♪ And once again we end up like this, so why deny it?
If it feels this good, why don't we certify it? ♪
{Shy Martin—Bad in common}
With the atmosphere less charged thanks to Thomas' departure, Cordelia watched as Helen's stiffened shoulders and defensive stance shifted. She pinched the bridge of her nose and marched over to the bench around the fountain, taking a seat with a sigh.
"What did that mean?" She didn't look at Cordelia, keeping her eyes shut as she moved her fingers to massage her temples. "Whatever may be going on. What in the devil is he implying?" Her spine arched as she sat up straight and her eyelids pried apart, her gaze at once fixing on Cordelia. "What did you tell him?"
Cordelia pointed at herself. "Me? Tell him what?" She flipped around to gawk at the imaginary trail of fumes Thomas had left in his wake with the words he'd uttered, with the suggestions he'd made. But if he was tuned in to what might have occurred between Cordelia and Helen, the Princess appreciated that he hadn't stated it. "He is being silly. Overly chivalrous, I presume, wanting me to seek approval from my... friends... before I consent to anything."
Head cocking to one side, then to the other, like a confused puppy, Helen squinted at her. "He wants to marry you, then? Did you not leave your home because you did not want to wed anyone? This is sudden." She kicked at a few pebbles she'd dragged with her through the grass, sticking to the soles of her shoes. And though her chin tilted down, her gaze was still trained on Cordelia. "You did not tell me."
"It only happened today, Helen." Cordelia shook out her skirts, trying to find a way to distract her hands. They'd begun to tremble, and she didn't understand why, and she especially didn't want Helen to see it. "And as it happens, I do not tell you everything. You are not my lady-in-waiting, you are not Clarisse." She flinched; the mention of her lady-in-waiting made her miss home a smidgen more. "I am a Princess, and am allowed certain secrets, no?"
With a shrug, Helen blew out a deep breath. "Perhaps, but I thought we were friends." She blinked once, slow and steadily, never removing her sights from Cordelia. "Maybe more than that, in fact. Oh, wait." Her eyes swelled with understanding, blossoming like large lettuce leaves fanning out in the sun. "I get it now. What Thomas implied. He referred to Dijon. And the other nights. Oh, that rascal, he must have known all this time..."
"Known what?" Cordelia stomped a foot, sick of being clueless, irritated at not being aware of what she'd done, what Helen had done, what Thomas had done. Their adventures in Paris had somehow revolved around Dijon and whatever actions they'd taken there. Helen brought it up more than in any other city, and now Thomas hinted at remembering something going on, too.
And Cordelia was fed up being the only one to not know. She wasn't certain she needed the knowledge, nor was she ready for it. But she'd had enough of the flashes, the blurry visions. Of the gaps in her memory, the obscurity shrouding many of their outings, the atrocious migraines the morning after.
"Princess." Helen allowed herself a small smirk, a twitch of her lips as she stood up. "Come now, will you continue this charade of claiming you do not remember anything? I have been patient, and tried not to pressure you, but... this is absurd. Dijon—"
"—is where we did drugs!" Cordelia's response came out as a harsh, haggard whisper, piercing through the air like a jagged knife. "That is what I remember, and nothing else."
"Nothing else?" Helen cocked one brow as she lifted a shoulder in coquettish fashion and pouted her lips. "Yes, I am aware illicit substances were involved that night. But... have they had a long-term effect on your brain, Highness? Or are you blocking your recollections on purpose?"
She took one sly stride in Cordelia's direction, and Cordelia, on instinct, took two backwards.
"Princess." All airs of amusement and flirtation melted from Helen's expression, and she fixed her posture, now taking even paces towards her. "There has been enough awkwardness, no? Can we not discuss this as adults? We must address it. You and I—"
Launching herself forward in one swift, if not a bit clumsy, motion, Cordelia cupped a hand over Helen's mouth, cutting off whatever she'd planned to say out loud. "No."
Her hand in direct contact with Helen's skin and soft lips, Cordelia tensed. A faint but heavenly aroma of flowers and cinnamon wafted from Helen's waves of hair, left untamed and unfastened to dry. Cordelia knew she'd taken a bath after their tea with Thomas. And when she'd returned, she'd told Cordelia she'd lathered her locks in a French savon that one of the Baronesses serving girls had brought them. Cordelia had struggled not to envision the scene, biting down on her lips so hard she nearly bled.
Freaked by how that same scent swirled out of Helen's pores, intending to intoxicate her, Cordelia removed her hand, crept out of Helen's space, and shook her head.
"Just... shut up, will you? Do not speak such things in public. Well," she peeked around, realizing they were quite alone, "not out here."
Their only listeners would have been the guard that had accompanied her, and the one that had apparently arrived with Helen. And last she'd checked, both loomed near the manor doors, disinterested in the conversation happening in the rear gardens.
"Anyone could report us." Cordelia drew another step backwards, able to breathe normally, no longer inhaling the delectable scents Helen produced. "I am unclear what Thomas will do with whatever it is he thinks he knows, what he may suspect between us. This is dangerous, and you must be more careful."
"What is dangerous?" Helen tiptoed closer; again, her perfumed hair captured Cordelia's attention and clogged her nostrils. "Report us for what?"
Cordelia chewed on her lip, then covered the motion with her hands, as if to protect herself. As if the view of her biting would somehow arouse Helen. "Merde, Helen. Stop it. We cannot do this."
"Do what?" If worried or afraid, Helen didn't show it, continuing to lessen the distance between them. She was inches away now, her presence overpowering, her shadow about to consume Cordelia whole. She smiled, and Cordelia's heart skipped a beat. "Ah, so you do remember, right?"
"Helen." Cordelia meant for her voice to sound like a warning bell, a signal to back off. Yet it slurred off her tongue like a summons, like a request to come closer. And of course, Helen obliged.
The tips of their shoes collided. Helen's breath flurried over Cordelia's nose and cheeks, shivering through her lashes, but she didn't touch her. "You are repressing it all. Why? Are you frightened, Princess?"
"Frightened?" Cordelia's eyes half-closed, as if a surge of wind had brushed up on her eyelids, testing their resilience. "Frightened of what?"
"The truth." Helen spoke so fast, anticipating Cordelia's responses, it was as if she'd predicted them before they happened. "The reality of what is blooming and that you refuse to acknowledge. Cordelia." Her voice was a flutter of a butterfly's wings, a gentle fingertip caressing over her skin. "Take my hands. Let me help you remember."
Though her gut pulled her backwards, urging her to not permit Helen to come any nearer, Cordelia's instincts somehow lulled her forward, instead. Her hands fell into Helen's, and she squeezed, as if infusing Cordelia's body with energy, as if thrusting her memories into her.
Was it magic? Cordelia had no idea, and yet she saw it all so clearly, for the first time in weeks. Helen's proximity, her familiar fragrance, triggered recollections to jump out of their hiding spots and flash through Cordelia's mind in speeds so daunting she felt nauseous.
There they were, dancing and hugging and yelling, cheering at someone chugging down a massive tub of ale, tumbling over one another in fits of laughter. It might have been in Dijon, or in some other location, Cordelia couldn't tell. But this time, there was no fog surrounding her visions. There was no blur as she set her arms over Helen's shoulders, and Helen clasped her hands at Cordelia's lower back, pulling her closer, against her warmth. And though Cordelia was watching the spectacle from an outsider's perspective, intruding in one of her own dreams, she felt that warmth. She felt the trickling kisses Helen planted up her neck, along her chin, on her cheeks, on her lips—
She gasped, wishing to remove her hands from Helen's, but she couldn't move. Helen held on tight, and Cordelia braced for the impact of more surges, more images she wasn't ready to view.
Oh, it got worse, much worse. Their backdrop went from a bar, to an alley adjacent to said bar, where they continued what they'd started inside. The embrace was tighter, the kisses were more intense, feverish, fumbled. Helen jammed Cordelia to the wall, and Cordelia emitted the faintest of squeaks, followed by a moan as she drew Helen against her. Their fingers explored each other's hair, teasing and tugging and twirling, and their lips were joined in a terrifying tangle that left them both breathless.
In the current timeline, Cordelia was breathless, too, revisiting these memories, unclear on how real they were. Was Helen some sorceress, planting these into her mind, convincing her this was what had happened? Or had something prompted her to remember? Had Helen's forcefulness woken something in her? Had the drugs finally left her system, after weeks and weeks of tampering with her remembrances?
Can it take that long to rid one's body of toxins?
One last image popped in, and this one knocked the life from Cordelia. They were in a room—oh, she remembered that, as it was the first time she and Helen had been permitted some privacy from the boys, given their own bed, their own quarters. And they'd needed that privacy, the isolation to snuggle close to one another, sniff at each other's skin to capture scents to memory, to exchange smooches in the darkness. To discover their bodies, hands wandering to places forbidden, tongues stroking and swirling and getting lost in—
"No." She ripped from Helen's grip at last, and swiveled away to recompose herself. Her cheeks were on fire, her stomach turning sour, filling with dread and disgust and confusion.
She'd never kissed anyone before, and during their travels, she'd expected her boundaries would be pushed, sure. But with Thomas, not with Helen. And as far as she recalled, she had gotten a bit intimate with Thomas, too, albeit remaining more on the chaste side, never exchanging saliva, never meandering under skirt hems and past waistbands.
Promiscuity was one thing she didn't shun others for, but would never authorize herself to indulge in. She'd seen what it could do—she'd seen Marguerite become pregnant in a matter of minutes after her first time lying with Antoine. And she'd seen how Harriet and Jules couldn't keep their hands off each other before their wedding, and the child that had brought them, prematurely. Though she wouldn't deny she'd had fantasies once or twice upon meeting handsome men at court, or after catching maids locking lips in the basement, she'd never acted on them.
Dijon and its poisonous atmosphere, its excess, its nighttime appeal of taverns and promises of fabulous fun. It had ruined Cordelia into not only giving into temptation, but into absolute sin. Because she'd given in... to a woman. She didn't judge others for it, no; but her, the Princess of Totresia, engaged in an affair with a member of the same sex?
Absolutely not.
Jules would praise her for it. But Antoine? Marguerite? Sébastien? All would throw her in a distant tower to rot until she understood her errors. Until she begged forgiveness for indulging in such a sinful act.
"You are afraid."
Helen's voice was that of a devil, a temptress—and yet it anchored Cordelia to reality, dragging her out of her visions of betrayal and shame. Back to the gardens, and the maple-haired woman before her.
Helen's hands were joined, resting under her chin, and her demeanor was casual, calm. Was she not offended by what they'd done? Was she not repulsed, regretful, worried about the consequences?
"You... and me..." Cordelia's vocal chords were inactive, hibernating. She choked on her words, and Helen grasped her wrists, keeping her steady. "We..."
"We, that is the key word, Cordelia." Helen's thumbs snuck under Cordelia's sleeves and traced slow circles on her skin, in a soothing manner that Cordelia wanted to appreciate, but battled to accept. Yet if she freed herself now from Helen's grasp, she'd topple over, she'd lose control, she'd weep.
She cannot see me weak.
"We. You did not stop me when I first," Helen lowered her volume, "kissed you. And I did not stop you when your fingers crawled under my dress."
"My fingers... I... what?" Cordelia sensed a cold sweat gathering over her forehead. A sickness swelled in her stomach, and she feared she'd vomit all over Helen's golden-hued gown if they didn't halt the conversation immediately.
But Helen wasn't finished. "Yes, you. It may appear that I instigated this, but it was mutual, Cordelia. Every whispered desire, every kiss, everything we did—mutual. And yes, the drugs unhinged us both enough to become comfortable, to unleash our feelings. But they only woke something existing inside of us." She released a lengthy breath, then reached out to take Cordelia's elbow. "Here, let me get you to the bench—"
Cordelia gagged, then clamped her mouth shut to bar anything from jolting up and out. She broke free from Helen's clutch, and raced to the fountain, where she plunged her gloved hands into the stream of water. She threw the liquid over her face, her neck; and as the droplets drizzled between her breasts, she growled.
Had she stirred this up? Her memories were still flimsy, and she had no inkling whether or not to trust them.
"No." She whipped past Helen, who'd followed her to the fountain, on alert and ready to help in case Cordelia were to become wobbly.
But Cordelia wasn't wobbly, nor did she require any assistance. In her embarrassment, in her fury at what she'd enabled, she'd regained strength and found a means to shove down her nausea.
She was several steps ahead of Helen, and didn't bother to turn around as she spoke, though she slowed her pace to ensure the young woman heard her. "You were right; they were repressed memories. Repressed for a reason, Helen. I remember them now, and none of those things can ever happen again. They are not allowed."
Already remorseful of her strictness, of her disregard for Helen's feelings, Cordelia stormed off. Helen was her friend, and they'd shared a lot together—more than Cordelia had assumed—but she drew the limit at such carnal matters, such intimate physicality. Tears tickled at her lash-line, and she sped up. She had to get to their room first, to unleash all the sadness from her eyes before Helen caught up to her and somehow swayed her into changing her mind.
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