“In the back, unloading crates off the cart,” Acantha answered, not looking up from their careful stacking. I knew how precariously those vials were stacked. I’d knocked them over just two days before. It had been a miracle none had shattered.
I thanked them and went through the canvas flaps at the back of the stall to find Castien.
The sun hit him perfectly the moment I saw him, illuminating strands of red and gold in what I thought to be plain brown hair. Sweat glistened on his face, and his tunic sleeves were rolled up to show the full breadth of his arm muscles. The dream version of him I’d created had nothing on the reality. My mouth went dry as I watched the flex of his muscles as he lifted a crate with ease.
He looked up as he straightened with the box, and his eyes landed on me. Just as with his hair, I noticed gold in the sunlight I’d not seen before. Golds and greens, adding depth to their warmth that struck me as one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. I couldn’t think of any flower or gem or dye that could ever compare.
Oh, this was going to be a problem.
Our eyes met for a moment, and I thought I saw color rise to his cheeks. I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was just exertion from lifting boxes. I moved out of his way to allow him entry into the stall and picked up a box of my own to follow. It was heavier than I’d imagined, and he’d lifted it with such ease.
“Where—” I grunted out as I entered. “Where does this one go?”
Castien put his box down just as easily as he lifted it and rushed to my side, lifting the box from my arms. Maybe he had figured out the unsaid subtext in my story about helping at my parents’ apothecary. Not only was I hopeless with numbers and herbal remedies, but I was clumsy as well. Especially when my hands were full.
He looked at the box and smiled. “Onto the cart,” he told me. My eyes widened as he moved past me and put the crate I’d just carried in onto the cart. “This one isn’t selling, so I’m pulling it,” he explained when he caught the look on my face. “I will try it again at the week’s end when more people travel to the market. Until then, there is no use keeping it on display.”
“If you’re too busy to help me today—” I started, because if he was moving new stock into the stall while working, then I could hardly fault him if he did not wish to escort me around.
“I’m not,” he cut me off. “I will be ready in just a few minutes. Acantha has promised to stock while we’re gone, if I will allow them to have the afternoon off again.”
“I’ll take their place.” Spending time with Castien wasn’t a burden. In fact, it was the opposite. Every moment I’d spent with him thus far had only made me want another. He turned away from the cart, one eyebrow raised in question. “I don’t mind. I enjoy working in your stall.”
I enjoyed spending time with him.
I waited to the side as he loaded another crate into the store and gave some last-minute instructions to his sibling before leading me into the market. “Do you want to try the Pavilion again today?” he asked.
I thought about it. I’d felt like a piece of meat on display, and I was not even a prime cut of meat. I was flank cut from the weakest cow dangled upon a vegetarian village. That was how much attention I’d garnered there. Then there was the unpleasant interaction with the woman who cared more for my potential to earn coin than who I was as a person.
No, I did not care to repeat that experience.
“Maybe we could walk around today,” I suggested.
He smiled and nodded. I was tempted to lead him toward the lane of Gearwick booths again. I wanted to hear him explain the innovation and intelligence behind each of the inventions, the way I had when we were young. I had not absorbed a single word he’d said, but I remembered the tenor of his voice then. It had just been in the process of deepening. I wondered what those words would sound like in the deep voice it had grown into.
Instead, we walked toward the clothing and gift stalls again. My eyes lingered on the intricately embroidered tunic that had caught my attention the first morning I’d been at market. “Do you like that?” he questioned as we passed.
“I do,” I told him before taking a few steps away from the stall. “I have been trying to convince myself not to purchase it since the first morning of market.”
“Why do you not buy it?”
“I have to stretch my coin to last the week. If it is still available and I can afford it, I will buy it before I leave.”
He accepted my answer easily, and we moved on. We looked at stalls all throughout the market, talking and laughing and showing each other things we enjoyed. I realized, around the time our stomachs were calling for lunch, that I had not looked at anyone else all morning.
How was I going to find a spouse when I could not look at anyone but Castien?
Acantha was quick to exit the stall when we returned. They barely waited for Castien to take the coin pouch before they slipped away through the crowd. Castien rolled his eyes at their sibling, but I don’t think they noticed. If they did, it didn’t slow their progress through the crowd.
Castien and I were left tending the empty stall. Acantha had, as promised, put away the stock from that morning and there were no customers visiting the stall. It was peaceful, the two of us perched on stools behind the counter. I could feel the heat from his knee, only inches from mine. It brought that moment from yesterday to the front of my mind, followed close behind by my dreams from the night before. If our legs simply being close was incendiary, would I survive if he ever touched me or would I light up like a bonfire?
More importantly, did he feel it too?
Moments passed in comfortable silence. Castien had a calming presence. Just being near him soothed me, made me feel more relaxed than I had since I left Emberleigh. Castien was working on his ledger, checking the sales that had been made over thecourse of the week. I sneaked peeks over his shoulder, but I did not understand a single thing written there. Acantha and Castien clearly had a well-practiced shorthand between them. Questions were born and died on the tip of my tongue because I was curious. I wanted to hear everything he could have to say, but the very idea of listening toanyonetalk about numbers made my mind fog.
I stepped down from the stool and began wandering the stall, examining some of the timepieces on display.
“You don’t have to stay,” Castien piped up as I wandered.
