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“I am… sorry, Miss Parker.” His hands retreated from her face and her neck, as he used them to push himself up and away from her. “Please, forgive my behavior. I do not know what came over me. You are correct… I do not understand what you have endured, or what sort of world you have come from. I apologize profusely if I have frightened you.” He stood up quickly and reached out to help her stand.
She took his aid and let him bring her to her feet. “I’m not frightened, and… you are forgiven, My Lord. Of course, you are forgiven.” Her fingertips kept hold of his for a moment longer, her skin missing the way his hands had felt upon her neck and her hair. She did not know what conclusion he had come to in his head, but he had evidently thought better of kissing her. It disappointed her to the depths of her heart, but logic told her it was likely for the best.
It would only cause trouble, and I didn’t come here to cause trouble.She tried to convince herself that they had narrowly avoided catastrophe, but as she peered up at him, she could not help but gaze at his lips and wonder what it might have felt like. She noticed him doing the same thing before he hurriedly averted his eyes.
“We should return to the house before you are missed. The housemaids may raise the alarm if they think you have been lost because of their unkind jest, and I would not have anyone find us together due to what you said before about the gossip, it might bring your way.” He locked his arms firmly behind his back, as though he did not trust them otherwise, and headed off for the woodland, giving her no opportunity to protest.
Picking up her now slightly squashed bouquet of wildflowers, she followed in his footsteps, keeping a safe distance behind him. As they reached the darkness of the path through the trees, he did not offer his hand to give her assistance this time. Instead, he left her to pick her way through the tangled path by herself, where she faltered and stumbled over vines and roots and thickets of weeds.
He is cold again… And I don’t know if I can make him thaw.It saddened her as she walked, cursing every hidden branch that snagged at her ankles and the sticky weed that latched onto the hem of her dress, trying to get beneath to cling to her bare skin.
“You weren’t wrong, My Lord,” she said, eager to hear his voice instead of the snapping of twigs and the rustle of their footsteps, for each one made her think there might be someone else skulking in the forest with them. After all, she had yet to locate her father, though she had searched the woods at every possible opportunity since their return from Skelton Bay. Indeed, being in the open, beautiful meadow was the first time she had been able to forget about his furtive presence, potentially on this estate somewhere.
“Pardon?” he replied, his tone gruff.
“You weren’t wrong about living life the way you want or die trying.” She clenched her hand into a fist, willing herself to be brave. “But… if I may say so, My Lord, you don’t seem happy living your life the way you do. I don’t see you as a hollow shell, but I don’t know how you feel within yourself. I hope… you find a reason to continue living, and that you find a reason to live well. I know you’re deserving of that.”
Lord Langston stopped abruptly, causing Rose to run directly into the back of him. He turned in the darkness and caught her face in his hands, and though she could not see his eyes, she knew he was looking at her.
“If you knew me, truly knew me, you would not offer me a word of kindness, nor would you say that I was deserving of any goodness,” he whispered, his voice harsh with emotion. “I deserve nothing, and I certainly do not deserve such sympathy and sweetness from you. I would not see you tainted by me, for you are an angel on this Earth and I… I am a devil.”
He dropped his hands and resumed his walking, leaving Rose breathless with bafflement and longing. After taking a second to collect herself, she hurried after him. As they burst back out onto the lakeshore, she only had to take one look at his face to know that he would say no more this night. His beautiful face was pale in the moonlight, his eyes glassy with that haunted look she had seen so often, and though he made sure to walk at her side, he could not have been further away from her.
You aren’t a devil, Lord Langston. I won’t believe it. Whatever you have done, whatever you think you must be punished for, whatever is tormenting you… There aren’t many things that can’t be forgiven.
As they returned to the house, she only hoped this would not be the last time they spent together. Even if she could only be there as an ear to listen or a reassuring voice to pull him through his unknown darkness, she would.
You just have to let me…That was the trouble, for she did not know if he would. Perhaps, he thought he was too far gone to be saved, but she reasoned it was due time that she was the one who saved him instead of the other way around.
