Page 105 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
“There’s no reform,” he said. “There’s no fixing. I’m the worst of the worst. I’ve done too much wrong.”
“Roses thrive on bonemeal,” commented Fairhrim irrelevantly.
She stopped at the very end of the hothouse.
And she, whom nothing could startle, gasped, “Oh.”
Daylight drew a luminous path through the glass roof to her feet.
There—a desperate triumph among the rot—a single white rose had bloomed. It was imperfect; its petals were browned and frayed, its leaves withered. But it bloomed.
“That’s the thing about decay,” said Fairhrim. “Death becomes life again, inevitably. Beauty grows from rotted things.”
They stood in silence. Motes of dust glimmered like gold.
The rose stretched upwards through bones and broken glass and its own mutilation, in search of grace.
20
Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin
Aurienne
Under rain-swollen clouds, Aurienne stepped out of the hothouse, followed by Mordaunt. They discovered a patch of strawberries off the path, which Mordaunt—surprised at his own garden’s bounty—insisted upon tasting. Aurienne held out her dressing gown and he dropped strawberries into it, and they ate them while meandering on overgrown paths.
Mordaunt kept taking out the pocket watch with boyish delight. Cíele had been right: the present had surprised and touched Mordaunt.
They were halfway back to the house when the rain began to fall in earnest. It was not a gentle rain; it was an August storm that, by the time they ran for cover, turned to hail.
“This way,” said Mordaunt, and he took Aurienne’s hand and pulled her along.
He led her through a curtain of blue-green ivy, covering the entrance to a sort of grotto. A spring tinkled musically somewhere in the dimness. Aurienne had expected a rough stone interior, but the grotto’s walls were encrusted with white shells and bits of coral.
Aurienne had wrapped Mrs. Parson’s shawl around her head to shield herself from the storm. Mordaunt laughed at the sight of her. As for him, he had his wet shirt open, of course, and his damp hair effortlessly sprung into the most charming of waves, and mirth made him more handsome still.
“What is this place?” asked Aurienne.
“The nymphaeum,” said Mordaunt. “May I trespass upon you for a bit of shawl?”
Aurienne obliged. Mordaunt furled back his cuffs, an activity that retained too much of Aurienne’s attention, and used the shawl to wipe rain from his face.
“I fancy the place saw far more use as a lovers’ tryst than nymph worship,” he said.
Aurienne stepped deeper into the grotto. Dead leaves crunched underfoot. “I suppose it’s been a long time since it saw use by lovers, too.”
She pushed away long fronds of ivy to discover spirals upon spirals; fossils of ammonites had been embedded into the wall amid the seashells.
She and Mordaunt watched the storm from the nymphaeum’s narrow entrance. The trailing ivy danced in the wind, back and forth, up and down, tracing the cold-hot air. Like all dances, it carried meaning.
The sky turned a dangerous purple. Hail lashed down, tore at foliage in a hiss, frothed the pond. There was a wild romance to standing there together, watching this savage undoing. The scents of crushed flowers and ice, of summer and winter, mingled into something heady. Aurienne found herself aware of Mordaunt’s nearness. The touch of his shoulder against hers sent something tender, yet softly electric, through her.
The wind blew Aurienne’s dressing gown up. Mordaunt caught sight of her bare legs and looked away. She wore nothing under the garment, a decision that felt far more risqué now than it had just after her bath.
Her plait came loose. Her hair danced like the ivy. She gathered it up to plait it again, but Mordaunt’s hands found her wrists.
“Don’t,” he said. “Let it be. There’s a nymph here again, after all these centuries.”
Poetic. Ridiculous. Aurienne couldn’t help but smile.
