“I came here after my bath,” Shiloh said, returning to Tasha’s question. “I had hoped to convince Rivven to take his bed back. But then I found him asleep. I sat down and…I guess I fell asleep, too.” A sheepish smile touched her lips.
I also wanted to touch her lips.
“Sorry,” she said. I waited for someone else to reply to this.
But they were all looking at me.
“What are you apologizing to me for?” I asked, bewildered.
“I just…I didn’t mean to intrude. I hope I wasn’t sprawling or snoring or clinging to you too much.”
“It didn’t look like she was the one doing the clinging,” Warden Tenn whispered to Tasha. Tasha kept her eyes forward, ignoring her husband’s mouth at her ear.
“It was no intrusion,” I said. “None at all! You may sleep wherever you like, whenever you like.” I got to my feet, and that seemed to go alright. Though I kept my hat held in front of my stubbornly swollen shaft.
“It’s a shame that nobody got to sleep in the bed last night,” Shiloh said with a laugh. “Maybe you can tonight, Rivven.”
“Absolutely not,” I answered at once. “I do not wish you to catch another migraine.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that,” she replied. “It’s why I didn’t wake you up last night. I figured I’d be interrupting your sleep just for you to tell me you weren’t going to move.”
That was good of her. Kind. To let me sleep. Maybe a little too kind, as I would have liked to have been awake. To have shared a little extra time with her.
But it was more than just good or kind. She did not wake me because she wanted me to rest, but also because she knew that waking me would have been pointless. She knew what I would have said without even asking me.
Last night, when I’d held the knife and she’d stepped backwards, stepped further away from me, I’d told myself it was because she did not yet know me.
Perhaps that was already beginning to change.
“Let me show you around today,” I said. I hadn’t planned on the words coming out of my mouth. They just did. “If you’re well enough, and don’t mind spending some time outside. I can give you a sense of how the property runs. You could meet the animals.”
“Um…” Shiloh looked at Tasha.
Well, she did not say no right away. That was something, I supposed a bit glumly.
“That’s completely fine,” Tasha said. “If you want to and, like Rivven says, you’re feeling up to it, anyway. Tenn and I won’t be doing anything you’ll find very interesting. We’ll be on his slicer all day, using his plough attachment to keep clearing the road before the others arrive.”
The others.
Blast.
Maybe it would snow tonight. Slow them down a little. Give me a few extra days alone with her.
I had not ever known myself to be this selfish before. This very selfishness likely proved I was unworthy of her, but I could not seem to shake it.
“OK. Sure. That would be great, Rivven.”
It was remarkable. Truly, it should have been studied at the highest levels of the Zabrian Academy. How just a few simple words from this woman could so completely alter my mood. Even my physical sense of well-being was suddenly changed for the better. Energy flooded me. I felt as if I could accomplish all my chores in half their usual time today.
Maybe I would, with her eyes on me.
And maybe that would mean something. Prove something. Show her that I was strong, that I had stamina, and that, even though I certainly did not deserve her, I would not be too terribly bad a choice.
And if, in the end, she did not choose me…
For a moment, the orphans’ barracks were all I could see.
…Well, I was used to that.
