatively isolated on an island, house-mothering twenty-five teenage girls under the watchful eye of an order of nuns. It was simple—if the sisters didn’t ask, Kate wouldn’t tell.

“The vicar’s just lovely, Tilly,” Sister Mary Monica continued. “And very handsome! I believe Sister Ellie called him a ‘silver fox’!”

“Sister Mary Monica!” Tilly gasped a laugh, and the sisters joined her. Kate smirked, grasping the back of a chair as she watched Tilly twist the ring on her finger. “We have our differences, what with Declan being High-Church Anglican and me being Catholic,” she said, “but they prove for interesting theological debate.”

Debate? Kate quirked an eyebrow. You’d think they were Catholics and Scientologists. “If only it weren’t for King Henry the eighth and his annulment,” Kate joked as she sugared Sister Ruth’s tea.

“Oh, Katherine!” Sister Ruth shook her head.

Kate grinned at the sisters before setting her gaze on Tilly. “Five hundred years later and still a touchy subject.” She tossed Tilly a wink as she patted the Reverend Mother’s shoulder. “Tough crowd.”

Tilly smiled shyly, her cheeks tinging pink—at what, Kate wasn’t sure. Tilly had always been so reserved. But once upon a time, they had opened up to each other. She could still remember coming back to the island after the summer of their sixteenth year, Tilly leaning across the bed in the darkness and whispering all about how she’d “finally started to develop.” Up until that point, Tilly hadn’t needed a bra, a “secret” only Kate knew, but one she was sure the other girls had guessed. Tilly had gone bra shopping in Mornington over the summer with one of the younger sisters, and as she’d turned on the soft glow of their bedside table to show Kate her new undergarments, her face had been the picture of pride. They’d been plain, simple beiges and whites, the cups barely there, and yet knowing they were Tilly’s bras in her hands had Kate’s face burning so hot she’d been glad for the semi-darkness.

That had been the same summer Kate had paid two hundred dollars for a fake ID and waltzed into a lesbian bar in Melbourne, let a woman snake her hand into her underwear in a bathroom stall and faked an orgasm. But weeks later, back on Lords, sitting in the darkness of their shared dorm with Tilly’s beige A-cup bra in her hands, it had felt like her true sexual awakening.

When it was her turn to hug Tilly congratulations, she fought the blush heating her cheeks. All eyes were on them, including those of Sister Mary Monica, who had always insisted their bedroom door be left open at night, who had paid no mind when the other girls had shut theirs. Still, it hadn’t stopped Tilly from crawling into her bed on the odd occasion. Quickly, she released Tilly.