Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. There had to be some chemistry between us. I knew Peter. I liked him well enough. He was good and wholesome. Good and wholesome, not boring. There had to be a difference.
I forced myself to smile. Peter returned my smile eagerly, then inched forward. My stomach dropped.Great, Laurel, I told myself.Now you’ve done it. What did you get yourself into this time?
Peter began to close his eyes.
This wasn’t what I wanted. I had let my loneliness walk me straight into a moment I shouldn’t be in. Peter was sweet, and I was perfectly awful. He deserved honesty, not a girl trying to turn him into proof that she could stop loving someone else.
He had leaned so close he nearly tipped over. I felt sorry for him. Wasn’t this what I was supposed to want? To be noticed and sought after by an honorable, upstanding man? I should’vebeen pleased. I should’ve been able to lean forward with any semblance of excitement. But still, I hesitated. I couldn’t kiss Peter. I just couldn’t.
Then, unbidden, my mind transformed Peter’s face into Baron’s and my longing hit so intensely that I couldn’t prevent myself from leaning forward eagerly. But it immediately felt wrong. Peter’s lips were dry and chapped, and our noses bumped in an awkward way. This was nothing like kissing Baron. Nothing at all. Shame and regret washed through me even before the kiss was over and I broke away to stand so quickly Peter startled.
“I need to go,” I said in a rush.
“Laurel?” His voice was confused.
“I’m sorry,” I said, though the words were far too small for what I had done. Then I ran.
“Wait,” Peter called after me, but I didn’t stop.
I didn’t stop to pack supplies for the return journey. I didn’t even grab my water skin or say goodbye to anyone. I went straight to the stables, mounted Baron’s horse, and kicked him into a full gallop.
We plunged through the thicket, back toward Prince John’s castle. I was sickened with myself. What had possessed me to behave so thoughtlessly? I had led on someone I had no interest in, someone I would never be interested in, all because I was lonely and desperate to prove that Baron could be replaced. Peter had done nothing wrong. He had been kind and steady. His only crime had been being foolish enough to care about me, and I had rewarded him by using him to test whether my own heart could be bullied into obedience.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve over and over, until my lips nearly bled from being rubbed raw, but I still felt tainted and dirty.
Why did you go and do a stupid thing like that?the tiny voice in the back of my head asked.
Shut up, I argued silently. I wanted to rationalize my behavior. I wasn’t committed to anyone. I could kiss whomever I liked.
What would Baron say?the voice asked.
Who cares?I retorted silently.We aren’t together anymore, remember? It wouldn’t matter to him.
Wouldn’t it?quipped the voice.
I clenched my teeth. He wouldn’t care. He would probably be glad to be rid of me, glad that I was someone else’s problem. He had given me space, exactly as I had demanded. He hadn’t come after me or begged me to take him back or cornered me in a hallway. He was the Sheriff of Nottingham. If he’d wanted to talk to me, he could’ve ordered for me to be brought to him, but he hadn’t. He was probably perfectly content without me.
Loving Baron this much made me feel pathetic and vulnerable and weak, especially when I wanted him back after I’d been the one to walk away. I wanted to stay angry at him because it was easier than examining the unbearable pain beneath my anger. I was the one who had started the arguments. All Baron had done was told me I was hasty and impulsive.
What lies.
If you aren’t hasty or impulsive, the voice asked,what was all that business just now with Peter?
Baron had been right about me after all.
Iwasimpulsive. I was hasty. I had ended things in a rage, avoided him for weeks, and then kissed Peter because I was too proud to admit I still wanted Baron. Every decision I had made since that night only proved that Baron had been right about everything.
Would he want me back? After all these weeks of ignoring him, would Baron be willing to reconcile? And then there wasan added layer of complexity I’d just added. What would he do when he found out about Peter? Did I have the courage to admit my wrongdoings just as he’d done with me? Or would he hate me for it like I had hated him?
I didn’t want to think anymore.
I bent low over the horse’s neck and focused on the wild landscape rushing past and closed my mind to everything else.
BARON
Laurel would be back. She wouldn’t leave a mission incomplete, no matter how angry she was with me. It was as though I could predict Laurel’s actions perfectly. She always thought she was so clever, but I knew exactly the sort of things she would do.
For two nights in a row, I stood in a dark corner of the stables and listened to mice rustle through straw, horses shift in their stalls, and distant guards clank past on patrol. I had dismissed Conrad for failing in his duties, and no replacement had been hired yet. Agnes had taken pity on the lad and hired him to work in the kitchens, much to the delight of Laurel’s friend Aalis. The arrangement suited everyone well enough, except perhaps Conrad, who would now spend his days being watched adoringly by a girl he had no idea how to speak to.
