CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mira was exhausted.
She’d been up late with Eve telling her about Arnes. She found the more that she spoke about the palace, the more excited she was to return home. She missed her bedroom and the endless other rooms to explore. She missed the easy gatherings at meal times and even, she was surprised to realize, the other ladies.
Eve was still sleeping, so Mira had slipped out before dawn to avoid prying questions from her mother. She threw herself into the chores, but now, several hours after the sun had risen, she sat on a large rock with a sweaty face and dirty hands.
That was how Tarquin found her. She scowled at him as she saw him, striding right toward her as if he belonged there, but when she opened her mouth to tell him to leave her alone she found herself not wanting to be alone.
So instead she was quiet as he stood in front of her, and quiet as he lifted her filthy hand from her lap and pressed a kiss to the back of it.
“What do you want from me?” she asked after several minutes of silence. The question reminded her of when he’d asked her the same thing, when he’d growled it while he was still inside of her, just after calling her the wrong name. She pulled her hand back from him and the look on his face made her sad, but not as sad as the memory had.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She nodded, keeping a careful distance between them. Her first impulse was to tell him to fuck off and leave her alone, to stop forcing her back into being by his side, to stop being so precious to her that she was completely and totally in love with him. He looked so helpless, though, watching her, so unsure. She was so angry, but she was also so very tired, tired of being mad and tired of running from him and tired of not knowing what was happening between them.
She reached up to touch his chest, to close the small gap that had never existed before. He knelt in front of her right away, so that they were face to face, and she was relieved when his arms opened for her. She slumped against his chest, treasuring his heat under her cheek, and before she knew what she was doing, her cheeks were wet against his shirt.
He held her head to him, gently stroked her back, and murmured into her hair. She stayed like that a long time, torn between hating him for dragging her back down with him and adoring him for coming for her— for not forcing her to be with him, but being available for her.
“Why were you so nice to them?” she sniffed, miserably.
He looked at her as if he didn’t understand. “Was I not supposed to be?” he asked.
“I didn’t know you could be nice,” she said. “You were never nice to me.”
“Oh, Mira,” was all he said, but there was regret on his face.
“It was easier when I thought you weren’t capable of being nice. But you were nice to them.”
He pulled her against him again. “I’m sorry,” he murmured against her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
She knew that he wasn’t apologizing for being nice, so she just pulled away and shook her head. “It’s fine, I just don’t know why…” she trailed off and looked up at him. “It’s been quite a fucking week.”
He cradled her head in his hands and watched her, the same look in his eyes. “What should I do, Mira? Can I help?” When she didn’t respond he asked her, “Should I leave?”
“Please don’t,” she said, shaking her head miserably. “I don’t know what you should do. I don’t know what I should do. I don’t know anything right now.”
“Sit with me,” he said, and when she didn’t protest he sat right on the ground in front of her, and then pulled her from her rock onto his lap. She protested vaguely, wanting to sit on the ground, too, but… she didn’t. She wanted him under her, wanted to soak in his warmth and solidity and presence. So she pressed her face to his chest again, and tried to forget about all the things she wanted to forget about.
“Will you take me home?” she asked. “I’m leaving in two days.”
He smiled. “I would love to take you home. I’m relieved you’re coming home.”
She scoffed at that and looked around. “You can’t actually think I would want to stay here?”
“I was worried you would,” he confessed. “That’s partially why I’m here.”
She looked up at him thoughtfully. “What would you do if I stayed here?” she asked, testing him. She wasn’t sure why she asked it; she wasn’t sure if she’d like the answer.
“Convince you not to,” he said. “And I was looking at houses nearby, just in case.”
She laughed at that. “Really?” she asked disbelievingly. “You’d miss me that much?”
She expected him to say that he’d miss annoying her, or miss fucking her. Instead he just pushed her hair back from her cheek and said, “I would.”
“Eve is coming too,” she said, suddenly serious. “If you won’t take her then I’ll walk with her.”
He looked at her strangely. “Why would I not take her too?”
“I don’t know,” she said sheepishly. “I don’t know if I’m just allowed to invite people to the palace. But she’s not staying here.”
“Of course you can,” he said. “It’s your home. I’ll be delighted to take both of you home.”
“Thank you,” she said, leaning her cheek against him again. “It doesn’t feel like it though. Ingrid invited me and then I just… stayed.”
“She wanted you to stay,” he said. “She hoped that you would when she wrote to you. She didn’t think Lily would want to stay long for John’s sake, but she thought you might stay awhile, since you were so eager to stay on at Dragongrove.”
Mira smiled faintly at that. “I hate it here,” she said. “I don’t know why; I don’t have any particular reason to. My parents love me, my brothers love me. I had a good childhood. I just can’t… be me. Not when I’m here.”
“I like you, especially when you’re you,” he said. He paused for a minute. “Ingrid wanted to invite you because she likes you, but also, I think, for my benefit.”
Mira blinked up at him. “You can’t pretend you didn’t hate me when we were at Dragongrove.”
“Never,” he said, and brushed his fingers along her jaw. “I never hated you. Ingrid could tell. Lily could tell. My brothers knew.”
“I wish I could have been able to tell,” she said.
He didn’t respond, just pressed a kiss against her temple and held her to him.
Mira hugged her mother for far longer than she wanted to, but she felt a satisfied sort of selflessness in doing it. Her mother hadn’t put up the fuss that Mira had expected when she’d announced she’d be leaving the next morning, and a glance at her father’s watchful gaze made her sure of who was behind it.
She’d told her father about her improvements in writing, and promised she would get started on a letter as soon as she returned.
She hadn’t seen Tarquin since he’d held her in the field two days earlier, but he’d promised to be nearby, and to meet her and Eve on their way out of town. She was surprised to learn that she missed him— not his heated touches like she had, back when she first came to the palace; not the odd desire to have him near her so she could shout all the things she hated about him— just a sweet longing for his presence, settled down somewhere deep in her chest.
So as she and Eve walked along the dusty road, Mira carrying both bags to help accommodate Eve’s awkward gait, she couldn’t help the bloom of anticipation that nearly overwhelmed her.
He’d met them less than a mile from the farm, waiting on the side of the road and smiling brilliantly when he’d spotted them. It was a smile that Mira had rarely seen, and she supposed it was for Eve’s benefit. The poor woman was nearly trembling, with nervousness or excitement Mira couldn’t tell, but when she’d reached out to hold her hand she’d found her palm sweaty.
Tarquin greeted them kindly and took the bags off of Mira’s arm. She made a noise of protest and he shot her an incredulous look, then kept walking ahead of them. He guided them down the road awhile, away from the nearby small town, and then out across a field and into the little copse of trees beyond.
“Ready, Eve?” Mira asked brightly, in a tone that didn’t match how she felt.
Eve nodded with wide eyes, her dark curls bouncing around her shoulders. Tarquin retreated a bit, then stripped and shifted quickly. Eve gasped at the sight, so Mira squeezed her hand reassuringly.
Mira helped her awkwardly scramble up onto his back, and then followed behind her.
After a long day of travel, Mira awoke in the dark in her bed in the inn they’d stopped at. She wasn’t sure why she had awoken, until she heard the distinct sounds of quiet sobbing and muffled murmured words. She reached for Tarquin, then remembered that he wasn’t in her bed. Why would she have reached for him so instinctively, she wondered, since they’d shared a bed all night exactly twice over the months and months that they’d known each other. Besides, she should have been focused on Eve, who’d hardly eaten her dinner and should be laying next to Mira.
She wasn’t, though, and as Mira scanned the room, she was surprised at where she found her— sitting on the couch, her feet tucked under her, her face pressed into Tarquin’s chest and his arms around her. He was talking— quietly enough that she couldn’t hear, but the tone was low and soothing.
The pang of jealousy that struck her was quickly replaced by shame. Of course he would empathize with a grieving widow. Of course she would seek someone who understood, all too intimately, what she was feeling. Mira chastised herself internally and quietly watched them; she felt as if she were witnessing something she had no right to see, something she hadn’t suffered enough to witness, but was unable to look away all the same.
After a minute his gaze fell on the bed, and a sad smile at her was the only indication that he’d noticed she’d awoken. She watched for a long time, long after his words had faded to silence and the sobs that had heaved Eve’s back had ceased. Still he held her. A quiet sort of melancholy had fallen over the room, and as Mira drifted off, she thought that the sight of them was perhaps the loveliest, saddest thing she’d ever seen.