(Amelia)
I should have gone to my room after dinner.
That had been my plan. Eat the meal Nathaniel made, accept his apology, and leave before I started thinking too much about what any of it meant. Instead, I stayed at the table while he cleared the plates. I watched him carry them into the kitchen.
"You don't have to do that," I said. "We have staff."
"I made the mess. I can clean it." Nathaniel picked up the last plate. "Stay there. There's something else."
He disappeared into the kitchen.
When he returned, he was carrying a small cake with one candle in the middle. I looked at it and then at him. After everything he'd already done that evening, I hadn't expected anything else. Nathaniel placed it in front of me.
"Ellis made the cake," he said. "I wasn't going to risk making desse
