Chapter Six
The next day, during that hour before dawn, when the Den held its breath between mischief and morning, Sander stood his post and admitted what duty would not let him say aloud: he had walked Rosine to the door, he had not kissed her, and he wanted the chance again so fiercely it felt like a second pulse.
The house dozed. Cards lay face down. A lone drunk laughed and fell quiet.
The banister’s polish caught a thin wash of lamplight, and his palm found the old groove he always found—habit, anchor, something to hold when the night twitched.
He had done the sensible thing. He had put safety ahead of want. It should have eased him.
It doesn’t. Do it again anyway.
No one needed him this minute. He knew the Den’s timings. He left the stairhead and took the corridor to the very end, and where a narrow door kept its own small world. The latch gave way to his hand with a soft complaint.
The candle he kept here had dripped sideways last time; the wax made a stubby tower he’d meant to trim. In the corner—his board. Simple stained wood, squares worn at the centers from the many moves he’d tested. He struck the tinder and lit the candle. Light poured over the grid and steadied.
He didn’t sit. He set the pieces in their homes because order helped when heat did not.
Knights down. Bishops waiting. Pawns lined like a promise.
He placed the king’s before the queen’s; his thumb rested against the seam on the chessboard where black met white.
When he drew breath, she filled it—lemon, warm sugar, the sound she’d made in his chambers when she told him to make her safe.
He had wanted to answer with his mouth and had chosen his chest instead.
He couldn’t live with taking advantage of her when her nerves were frayed from the dogs.
Plus, he’d imagined this first kiss so many times.
Never in his chambers but in broad daylight, perhaps under a tree in bloom.
Certainly not with torn breeches from a dog bite.
He’d missed out on the chance to kiss her.
You’ll live with it. You won’t like it.
Sander opened with the one line that steadied him when thought scattered: pawn to e4; …
c6; d4; …d5. Calm, exact, survivable. The garden’s dark flickered back—the foxes scattering, the drag of chains, the heat of Rosine’s wrist against his.
His calf throbbed as if the memory still had teeth.
He rolled the hem of his pants, glanced at the scrape—nothing to fuss over. He’d tend it again later.
Once he exchanged in the center, slid the bishop out before the pawn wall was fixed, he tucked a knight to c3, and met …
Bf5 with quiet purpose. Patience on a board he could teach to boys who wanted fireworks; patience in a room with Rosine, her mouth near his—that asked more of him than any endgame.
Hold the line. Take her mouth. He kept the line for now.
Don’t think it.
He reached into his pocket and found the small white pawn he’d carried all night, the one with the shallow thumb-worn dent. He imagined setting it on her worktable when the ovens woke—no speech, only the plain shape of what he meant. Keep going. Choose your square. I will clear the line.
A step brushed the corridor outside. He stilled. Not a wolf’s weight. Lighter. The knob turned a fraction, polite, then more. The door eased inward.
“Puck told me you’d be here,” Rosine said. Puch was one of the other wolves at the Lyon’s Den. Her breath seemed soft from the stairs, cloak crooked, hair pinned up as if she’d done it with work-rough hands in the half light.
Alone with Rosine in this dark room. I want to kiss her more than anything.
He closed his eyes and groaned. Of course, Puck would send her to him. He had ears everywhere, and Mrs. Dove-Lyon couldn’t be far.
She lifted a palm. “No, no—I waved to him from the hall and asked. I stayed away from the gambling floor.”
He nodded once, and it felt inadequate. “Good.”
“It cost me a curious peek behind the velvet,” she said lightly. “Curiosity. I’ve never met a more stubborn thing.”
“Your curiosity?” His mouth twitched; it wasn’t safe to smile with her in a room and a candle between them.
“Yours.” She drew the linen bundle nearer and unwrapped the board. Pieces clicked into their places. “You and your secrets.”
“What secrets?” Tell her—don’t spook her.
She tapped a knight with one finger. “This room. Your chess brilliance. The battles in your mind.” She moved the piece once—clean, sure—so it looked straight down the file at his king. “I wonder,” she murmured, “what it feels like to be the square you choose.”
His pulse stumbled. He kept his hands flat on the table.
“Your move,” she said, voice a shade lower. “Ask me anything.”
“What would you allow?”
Her eyes held his. “Your hand on mine, as I have. And the truth.”
He set his palm over hers. Heat—sharp, impossible to school. “I am trying not to kiss you,” he said.
“I know.” Her thumb turned, slow, inside his grip. “That’s one truth. Here is mine: I like that you wait. It makes me feel…chosen.”
He could have closed the inch. She left the space between them on purpose, smiling as if she’d just taken the center of the board.
She edged inside and pushed the door shut with her heel; the latch met home in a quiet click that landed in his chest. She looked at the board, then at him. “Puck said you come here when the house doesn’t need you.”
“This room helps me listen.” Except that my heart won’t stay quiet without you anymore.
“I brought this,” she said. “Marta swears by it when she burns herself in the kitchen. It helps skin heal—there’s chamomile. If you will—if you’ll let me…” She opened a small jar; the dark yellow salve caught the candlelight.
He should send her downstairs and be the wall he claimed to be because this room, alone with her… there was no propriety left.
“Let you,” he repeated, as if the words needed testing. “Do what?”
Do with me what you will, Rosine.
Her gaze dropped to his torn breeches. She nodded toward the low stool by the board. “Put your leg up.”
“No.” It came out rougher than he meant.
“Yes.” She didn’t flinch. “You were hurt because I went to that garden. Because I was curious. You were hurt for it. Let me mend what I can.”
The word mend hooked under his ribs. He groaned before he could stop it. Heal me. Not only there. Not only that.
She set the jar down, took the stool herself, and tapped it once. Command, not coaxing. “Here.”
He stayed standing, stubborn as a post. She stepped closer—close enough that lemon and warm sugar found him again—and slid her hand to the back of his knee. The touch undid him. His muscles eased their guard. He lifted and set his boot on the stool.
“Thank you,” she murmured, all business and far from it at the same time.
The muslin brushed his skin. She eased the cloth higher with the instinct of a woman who assumed he’d make way when asked. Smitten idiot that he was, he did. If someone walks in—explain this. He would not be able to.
Her fingers were warm and sure as she found the scrape from the hound’s teeth.
“Hold still.” She dipped two fingers into the salve and touched.
Careful. Exact. The sting eased under her slow press.
His body answered like a fool—cloth too tight, breath too thin, heat taking the same stubborn path it had taken in his room when he’d walked her to the door and kept his mouth to himself.
“You see?” she said softly, working the balm in. “This is not nothing. It was for me.”
She worked the balm in with slow circles; warmth bled through his skin to his bones. He felt the old promise tighten: wait until her name hung above her own bakery door; keep her safe, even from the press of his wanting. The urge to ask rose anyway—ask now, be done with it—and he bit it back.
“You saved me yesterday, Sander.”
“I would do anything for you,” he said, and he meant it. Not a proposal—not yet, because she didn’t have what she wanted. He would ask one day, in daylight, when the sign with her name hung over her door as she dreamed—because what else could he want for her but to make her dreams come true?
She stilled for an instant but didn’t look at him. Then she got back to the task at hand, tied the bandage snug, the knot neat under her thumbs. Her head lifted; one curl grazed his knee. His hands fisted at his sides because they wanted her waist, her jaw, the soft place at the back of her neck.
“I want to heal you,” she said, voice gone husk-soft. “At least a little.” Heal me from the dog bite or the wounds of my past? Or the throbbing need to be with you?
He swallowed. “You are not helping right now actually.” I shouldn’t have said that.
Her brows tipped. “No?”
“No.” He dragged air in. “You are making it impossible to think.”
Color warmed her cheeks. She did not step back. Her palm smoothed once over the fresh bandage—light, approving. His control snapped and re-formed on a gasp.
Stand still. Pull her up and show her what healing feels like.
He kept still. Barely. “Thank you,” he managed. “Rosine… enough, or I will forget myself.”
Stand still. Drag her up and kiss her senseless.
“You should have told me it hurt,” she said.
“It didn’t.” It did hurt now—not his leg as much as his heart.
One curl had slipped from her hair and brushed her cheek. He wanted that curl wrapped around his fingers. He wanted her breath in his mouth. He wanted—
“Thank you,” he said, because gratitude was a bridge to civility when nothing else was.
She rose—near enough that the hem of her gown brushed his boot—and stopped there, as if the air between them needed testing. Her fingers toyed with the rim of the salve jar, then stilled. Her mouth parted, closed, parted again.
“You took me home,” she said at last, voice steady only because she willed it. A breath. Another. “At the door I thought—”
She lost the thread. He felt the gap like a hand around his ribs.
Say it.