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friends.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

     
     
    IT WAS RUMORED THAT KATHRYN Shallon carried the blood of an ancient king in her veins. Though she may have had royalty in her genes, her father cared very little for his mixed-breed Irish mutt and often disregarded his daughter. Despite the intentions of her mother to segregate us in light of his negligence, Kathryn and I became very close friends, growing up in the same, majestic household.
    I spoke little at first, though I knew very well how to. It was not long before our lives united and both English and Gaelic words were common between us. She spoke with an elegance acquired from her noble lineage and I was quick to learn the differences in the languages spoken by the separate classes to which we belonged. I used each dialect only where it would be considered acceptable by those around me.
    It was overlooked by Kathryn’s parents in the beginning—our closeness. Like a brother, I was both cohort and confidant in every scheme she plotted. I grew with her and she passed her knowledge of reading and writing on to me so that I would not be ignorant in the eyes of others.
    She may have been born of higher status, but the years of time spent at each other’s sides and the hours of teaching she shared with me made us much more than servant and master. And though I always had work to do, there were brief hours of fading light and early dawn where we found the time to speak to one another.
    It was an age when a man’s life was worth only as much as the change in his pockets, and I had none. Still, I was determined to arm myself with what currency I could. It was uncommon for a servant to be educated in the higher arts of calligraphy and inflection, but I took pride in my decision to secretly master them both. And I will always be grateful to Kathryn for lending me her patience as my teacher.
    Things were fine with my quiet new life. I spoke to few, complained of nothing, and kept to myself during the day as I worked around the manor. Everything was as it should have been.
    Until we changed…
    When our eyes met, Kathryn would return a shy glance. Her breath quickened whenever I approached. Her fingers often brushed against mine, inadvertently, or so she wanted me to believe. I, too, felt a disturbance in the air between us.
    The angelic curves of her face and the subtle blush of her cheeks became apparent to me. Her eyes bluer than the sky. Her lips the color of frosted rose petals.
    Words were harder to find, and the scent of her presence filled me with new thoughts and desires—desires I cursed myself for conceiving at all. And so, I ignored them. With all of my might I pushed my feelings aside in order to preserve th e friendship we had. In her world, it was not within my rights to feel the way I did.
     
    Kathryn called for me one evening, just before the sun had begun to sink below the horizon. I hesitantly obeyed and went up to her room. It wasn’t the childish snickers from the young servant girls that discouraged me from going, but the unsettling and increasingly frequent glances of suspicion I’d recently begun to receive from Kathryn’s mother. Her father, on the other hand, took little notice of our meetings and sometimes ignored my presence altogether.
    When I approached, she sat on the edge of her bed and motioned for me to partially close the door for privacy. As always, I did as I was told, but the creaking of the iron hinge planted a seed of guilt in me this time.
    She held out her hand and curled her fingers inward, drawing me closer. Reluctantly, I neared her bedside and watched as she pulled a white handkerchief from a plate, uncovering a sumptuous array of baked sweets.
    “For you, Matthaya.” Her voice was pleasant as her hand gestured to a space beside her on the bed.
    She had always done this for me—saved bits from dinner. “ You deserve more than you are given ,” she’d always say. Her kindness comforted me on my darkest