Page 35 of To Protect

ChapterFifteen

She’d avoided being alone with him with good reason.

Amalia and Roland stepped into the garden, the only light coming from a partly hidden moon, wall torches that were too far away to afford much illumination, and the single candle Roland carried.

“This way,” she said, trying to remember where the broadleaf was located.

Roland held the candle in its holder in front of them.

“Nay,” she said, changing her mind. “Over here.”

Looking at the ground, and not her companion, she ran into him hard enough that Roland’s hand shot out to steady her. That simple touch reminded Amalia why she’d mostly avoided him these past few days. Even at meals, she tried hard not to engage in conversation with him. She thought of him often enough already and needed no more memories plaguing her.

“Amalia—”

“Nay,” she said, stepping back. “Do not use that tone.”

“One of concern?”

“One of intimacy.”

Their eyes met. Despite her words, Amalia didn’t move. They were close enough that she would touch him if she reached out.

“You are angry with me?”

“With you? Nay. I am angry with myself for thinking too often of that night. I am angry at my heart, which races even now, being alone with you. But most of all, I am angry that the stations to which we’re born to determine our life path.”

Had she really just said all of that? Amalia spun from him, embarrassed. But Roland caught her arm and turned her back to him.

“Do you not think I am angry as well, for all of those reasons?”

He didn’t let her go.

“Angry? To have been an earl’s son?”

“If you think I’ve more freedom than you because of it,” he said, his words clipped, “you are wrong.”

“And if you were not? If you were . . . Alden? Born a blacksmith’s son instead? Would that change things between us?”

His shoulders rose and fell, Roland’s eyes unblinking as he stared back at her.

“Precisely. Do not pretend, if it were otherwise, you are the type of man who wants anything more than a fun evening or two, with a woman.”

His eyes narrowed. “I thought you were not listening to Lady Elara and instead intended to judge me on my own merit.”

“Tell me I am wrong. That you are in search of a woman to spend your days with.”

Of course, he said nothing. Amalia pulled her arm back.

“Amalia.”

He said her name differently than ever before. More softly. Not at all like Roland the champion swordsman or defiler of ladies. If he truly was such a man. Lady Elara seemed to hint at as much. Either way, it was his tone that stopped her.

“Aye, Roland?”

Candlelight flickered in his eyes between them.

“I do not know if that would change things. Nor do I know what to say to you, except . . . when I am with you, I want to know more. When we are apart, I think of you. Wonder where you are, what you are doing. I think of that kiss even when I should not be. In training. During instruction. I dislike when we eat meals at the same table but you do not speak to me. That is all I know. No more, or less.”