Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“How is she?” Christopher asked Rose the second she walked into the room.
Rose exhaled loudly and let her shoulders slump as if they’d spent the last hour holding up a great weight. “How do you think?”
“Based on that response, I’m inclined to say that it didn’t go well.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Rose laughed. And it felt good to do, a much-needed relief because times were hard and sometimes something as simple as laughing could do much to expel the tension and remind her that the world wasn’t falling apart even if it felt like it was.
She crossed the room to where Christopher was sitting on the edge of the bed and, without thinking, she sat down beside him. She saw him stiffen at the closeness of her body, but then relax almost immediately.
Rose eyed him, curious about her husband and the situation they’d found themselves in.
For an ordinary couple, this would not be a strange circumstance at all, and it would be expected that her husband would have come to help her with this most troubling development.
But as they both knew well, there was nothing normal about them as a couple.
That he is here at all is significant. And not just that he offered to come, but that I accepted it. Dammit, I wanted him here, knowing how much I would need his support.
“She refuses to listen to reason,” Rose sighed. “Convinced that her love for Julian will be enough to sustain her.” She scoffed. “As if love can keep one warm and well-fed. She is so…”
“Optimistic,” he offered.
She rolled her eyes. “Childish, is what I was going for.”
“She will come around.”
“Maybe.” She winced as she remembered the fight that she and Marianne had just had, the heated words exchanged, the very real fact that for the first time, her little sister was not willing to listen to her as she had done so many times before.
It made her feel powerless and helpless in ways that she was not used to.
“Tomorrow,” Christopher said. “Let her sleep on it, and she might change her mind.”
“She better,” Rose said. “Because we are not leaving here without her. Why can she not see that I am only trying to help?”
“Oh, I suspect that she knows,” he said.
“And I want the best for her.” A tightness was felt in Rose’s chest. “That is all I ever wanted. But this is not what is best! If she would only allow me to speak to father for her.”
“She will.”
“I am not so sure…”
Rose was struggling to come to terms with how she felt about all of this. On the one hand, she did want what was best for her sister, and if marrying the man whom she loved was what Marianne saw as best, how could Rose possibly deny her that?
On the other hand, Rose was aware of all that she had done to give Marianne a chance to achieve happiness. And while her marriage to the Duke might not have turned into the great sacrifice it had been originally, that did not mean she was willing now to look the other way.
Her sister still had a chance at something real. She could still have the life that she deserved. She just needed to trust Rose. Why can she not see that?
“Tomorrow…” Slowly, Christopher reached out and took Rose’s hand. “Try again tomorrow, and if she still refuses to listen, then we might have to take a more drastic action.”
“Such as?”
He shrugged. “I will leave that to you and your infinite wisdom.”
She laughed softly and squeezed his hand back.
Then she looked up and found his eyes, noticing how earnest his gaze was.
He looked upon her with both compassion and a sense of pride; the look of a man who did not regret coming all this way, just as he did not regret what had led him to be here in the first place.
They sat in silence for a moment. Side by side. Holding hands. Looking at one another as they let the tension from earlier fade so that it was just the two of them, alone, and comfortable being together.
“So…” Rose cleared her throat when the silence became too much. “Is this my room or yours?”
Christopher grimaced. “Ah, yes, about that…”
“What is it?”
“It seems that this is the only room available for the evening. I insisted that the innkeeper make another available, but he was quite certain it was not possible. So, to answer your question,” He laughed awkwardly. “I guess this room is both of ours.”
“Oh…”
The room suddenly felt very small.
It was just the double bed at the center of the room, a wardrobe in the corner, a thick rug across the floor, and little else as far as décor was concerned. Four walls, Rose and her husband, and a little too much privacy.
Rose’s ears started to burn, her cheeks flushed, and she could not bring herself to look at Christopher in case he could see what was on her mind. As far as she and he had come, sharing a room together still felt a touch beyond what they were capable of.
“I will sleep on the floor, of course.” He pulled his hand free and stood up from the bed. “The rug is thicker than it looks, and hopefully more comfortable too.”
“What? No,” Rose said before she could stop herself. “You are not sleeping on the floor.”
“Nor are you,” he said. “And please, Rose, for once, don’t argue about this. If you think that you are sleeping on the floor while I have a bed to myself, then I am afraid that you are –”
“That’s not what I was saying.”
“What are you saying?”
As small as the room already felt, it suddenly felt smaller once again.
It was as if the walls were closing in as the ceiling slowly lowered, effectively trapping them both.
Rose looked at her feet, the pressure in her chest rising, while the feeling of her husband looking down at her was so intense that she started to shake from it.
Just say it, Rose… it is not so big a deal… it is perfectly natural… and only for a single night. There is no need to make a thing of it.
But that wasn’t entirely true. What she was about to suggest, while normal in so many ways, carried with it consequences that would change everything.
Rose snapped her head up and forced herself to look at Christopher.
“My meaning is that we will share the bed together, and before you say anything.” She cocked an eyebrow in warning.
“If you try to sleep on the floor, I will do the same as you. I refuse to have the bed to myself while you lie in discomfort.”
“Rose…”
“This is not an argument,” she pushed on, still looking up at him, all too aware of how flushed her cheeks were… as were his own, for that matter. “We are sharing the bed, and that is final.”
Rose was many things, stubborn being one of them. She knew the request was not nearly as simple as she had made it out to be, and for that reason, she would have been better off not saying it in the first place. She also wasn’t going to take it back now that it was out there.
She could see clearly that Christopher was of a similar mind. They both existed in a space of uncertainty, knowing how fraught with danger the moment was, while refusing to acknowledge it as if that would make it real.
Ultimately, there was nothing to do but accept the reality of the circumstance and go along with it. Better to do that than to bring light to the consequences of what they were about to do, and thus risk dashing apart all the progress they had made to get there.
“I’ll sleep in my clothes,” Christopher explained as he climbed into one side of the bed. “I think that is best.”
“As will I,” Rose said as she climbed into the other side. “It is also quite chilly…”
“Yes,” Christopher agreed as he shuffled under the covers. “Rather chilly. Sleeping in our clothes is best.”
The experience of sleeping with her husband was about as uncomfortable as Rose expected it to be.
Lately, she had noticed that Christopher was no longer as serious and stern toward her as he had once been.
Whether he was changing because of her or simply letting his guard down, she had started to see another side of him.
A side that was comforting, caring, even funny when he allowed it.
His emotional range was not one-dimensional, and this fact, above all else, was why they had started to grow closer.
However, as soon as they crawled into bed together, the old Christopher returned.
He lay on the very side of the bed, on his back with the covers pulled up to his chin, while he stared at the ceiling. He was like a statue, and Rose could literally feel how tense he was beside her.
Not that Rose was much better. She had never shared a bed with another man, and despite lying on the opposite side, her back to him, doing what she could to pretend he was not there, she could feel his presence like a specter sitting on her shoulder.
It was hard to say exactly how Rose felt about all of this.
Awkward, yes. Uncomfortable, of course. But that it was her husband she was sharing the bed with, that she felt safe with him, that she knew that she could trust him…
is it such a strange thing that he might be the one man in the whole world I would feel comfortable sharing a bed with?
What felt like hours passed by, but it was likely just minutes. Rose tossed and turned, but sleep would not come. And while her husband lay perfectly still, she knew him to be awake too.
“Can’t sleep?” Rose asked, speaking into the darkness of the room.
Christopher snorted. “What makes you say that?”
“The fact you responded was the first indication,” she laughed. Rose was lying on her back as she spoke, but she slowly turned onto her side to face her husband.
She could see him through the darkness, the outline of his body, the way he still lay on his back to look at the ceiling. He was certainly uncomfortable, and Rose had to fight the urge to shuffle closer.
“It has been a while since I shared a bed with someone,” Christopher said.
“A while?”
He laughed softly. “Ever.”
She laughed too. “I know how you feel. This is… it is not how I expected this evening to go.”
“Nor did I.”