“You poor, poor things.”
“Come on.” He stood up, grabbed my arm gently and helped me to my feet. “Time to go inside. Your lips are turning blue.”
“Not yet.”
“Yes. Look at you, you’re shaking.”
“But—” I pinched the hem of my dress.
“What’s wrong, Ara?”
“I…I’ve hardly spent any time with you since you’ve been here.”
“We can come out here again,” he suggested. “And I’ll still be here tomorrow.”
I nodded, looking at my feet. “Do you think…Can…when we get back to the manor, can you stay with me for a bit?”
“Stay?”
“Mm-hm.”
He grew a little taller, and the wind moved under his arms as he rubbed his head, brushing a mix of his cologne and him across my nose. “Ara, I want to—God knows, but it’s late.”
“Well, I'm not ready to go to bed yet.”
“Yes, you are. I can see how tired you are.” He ran his icy thumb across the skin under my eye.
“I know, but, I like spending time with you, Jase—time that’s not just a dream.”
“Aw, you sweet thing.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “How can I possibly resist that?”
The stars faded, keeping the secrets of this pair who sat talking all night, watching the sun rise in each other’s company. There were so many things I wanted to ask him—so many things I wanted to say, but each time my thoughts brushed on horrors of the past—things he locked inside as his own torturous regrets—he’d switch the subject. He was fighting a battle inside for what he’d done to me, and he was fighting it alone.
I shuffled down a little more on the settee by the fireplace and crossed my ankles, my legs straightened out over his lap. “I wish we could do this every night.”
Jason smiled down at my wedding ring, twisting it around on my finger for the hundredth time. “I'm sure my brother would approve of that.”
“We’re just talking. I don't think he’d mind.”
He looked at my legs. “I’d mind—if I was him.”
I laughed. “Only because you know you have all the wrong intentions. Whereas, I, on the other hand, don't.”
He shook his head, his eyes small, his tight lips blossoming into a full grin. “You are a terrible liar, Ara-Rose.”
“Me? A liar?” I said, crossing my ankles the other way. “You’re just reading into it wrong. And why do you keep doing that with my ring?”
He grinned down and brought his other hand up slowly, pinching the white-gold band between his fingertips. “I'm taking it off you.”
“Why?” I straightened my finger, letting him slide the ring over my knuckle.
“Because it looks wrong. We’re supposed to be a couple, yet you wear this like some shrine to your supposedly dead husband.” He slipped it into his pocket. “Removing this will give the people some hope.”
I kept my eyes on his pocket for a few seconds. “Fine. But don't lose it.”
He laid a hand to his chest. “I've never lost anything I hold close to my heart.”
“So, your heart is in your back pocket?” I joked.
“No. It’s on my sleeve,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, but inside, thought that was really sweet.
In the background, an acoustic playlist of my favourite bands kept time to our magic little world; each song bringing this closer to an end. We sat quietly then, both hearing the words to a song about being in a dream together, and Jason smiled, because they fit so perfectly to our situation.
“Who’s this by?” he asked.
“Gavin DeGraw.”
The corner of his lip turned up sharply and his smiling eyes focused on nothing, as the words played out around us. “Do you think he wrote it just for us?”
“Maybe he did and he doesn't know it.”
“Maybe.”
I ran the tip of my thumb over his nail, feeling the melody fill me up like Jason’s mere presence did, and neither of us had words for a while, because everything we wanted to say was being sung to us by a person we’d never met. But the song ended with the rise of day, and the sun reached out to all corners of the manor, blowing away the intimacy of candlelight with the cold light of truth.
“I should go,” he said, rubbing a hand over my leg, warming it a little. “It’s not really right for me to be in here with you like this.”
“How noble of you.” I rolled my eyes. “Yet it was okay while it was dark.”
“I'm sorry, Ara. It’s just—I forget sometimes, you know.” His eyes narrowed as if he was thinking really hard. “I'm so used to you being mine, so used to being in that world of neither here nor there that it’s automatic for me to love you as my own. But it’s wrong, and I don't wanna be that guy.”
“I know. And I don't want to be that girl, either.”
He brushed his thumb over my jaw, smiling. “I know you don't, Ara. And when we were in those dreams before, we were both so caught up in the confusion of it all, and, honestly, I never cared if I hurt David, but, somehow, throwing him on a fire to burn alive kinda mended the hatred I had for him.”
“Then why didn't you try that in the first place—instead of ruining the first ball I ever went to?”
“Ooh, low-blow,” he said with a grin, his lovely dimple showing. “Well, if I could go back, I’d do it all differently.”
“I know that, Jase.” I patted his hand. “And you’re right, you know—David would be very pissed-off to see us sitting like this.”
“It’s just so hard, though,” he whined. “I want to be this way with you, and I know you want it, too. And maybe that’ll change when you’ve got David here to love you like you need, but, right now, while he’s not, and while you’re willing to let me be close with you, I will have to fight incredibly hard with myself not to put us in situations like this.”
“Situations?” I looked down at his hand on my lower thigh, his fingers falling softly between them.
“Yeah, you know, getting closer, hanging out like we’re in love—spending the night together.”
“It’s not like we slept together.”
“It will happen, though, Ara,” he stated. “If we keep this up, I won't be able to let you go when he comes back, and neither will you.”
I laughed then because, as he said that, a song playing said, “I won't let you go,” as if my playlist had been perfectly selected to musically portray our emotions. If Highway to Hell came on, I’d be very concerned.
Jason laughed, obviously having read all that in my thoughts. “Speaking of highway,” he said, shifting my legs as he stood up. “I’ll hit it—leave you to sleep.”
“I'm not tired.”
“Liar.” He grinned and wandered over to my fireplace.
I sat up. “Um, Jase, the door’s the other way.”
“I know,” he said, then just stood there, rapping on the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“I have a theory about this wall.”
“What about it?”
“Well, my room has only one window, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But, from the outside of the manor, there are exactly sixteen windows on the west wing’s second floor. So…where is the last room, if my window is number fifteen?”
“Urm…I don't know.” I walked over to stand beside him.
“Exactly. So, I got to thinking, and I did a little digging around.” He pushed on the wall panel. “When I was a kid, we used to find secret passages all over this place.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Can you show me some?”
“Sure.” He pushed another spot on the wall and smiled. “One thing we came to learn was that most secret doors were a push-release panel; you shove it, it pops out, then you can open it.” He stood back and revealed a small opening where my wall was a second ago.
“It’s a secret passage.”
He nodded. “Leading into whatever is beside my room.”
I looked at him, then at the door. “Can we go check it out?”
He smiled, pressing the panel back in place. “Not today. You need sleep, and I want to make sure it’s safe before you go wandering around down there. This passage may not even lead to that room. I only suspected it because you said you heard noises coming up from the wall.”
“I told you that?”
“Well, okay, no, you thought it, but, the point still stands. I’d just really like to be there to explore it with you. Will you wait for me?”
“Why can't we go now?”
“Because—” He looked at his watch. “You have to be up for queen duties in two hours, and I’ve got to go into town today.”
“What for?”
“Shopping.” He grinned. “I didn't bother packing any clothes when I left Rome, so I've been borrowing Eric’s, but he’s a bit bigger in the waist than I am.” He lifted his shirt and showed the gap between his golden V of muscles and the waistband of his jeans. “I need some new clothes.”
“Clearly.”
“Want anything from town while I'm there?”
My eyes went wide. “A block of chocolate!”
“Okay. If you promise to wait for me before you go down that tunnel, I’ll bring you a month’s supply.”
“Okay. I promise.”
He leaned in and lowered his face to meet me eye-to-eye, then held out his little finger. “Pinkie promise?”
I looped mine over his. “Pinkie promise.”
“Good. Now.” He kissed my head. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Okay,” I said, folding my arms, watching him open my bedroom door. “Night, Jase.”
“Night, Ara.”
As the door closed, the loneliness of my room swallowed me up again. All around my head, overtiredness mixed with confusion, and I felt a tear on my cheek. I swiped it away and looked down at my hand—at the clear patch of skin where my ring should be.
Since speaking to Arthur last night, I’d not had a chance to digest what he told me, because I couldn’t think of it while Jason was around. But, alone, in my room, finally with time to think, I didn't want to.
I waltzed over and sat by my dresser mirror, my eyes tracing lines over the face of the girl there. When she looked back at me these days, I saw only myself—not the mask, not the confusion or the troubled eyes of the lost soul—just me. What I felt for David, what I felt for Jason and even Mike was all clear in my head now. And it was okay. I loved Jason, though I had to keep that secret for the rest of forever. I loved David, but couldn't be with him yet. And I loved Mike as a friend. Clear.
But being clear about how I felt meant one other thing confused me more; what to do about this dagger and Arthur.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and texted, Arthur, I don't need to think about it anymore. I can't lose him. Meet me tonight?
He didn't reply.
I tapped my heel, drumming my fingers on my knee while I waited. But there was nothing. I sent another; Arthur. Did you get my message?
A reply came through immediately; My dear, you haven’t thought this through. Get some sleep. We’ll talk about it in a few weeks.
No! I sent back. I need to do this before I chicken out and run away to another state. I'm scared, Arthur, and we’re running out of time. It could take a month or more before we’ll even know if I'm pregnant.
I crawled into bed and hugged my pillow, tugging a corner of my blanket over my knees, when my phone bleeped with another message.
Have you done a test to make sure you’re not already pregnant?
Yes, I wrote. It was negative.
The clock across the room ticked, and I focused so intently on it that the minute hand moved over three or four numbers, my heart remaining steady the whole time, until another message came through; Ok.
What does ‘Ok’ mean?
Tonight, he wrote.
I swallowed, blinking away the hot, stinging tears, then wrote back ‘Ok’ and deleted the messages before turning off my phone.
Chapter Nineteen
We were just two shadows in the darkness of the training hall; no one passing would see us here, and no one was close enough to hear what we were about to do—how I was about to betray my husband to save his life.
Last night, being so close to Jason on the lighthouse rooftop, then spending all day away from him, made me realise that I may have admitted I loved him, but had in no way come to terms with it, and in that, wasn't ready to let him die for me—or for my people. However, I knew if it was a choice between Jason and David, I’d let Jason go, but while I had a choice—while Arthur was here, right in front of me, ready to give his life up, I’d let him.
He took my hand and drew me closer, sliding his cool touch down my spine and back up again, lifting my dress, taking it over my head. I watched it fall to the floor in the dark, tucking my elbows into my bare chest—not quite ready to let him see.
“You’re so tiny. Such a fragile little thing.” He cupped his hand to the side of my face, gently moving my wrists away from my chest. “Don't be scared, Amara. I won't hurt you.”
“I'm not scared,” I whispered in a shaky breath. “It’s just…it just feels so wrong.”