Chapter Twenty-Seven. Dorothy #2
“Can I tell you a secret, Kansas?” Rook guides us in what he tells me is a box formation.
“Yes, please.”
He breathes out. “You are a wonder.”
My feet stop moving. Instinct has Rook pulling to a stop just two steps behind me.
“You barely know me.”
He threads his fingers with mine and pulls me from the dance floor, ushering me behind a row of the potted plants. Almost as if he knows I need shelter in the moment.
Somehow he always knows what I need.
“You have to stop being so nice to me.”
His confusion is plainly written across his face. “Why?”
“Because … because we … you…”
Henrietta’s warning blares in my head.
“There’s someone else,” I blurt out.
“What do you mean?”
“Back home.” My stomach starts to hurt. “In Kansas. His name is Edward.”
Rook tilts his head. I expected him to be angry. I kissed him, after all. But I swear there’s a smirk threatening to appear at the corner of his mouth. “What is his claim to you?”
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
“In Kansas, commitment, where does it begin? Where does it end?”
“Oh. Well … first it’s boyfriend and girlfriend. That’s where the commitment starts. Then engagement. Then marriage.”
“Are you married to Edward then?”
The band’s music gains momentum, and the crowd starts to cheer.
“No.”
“Engaged?”
“Not technically.” I look away, wringing my hands. “He did ask me to marry him.”
“And what did you say?”
I meet his eyes. “I didn’t answer him.”
“Why not?”
Oh god. My ears ring.
I know why I didn’t answer and I know why I don’t want to answer Edward, because I want to say no, and I’m terrified of breaking his heart, but more than that I’m afraid of what comes after.
I’m afraid that I will always be alone, unable to let anyone in.
“I—”
Rook wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me to him and kisses me.
There is no reluctance from him now.
His mouth meets mine just as the band crescendos and I swear lightning burns through my veins.
I’m hot and electric.
Rook takes charge, spinning me around, pushing me against the nearest wall.
A breath stutters down my throat.
His hand comes up to the back of my neck, fingers pressing hard against my nape.
He has full control, immediately, and I am boneless beneath his demands.
A groan escapes him, the sound humming against my lips.
A thrill sinks from my navel, down between my legs.
I can’t breathe.
I don’t want to return home to Edward.
I want to stay right here, with Rook.
His fingers tangle in my hair and several pins come loose.
I’ll be a mess. I am a mess.
Fuck, let me be messy and hot and wet and—
Suddenly he’s gone.
Breathing heavily, I snap my eyes open, but it takes my vision several seconds to refocus.
Rook’s mouth is red and swollen and I swear there’s a new bulge between his legs.
He straightens his suit jacket, then runs his hand over his hair, smoothing it back.
“If you were mine, Kansas,” he says, “no one would stop me from claiming you.”
I sway on my feet.
He disappears for a second and returns with a chair.
“Sit down. I’ll get you a drink.”
I do as commanded.
Rook bends down and plants a kiss on my cheek. A tender kiss. A contrast from the heat and the frenzy of the kiss before it.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
And then he’s gone.
I sit, slouched in the chair, for two more songs.
A cool breeze steals in through the open balcony doors and helps tamp down the heat rushing through my body.
Rook kissed me.
He kissed me. After he knew about Edward.
Oh, Edward.
I sit forward and put my face in my hands.
As we grew older, Edward and I grew closer, but most of it was sex, none of it substantial, none of it deep. Edward knows I suffer from episodes of panic. He knows I love poppy fields and prefer pumpkin pie over apple. He knows I hate making bread but love eating it.
But he doesn’t know that sometimes I lie awake at night sobbing for what I’ve lost.
He doesn’t know that sometimes the black hole of my past threatens to swallow me up.
I know I am loved. I am lucky to have Em and Henry. But there is no good way to spin being an orphan. There is no amount of string lights that can drive away that darkness.
My eyes burn as I consider what I have to do when I return to Kansas.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it. I just want to go back to the inn, tear off this dress, and curl up with Toto.
I scan the crowd for Rook again but don’t find him anywhere.
I’m just about to go off in search of him when a sharp, discordant sound cuts through the melody of the string quartet. There’s a crescendo, then a drop, a crescendo, then a drop.
An alarm.
The entire ballroom freezes and then suddenly everyone is shouting around me, running for the exit.
A woman, the skirt of her dress clutched in her hands, bolts in front of me.
“Excuse me! What’s happening?”
“It’s the alarm!” she shouts without pausing, and melts into the frenzied crowd.
“I know it’s the alarm,” I mutter and look for a familiar face. “But what does it mean?”
I don’t spot Rook anywhere. None of the council members stick out to me. Darius and the lightsmiths are gone.
Do I stay?
Do I follow the crowd?
There’s a mad rush to the door and people are starting to get antsy, shoving their way through.
Maybe it’ll be easier to find Rook outside. At the very least, it seems like no one wants to be in the ballroom so probably it’s smart to go.
Backtracking, I make my way out the open garden doors to the balcony. There are several staff members spilling out from a service door. I follow them down a set of steps that takes us to a side garden.
“What’s happening?” I ask, trailing behind two women dressed in aubergine long coats.
The girl on the left glances at me over her shoulder, then looks a second time. “Oh! It’s you.”
“Hi. Yes, I’m Dorothy. I don’t know what’s happening and I can’t find my friends.”
“The alarm going off,” the other girl explains, “it means someone is about to enter the city who could pose some kind of danger.”
“Usually, it indicates that someone is just crossing over on the Yellow Brick Road and we’re meant to use caution by getting inside our houses and locking the doors.”
“Does that happen often?”
The girls exchange a look. “More often than you’d think,” the one on the left says.
“Good luck,” the other says before they disappear around back, leaving me alone in the garden.
I glance around, trying to get my bearings. There’s a ton of commotion from around front as people spill from the mansion and search for their carriages.
It’s probably best that I head that way too so I can try to find Rook or Ana. We rode quite a way in the carriage to get here, so walking back to the Red Wander seems out of the question.
I follow the path around a gurgling stone fountain. The cool water mists in the air, wetting my exposed skin. A shiver racks my body.
I’m looking forward to my room at the inn more and more. Of course, I want to get to safety, but there’s also a cozy quilt waiting for me, Toto, and a fireplace and Rook—
My chest grows light at the thought.
I pass by a tall hedgerow.
A rustling on the other side makes me slow.
Was that a footstep on gravel?
Ten feet ahead, there’s a break in the hedge where a wrought-iron archway leads farther into the garden.
Though the mansion is still lit up like a jack-o’-lantern in the night, this part of the garden is dark. I squint, trying to see through the latticework of the hedge, but it’s impossible.
It could be more of the staff trying to get home.
Surely whatever danger is behind the alarm wouldn’t have made it all the way across town and to the mansion in that short amount of time.
I take a few tentative steps forward, then stop to listen.
There’s only silence now on the other side of the hedge.
I was probably hearing things.
Hands fisted in my dress, I pick up the pace. But as I pass the archway, two strong hands reach through and yank me back.
“I’ve got her,” a deep, husky voice says.