I took my food in the kitchen. Not knowing when Baron was going to be back, nor certain whether or not I could rely on him when he did come back, I wasn’t exactly keen on going back into the common room. Nobody batted an eyelash. Sometimes the girls did whatever they had to do.
Things got overwhelming, with all those men around. Most of them were of a type, and nobody ever wondered why it was that someone might be a little upset. And of course, I knew that they had been watching me, as well. That was an unspoken addition. The result was that nobody asked me why I cloistered myself up.
Someone eventually came to get me. It wasn’t Baron himself, of course. There was a lot of political stuff going on and even I knew that much. So he sent someone else to fetch me. I don’t know who the message was intended for. Maybe he wanted me to know that I was distant and expendable. Maybe he wanted the other men to see that he could still command obedience. I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
Either way, I followed in silence up the stairs. The guy didn’t knock, because that would have been too civilized. He called in loudly that he’d brought me like Baron asked. I noticed that he didn’t say ‘boss’ at the end. He carefully didn’t call Euler anything at all.
“Send her in,” Baron said.
The guy opened the door and I stepped through it. The door closed behind me. Baron sat on his bed, his suspenders pulled down off his shoulders. He looked at the door sourly. The sourness didn’t deepen as he looked at me, but it didn’t go away, either.
His voice was neutral when he spoke, though. I tried to read some pleasantness into that.
“Missed you at supper.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be there.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “You avoiding me?”
I blinked. The whole notion was so backwards that I struggled to even imagine it.
“No?”
“I haven’t seen too much of you. I know you must be upset.”
“You want to know why I wasn’t at supper?”
“You’re damned right I do,” he said. He stood up as he said it, and his height suddenly made him seem very scary. I tried not to think too hard about it.
“Franklin.”
“Franklin Durham?”
“He didn’t give me his full name, Baron. Called himself Franklin. Big guy.”
He looked at me hard, like I’d said something wrong. I couldn’t begin to guess what it might have been because I didn’t say anything that wasn’t completely, one-hundred-per-cent the God’s honest truth.
“You’re sure? Yellow hair? Looks like he probably shaved his head with a razor, he keeps it so short?”
I looked at him flatly. “That’s the one.”
He kept looking at me, like he wanted to do something about it. Like he was thinking that maybe he could solve all his problems by making me deny it. Then he jerked his head and settled back onto his mattress.
“You’re sure.”
“I told you I was sure. Are you going to call me a liar? He was making me uncomfortable.”
“How so? What did he say exactly?”
I let out a breath. “I don’t remember, exactly. I remember thinking that he was being suggestive.”
His jaw tightened. “And you’re sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” I said. I wasn’t. I hadn’t exactly wanted to get him to confirm his bad intentions. The men here weren’t the type to be buried in good intentions. Euler was just one of the boys here. And I’d known about his bad intentions from the first. “But I didn’t want to stick around and find out.”
Euler laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I waited for him to explain. He didn’t.
“I’m sorry I upset you—”
“I can’t afford to hear this right now,” he said.
“So, what? I should have let him make suggestive remarks at me?”
He sat upright. His jaw was working itself tighter and tighter; he worked it loose again, shook his head like he was trying to get his head clear, and looked at my face.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “No.”
“Then what should I have done?”
“You should have stayed away.”
“And I did.”
“And you did,” he agreed. “I just…”
“You what? You’re going to let him walk all over you?”
“You don’t understand the first thing, do you?”
“Maybe I don’t. You didn’t seem to be worrying about that when you dragged me off into the desert, so I reckon you can explain it to me.”
He stood again, and I felt that tingle of fear again in my spine. Then he stepped close, clapped his arms on my shoulders, and pulled me in close. His lips pressed against mine. I was angry. Not in the mood for a kiss.
And then I relaxed into it anyways. Baron had an unspeakable effect on me. I hated it, and I loved it, all at the same time.
“Don’t fight me,” he growled, low. “I’ve got enough of that right now.”
“Are you going to stand up for me, or not?”
He touched his forehead to mine and looked into my eyes.
“The time for that will come,” he said. “But it’s not now.”
I stared at him. I think my jaw dropped. I couldn’t feel it at the time, but I remember having to close it again afterward.
“I’ll go up against him,” Baron told me. “But not before I’m sure that I’m going to come out on top of it. Better to hold my tongue now and make sure I don’t get killed waggling it. For now, just…” He let out a breath. “Stick close to me. He won’t do anything while I’m with you.”
I nodded; I wasn’t about to talk back to him. But the only thing running through my head was, for how long?