Chapter Five #2
“With you,” he answered.
“So why shield me from those men with shutters?”
“Because you are not meant to be a spectacle for men who do not know your worth.”
Do not melt.
She melted.
Her jaw lifted. “And yet you barred me from the sight I wanted most. You.” Her voice stayed level. The steadiness surprised her. “You shut the world. That felt—” She searched for the word and found it in the old anger that rose whenever doors closed and men called it care. “I felt small.”
He furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry. I only wanted you unhurt,” he said at last. “I did not want you unseen.”
The contradiction cut clean through her.
The heat behind her ribs changed shape, and her mouth felt…
no, her lips were swollen, and she licked them.
I don’t know what to do about this. Thus, she reached for the bun and tore it open.
Crumbs marked her fingers. She dunked; the crust gave way.
Sweetness rose, familiar and safe, and she felt the foolish sting of tears all the same.
He is not the oven. His is not a fire I can control.
And yet, she wanted it, his fire—all of it.
Still unsure how to act, she simply dunked the bun again and took another bite.
He watched her eat. She had never known a gaze could feel like shelter and provocation at the same time.
She swallowed a small bite she’d taken and set the bun down in small, careful bites, as if appetite were a language and she was learning to speak it in front of him.
“Do you always keep your chambers so neat?” she asked, because she needed something to do with her mouth besides tell him to come closer.
“Yes.” He did not look away. “If the world turns, nothing in here will. I’ll always be here for you.”
She understood that too well. The kitchen taught order because chaos made mistakes, and mistakes burned.
She had once believed she could build a life out of good habits alone.
A sensible dream. And yet here she was, in a man’s private quarters at midnight with her heart beating loud enough to shame her.
His gaze found hers across the table. Not fast but deliberate and although she saw him looking, she did not look away. His palm settled over her fingers like a weight she had not known she wanted. Heat met heat. Something slid to rest inside her chest like a key turning in the fitting lock.
Her breathing stuttered. He waited, as if her consent were a door that opened from her side.
“Rosine,” he said, and the way he shaped her name made her feel singular.
She turned her hand and set her skin against his. A clumsy first choice.
“You are very brave,” he said quietly. “But you do not have to be brave with me.”
Brave? The word snagged. Sheltered daughter in winter; by spring, I was running.
Glass fell in Strasbourg like hard rain; smoke pushed under the door; names were shouted.
She took the ledger and her mother’s spoon, crossed from Calais to Dover alone, slept two nights on a bakehouse floor, learned London by the smells of it—tallow, river, coal—so she could walk without asking.
Since then, it’s been bolts, wages, work. No one to lean on but my own hands.
I have been afraid for so long, I do not know how to set it down.
Set it down. Set it down with him.
“Brave is another word men use when they mean alone,” she whispered. She did not mean to say it, but once it left, she did not want it back.
His thumb brushed once along her knuckles. The breath she drew felt different, deeper, as if her ribs had decided to make room. He looked at her mouth. She felt the look everywhere.
“Say you feel safe with me,” he said, voice low as the flame. “I will make it so.”
“Then do it,” she answered, breath unsteady. “Make me.”
Silence gathered. Not empty—charged. Steam lifted from their cups.
Brass held the light. The linen kept his broad shoulders in clean lines.
The tear in his breeches showed skin and a scrape that would bruise.
She could list every small thing to keep from naming the one thing that mattered: she wanted his mouth.
Do not ask. Ask.
Be sensible. Be his.
He didn’t rush her. He leaned in slowly, each inch given like a promise. She did not move and somehow met his hand halfway. Their joined hands anchored her; his thumb stroked once along her fingers, and heat ran up her arm. His breath warmed her cheek. The candle fluttered. The world did not.
A scrape came from the stairwell—wood against wood. The latch below shifted, deliberate.
She flinched. He went still. The moment thinned and brightened until she felt lightheaded.
Step back. Stay put.
Keep your pride. Choose him.
“The sensible thing,” she heard herself say, “is to thank you for tea and go down first and call this nothing.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon would know by dawn.
Her fingers tightened beneath his. She kept her eyes on him.
“If someone comes,” she whispered, pulse tapping at her throat, “they will see me in your chambers.” But the fear of ruination was a rule for ladies and gentiles, the sort of woman who didn’t have to run for her life from armed soldiers and cower under burning counters to save her life.
Reputations were luxuries survivors couldn’t afford to worry about because of where they’d have to hide.
“I will be the one they question.”
True. This wasn’t about ruin but about losing herself to follow her heart.
“And me?”
“The jewelers downstairs are starting to unlock the window displays. You are safe,” he said again, and now it lived between them—safety.
I love him.
The latch scraped once more somewhere downstairs. A foot met the stair. Cold pushed under the door.
Go. Stay. Choose.
Rosine tipped her chin—small defiance, naked plea. “Sander,” she breathed, and his name tasted warm and reckless on her tongue. Rosine tipped her chin—small defiance, bare plea.
“Before the watch makes his round past the mews…will you take me back through the gate—to the Den’s kitchen door?”
The door stayed a handspan ajar; he didn’t touch it. He turned his palm up. She set her hand in his—fingers lacing, not a kiss but the shape of one held back—and felt his answer in the quiet press of his grip.