Page 78 of Waking Roslyn

“He…offered me”—she sucked in a little gasp that told me she was on the verge of crying again—“his company.” And then she did dissolve into tears, the weight of her head pressing into the crook of my neck.

It took me several moments of shocked silence to convince myself that I had understood both her words and what they meant. Surely, one of the guards wouldn’t…and yet, her profound distress told me that yes, that was exactly what had happened. I forced several steadying breaths in and out of my lungs before I asked, in the calmest voice I could muster, “When you said no”—because I had no doubt she had said no—“did he accept that answer?”

One of her shoulders lifted and my heart dropped into my stomach. “Pretty much,” she said, letting out a shuddering sigh as she still fought her tears. “I had to get very high and mighty, be very blunt, and then threaten his job, but he left after that.”

A sigh whooshed from my lungs, knowing that if a guard had been bold enough to even suggest such a thing, it could have been so much worse. “I can hardly believe it. Why would he—”

“He’s seen us,” she said, pulling back so that I could see her face. “When we”—she dropped her eyes—“are training. He’s seen us go into the forest together, so he thought—”

I shot to my feet and she stopped talking. I was horrified. This had happened because of me? I turned my back to her, but there was nowhere to go in this small space. “Saints, I am such a fool.”

“No, you’re not,” she said from behind me.

I spun to face her. “Oh, yes I am. I know better than this. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all. If I’d been thinking, then I wouldn’t have been so careless with your reputation.”

Suddenly she sprang to her feet and stepped up to me, one slim finger poking into my chest. “I knew what I was doing! I’m not an idiot. I knew it was a risk, and I was willing to take it. I thought that since we weren’t…doing anything wrong that there was no harm. And there wasn’t!”

I was speechless, fascinated by this version of Rose, the version that took control and wasn’t afraid to tell me I was wrong.

“I haven’t done anything to ruin my reputation,” she proclaimed, fitting her hands on her hips and looking defiant. “And if that guard didn’t already have a black heart, then it wouldn’t even be an issue.” Her defiant mask slipped and she looked away, hugging herself. “But I should have known better. I was just so grateful to be in a place where my every move wasn’t watched by critical nobles and curious servants. I was careless.”

“We’ll just…” I said, trying to think of a solution that might help her to move forward. “We’ll be more cautious in the future. If we speak where people can see us, we’ll be polite. And when we need to practice, we’ll always meet there and never go together.”

She stared at the floor but nodded her head eventually. “Yes, that’s a good idea.” She sniffed. “I can pretend like I’m the sort of person who would never lower myself to befriend someone of a station beneath me.”

It felt like a punch to my stomach, having my own words thrown back at me, the words I’d used just three weeks ago. “I’m sorry I said those things.”

She shrugged but didn’t look up. “It’s how you felt.”

“That doesn’t mean I was right. It was an unfair assumption. It was just my own…insecurity, and I’m sorry. I’ve just…never been around someone like you.”

She looked up at me and her eyes looked tired. “Yes, that’s the trouble. No one will let me fit in anywhere. And sometimes it feels like no one wants me to fit in anywhere.”

“I want you to fit,” I said, knowing with everything inside me that it was true.

“Do you?” she asked, and the uncertainty in her voice broke my heart.

“Yes.”

“Where?” she challenged. “Where do you want me to fit? You want me to fit in this household, where guards ask for favors, and the lord of the manor raises his hand to me? Or with the Winberg nobility who gawk? Or maybe with the Saldian society who wish me dead?”

I reached out and tugged her toward me until she was fully enveloped in my arms. I pressed her to my chest and rested my chin on top of her head. “Here. I want you to fit here.”

She clung to me and I held her for a long time, wanting her to know that if she needed someone to hold on to, I would always be willing. As we stood in the stillness of that room, I wondered how it was that so many people had managed to make her feel like nobody. The daughter of a duke, and possibly the future queen of Saldine, and instead of being able to grow and thrive, she was forced to hide and survive.

When she finally pulled back, I looked down into her face, raising a hand to push a lock of hair from her forehead. The way she looked up at me with such trust and vulnerability made me swallow. Oh how I hoped I didn’t end up letting her down.

Her lips were soft and slightly parted, and for a moment I let myself wonder what it would feel like to kiss her. I’d kissed a number of girls and I’d always found it fun and enjoyable, but the idea of kissing Rose…it wouldn’t be just a kiss. If I ever kissed Rose, it would be because it meant something, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to walk down that road. Instead, I cleared my throat and asked, “Are you going to be all right?”

She searched my eyes for several moments, her lips twisted off to one side before she slowly nodded and loosened her hold on me.

“Good,” I said, allowing myself to step back. “I would offer to walk you upstairs, but…”

She gave a cynical chuckle. “We can’t give the guards more to gossip over.”

“I care about you too much to cause problems for you.”

At my words, a genuine smile tugged on her lips. It was small, but having earned it buoyed me up. She reached up and brushed her fingers along my jaw and I nearly stopped breathing. “Thank you, John.”