Chapter 3
Ihad never seen someone tying a saddle knot so furiously before, but Mr. Evergreen was making it his sole purpose in life to guarantee the one he worked.
I arrived quietly enough to see him yank, shove, and weave the leather in and out of Edith’s straps with such careful precision that I knew undoubtedly the act was a common outlet for his vexations.
Yet he moved so deftly, and it was such a grand display of the mastered control he had over his fingers, that I could not help but stare.
His anger only grew once he noticed I was there.
“Good morning,” I said tentatively.
“Is it?” He tossed one end over the other. “What’s good about it?”
“...Well,” I started. “The sun is-”
“That was rhetorical, Princess. Rhetorical means I wasn’t looking for an answer, but of course you’d reply anyway. Wouldn’t you?”
“I know what rhetorical means, sir,” I said. I checked the other stalls. “Where is Isaac?” Tails was ready instead, and the whole barn was eerily quiet and filled with horses I didn’t recognize.
“Isaac is at my cottage,” he said.
“Are we not riding her today?” I asked.
“I will break her on my own time,” he went on. “And I will deliver her to you when that is done. October maybe. Sooner if you stop scheduling me for things like tours.”
I nodded. “Am I to infer that you are angry about today’s adventure?”
“Adventure?” he asked. “Yes. Sure. Let’s call it that.”
“Call it what you want, but I did what I had to do, sir. If you had but agreed to speak privately with me yesterday, I would not have had to schedule this tour. I can only play the hand that I am dealt. The hand you dealt me, not to mention.”
“I didn’t peg you for a stake player, Your Highness,” he said.
I snickered, and the fury in his returning gaze dared to catch me alight.
“Where was the joke?” he asked. “Is it me?”
“No.” I straightened, losing the grin. “No, it’s just… It’s sort of strange to find myself on this end of a tantrum, is all.”
“Tantrum?” Cyrus’ eyes did not blink. “This is not a tantrum, Your Highness. This is what a man who wanted space and asked for space looks like when he is not granted the mercy of space! Do not accuse me of tantrums when you are the Queen of throwing fits!”
“Space?” I asked. “Space? Is that what I heard?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t remember you asking for space!”
“I told you we could not—”
“What? Be friends? Why? Because my knight discovered us in the farmhouse, you carried me into?”
“He thought we had—”
“He thought what anybody else with half a brain would have thought, finding us like that! We were isolated in a decrepit house, alone and late into the evening! You are an unwed man. I am an unwed woman! We were unchaperoned!”
“Is that what you think this is about?” he asked. “That we were discovered in that house?”
“I don’t know what to think this is about, Mr. Evergreen, but I did not think you were the type to let people’s opinions shape your actions. Oh, yet here we are!”
Cyrus all but whipped the belt he held, then gripped it tighter, taking a long, measured step in my direction. “I don’t!”
“Just admit to your bruised vanity so that we may move past it, please,” I said. “You’re always going on about how you are perceived. Get over it, will you?”
He seethed, flashing his teeth. “You humble me,” he spat.
“You humble yourself. I didn’t ask you to carry me into that house, Mr. Evergreen! I didn’t ask you to spend your time with me! You made those choices, and you should’ve left me in the dirt!”
“You should have higher standards for the company you keep if you think that’s any way to treat a woman, or even a person who isn’t an evil crook!”
“Yeah? What should I think about men who get unsuspecting Princesses drunk in the middle of the forest, then?”
He gawked. “That was a dual effort! I did not force you to drink, nor did I know that you were unseasoned to wine. You’re the world’s brattiest brat! I assumed you had access to such luxury! I only asked for your company.”
“And I only asked that you talk to me!” I said. “But you—”
“No!” he cried, immediately catching himself.
“No,” he said softer. “You asked me if I felt sparks.” Then he was within a foot of me.
I could see the rise and fall of his chest; I could hear it.
His ragged breathing made mine louder, too.
“Then you turned around and pouted your cute little lips at your beloved fiancé, and you asked him to have me escort you to the place where he will marry you.” His eyes dropped to my mouth as everything else about the moment took on an injured ambience.
“Do you have any idea how much I don’t want to do that?
” he asked. “The very idea of being in that room… it…”
I trembled, trying to nod, or shake my head, or anything.
With another pant, he said, “You didn't even read my letter. You just send it back as it was.”
“Let-Letter?” I muttered. “I did... I didn’t receive a letter. Did you send me one?”
Cyrus sat in my words for a second longer, finally allowing his mood to taper. “...What kind of man would not apologize for hurting you like that?”
“I… I… You didn’t-I,” I stumbled. Years of empty correspondence flooded back into the caverns of my heart.
“Sir, I absolutely would have responded to a letter you sent. I promise you.” My hands fell from my skirt, brushing my thighs, and as he turned away from me, I followed suit in a few steps. “I would have! I swear to God.”
I heard him sigh.
“I wanted to see you,” I confessed. “I tried to see you, but Ser Elías told me no. Had there been a letter, I would have felt less… less alone in my melancholia. I would have written you back. I would have… I didn’t receive a letter, sir.”
“You wanted to see me?” he asked.
“Yes, but Elías. He scolded me. He’s very devout to his beliefs, and he believes he is protecting me from you. Why? I don’t understand. You’ve never injured me, but why, why would I ignore your words? Why would I…. If I knew you wanted-? You wanted to speak to me?”
“I did,” he said. He paused. “Sometimes… Sometimes I am slow to think of meaningful things in serious moments, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t care. I just… Svana, I don’t want to never speak to you again. I can’t endure the silence.”
“I would have answered you, I swear it. Nay, I vow it. I am no stranger to ignored communication, and even if it had come months after this moment, I would have replied, even if I wanted… if I did not want… to see you again. Which, in case that is unclear, is not reality.”
Mr. Evergreen’s shoulders drooped. I knew he wanted to believe me, maybe he did, but it was another moment longer before he turned, and I could see more of his face.
“I would’ve responded,” I promised.
He found his temples with the balls of his fingers, circling them. “This is a terrible thing,” he said. “You, you being here. It’s a bad idea. Sam will just have to find somebody else to escort you around. I’m not the man for it.”
My mind wandered, seeking the ends of every vein along his arms. “I don’t want some other man for anything,” I swore. “I want you.”
We both peered at the other, and then I said it again, emboldened by the quiet, non-existent response.
“I want you, Mr. Evergreen,” I said.
“The way you say that-”
“I know what it implies,” I said. “It is what I meant.”
“You want me?” he asked.
“Yes. I will allow you that truth. While it is not the whole of it, it is all that I can reasonably offer. Additionally, I wanted to see you, so I found you at the derby, and I arranged this… this tour to achieve my purpose. That is why I chose to arrange a time I knew Sameer would be occupied. It was not by malice or a cruel desire to taunt you with our engagement. It was by design that I manipulated the Prince for your private company, nothing else.”
“Svana.”
“Cyrus,” I said.
He began to shake his head, but I broke the barrier living between us.
I stepped forward, closing the gap, and at a speed I’d never possessed before—an insanity that rampaged my core, that dared my hands to connect with his shirt in a manner most improper for a woman in my station.
I pulled what I could of the taught fabric to my chest, lulling him into a raw, aching, desperate kiss, and I only breathed when we connected.
The kindling I accused us of bearing ignited into an all-consuming heat—a blaze, an inferno.
There was nothing to quell its fire. His hands danced over the curves of my face, traveling deep into the back of my hair, and I sighed like steam escaping a kettle as chills spread down my spine, and he lifted me.
Cyrus wrapped his arm around my rear and my legs around his waist. He carried me a distance until I was pressed into the wall adjacent to the still-open door of the stables, which he slammed shut.
He parted from my lips to find my jaw, my neck, my collarbone!
I raked my fingers through his curls, sinking into every individual tangle.
He drew air from me, retrieving a quiet moan from my throat as he navigated the strings of my vest. I nearly passed out when he said my name.
“Svana.”
“I want you,” I repeated.
Suddenly, the door creaked loudly, rolling back into place with a click of its latch. Cyrus broke away. My heels met the ground as the barn reopened to a tall, casually dressed man with blond hair.
Mr. Evergreen cleared his throat. He steadied himself upon the wall behind us, and while it left him partly leaning over me, our guest did not seem too troubled by his closeness.
In fact, he was thankfully and remarkably unaware of the passion that had just filled the barn.
He stepped by us to look over the equipment at one of the stations, and I finally recognized him by his voice.
“Good morning, Your Highness. Mr. Evergreen,” he said.
“Willoughby?” I asked.
Cyrus took a determined step, another foot, and then went to Edith as if nothing had happened, but I reeled in his wake. My lips tingled with desperation.
“Good morning,” my cousin said a second time. “Beautiful day for a ride, then, yeah?” He set his hand on the hilt of his sword, more of a lazy habit than a threat. “If it’s alright with you, Mr. Evergreen, I've brought my own horse from the carriage. She’s outside.”
The swordsman glanced at me as he replied, “I don’t mind, but I cannot say I was aware you would be accompanying us today, Ser.”
“Oh? The Princess did not tell you?” He shrugged.
I shook my head, but Willoughby filled in the missing link.
“Ah… Neither of you knew? I see I’ve been voluntold then.
I was advised that Miss Svana was concerned with the threat of bandits and that she might feel safer with my attendance to her rides. ”
“Bandits?” I asked. “Your mercy, who said this?”
“The Lord Commander, of course,” he said.
“Of course,” I huffed. “Ser Elías told you I was scared of bandits?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“I see. And shall he attend this ride with us as well?”
“No.” Willoughby laughed. “That’s a good one, but it’s just us, I’m afraid.”
“I see,” I said.
Evergreen refolded his arms. “Your own horse is fine,” he said. “Is she saddled?”
“Aye, she’s saddled,” he replied. “And thanks. I’ve got a rapport with her. I’m not much for changing steeds if I can help it.”
“I understand,” Cyrus said.
Ser Elías, I brooded. “He sent a chaperone.”
Willoughby leaned in, quietly. “You really should have one anyway, cousin.”