“I haven’t seen you reading them.” She paused. “Now that I think about it, you have been going to bed earlier…”

Kate took a seat beside her on the windowsill. “I don’t know how you do it, Til. To have written so many books and have the teaching résumé you do.”

Tilly’s cheeks lit pink. She dropped her gaze, a bashful smile playing at her lips.

Grinning, Kate ducked her head in an attempt to catch Tilly’s eye. “What?” she asked.

“Nothing, really. It’s just that nobody has ever read my books.”

“Of course people have read them—they’re best sellers.”

“Well, nobody that I know…”

“Seriously? Not even the sisters?”

Tilly shook her head.

Kate hooked her forefinger beneath Tilly’s chin. Their eyes locked. “I think you’re amazing.”

Tilly’s tongue snuck out to wet her lips. “That’s very nice of you—”

“Don’t do that.”

Tilly swallowed, her chin bobbing beneath Kate’s finger. “Don’t do what?” she whispered.

“Don’t be modest. Not with me.”

Tilly blinked. “With you…”

A craving to be touched by Tilly seized her, just as it had during assembly that morning when their eyes had caught across the school hall. Just as it had the day before when she’d passed Tilly in the library and caught her bent over a student desk. Just as it had the day before that when she’d—

At a loud call down the hall, Kate broke the gaze and retracted her touch. “I better go and pressure the girls to hurry down to the van.”

She pushed off the windowsill.

“You’re coming back after you drop them off?” Tilly asked, a hint of hope in her voice. “You aren’t leaving now with the girls? Taking the car ferry and driving the van out to your mother’s?”

Kate shook her head. “Nah, I think I’ll just leave first thing in the morning. Stay tonight…”

Stretching both palms out at her sides on the windowsill, Tilly smiled. “Well I’ll just be here,” she said, crossing her legs at the ankle, “waiting upon your return.”

There had been a time, not so long ago, when Kate had waited all week for Friday afternoon to arrive, to leave on the four-thirty car ferry to Mornington and return when the boarders did on Sunday night. She’d enjoyed lunches with her family, dinners with her friends in St. Kilda. But with Tilly around…well, Kate’s priorities had changed.

Friday nights at St. Joan’s were quiet, peaceful, theirs. The sisters retired early—they rose each night at one a.m. for prayer before returning to bed for another four hours of sleep—so after eight thirty, there wasn’t a chance of one of them rapping loudly at the cottage door, or in Sister Ruth’s case, waltzing in unannounced. Friday nights were a reliable constant.

Tilly was always home; she had dinner with the vicar on Tuesday nights, and spent the weekend with him. A strict routine that, in four weeks, had yet to be disturbed by spontaneity. It was strange, Kate thought. Regimented. Even more bizarre to Kate was that, when Tilly went to Mornington, regardless of the fact that she was spending both Saturday and Sunday with Declan, Sister Ellie claimed Tilly always returned on Saturday night. She caught the ferry back to Lords, walked up the hill to the cottage in the dark of night and repeated it all the next day.