If You Leave, I Leave novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Leaving Together

On Monday morning, Corwin and I stood outside his study door and waited for the housekeeper.

It was twenty past seven.

She came down the east wing corridor with her kneeling mat under one arm and a block of sandpaper in her other hand.

She was a small, grey woman with a bun, and she stopped when she saw us.

"Your Highness," she said. "My lady."

"Good morning," Corwin said.

She looked at the door frame.

It was clean, pale wood from top to bottom, with not one new gouge in it.

"Nothing happened to it last night," Corwin said. "Nothing has for weeks."

"No, sir," she said slowly. "I noticed. I sanded clean wood the last two Mondays, and I didn't like to stop."

"You've been sanding it every week for three years."

"You asked me to, sir, the first Monday after the wedding. I never asked why."

My throat tightened.

"You could have told me," I said to her.

"It wasn't mine to tell, my lady." She dropped her eyes. "I did think about it, every Monday."

Corwin went into the study.

It was exactly as he had left it.

The cot sat against the wall with a grey blanket folded on it, and the desk stood beside it with a drawer half open.

He took out the silver cuffs.

They were bright and heavy, and the inside of each was dark where they had burned him.

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