Chapter 12: Ashbourne at Night

By midnight the manor was awake with the sound of five soldiers carrying boxes.

Jethro had claimed the kitchen and was making grilled cheese on the six-burner range.

Joel had taped Jessa's ribs on the study table, scolding her the whole time.

Emmett was running cable down the cellar stairs, and Rhys had pinned a map of the valley to the wall with a bayonet.

For the first time since she woke up screaming, Jessa felt that the house might hold.

She took a plate from Jethro and a bruise from every doorway, and she went looking for Corin.

He was not in the kitchen, or the study, or the cellar.

She found him at the end of the upstairs hall, in the master suite she had picked for herself.

He stood at the window seat with his back to the door, looking down at the drive.

"This is my room," she said.

He turned.

His uniform jacket was off and his sleeves were rolled up, and she saw a long scrape across his knuckles from the garage.

"I came to check the window latches," he said. "They're good. Old, but good."

"You could have asked Emmett."

"I could have."

He did not move to leave.

She crossed the room and took his hand in both of hers and turned it over.

"You're bleeding."

"It's nothing."

"You hit him hard enough to crack the floor."

"I know." He watched her thumb pass over the scrape. "Jessa, I'm sorry about that. I lost control. It won't happen again."

"Why did it?"

His breath caught.

He looked down at her, close enough that she could count the dark flecks in his eyes, and she saw him choosing his answer.

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