Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

“ Y ou don’t have to carry me to bed,” Rosalie murmured from his arms. She had her head resting against his chest, and Nathan was carrying her through the halls of the castle, back to their bedroom.

“You were falling asleep over dinner,” he pointed out as he navigated past a suit of armor, making sure to keep her feet from hitting it. “And you’ve had a very trying day.”

“Well, that’s true.” Against his chest, Rosalie snuggled closer, and Nathan felt a deep sense of contentment wash over him.

It had been a mellow day, ever since he’d rescued her from the collapsing room in the West Wing. He had insisted that she rest after her brush with death, and they had spent the day playing backgammon, reading, and otherwise doing very little. Still, she was exhausted by the end of it, and when she’d nearly fallen asleep in her soup, he had decided it was time for bed.

They reached the end of the corridor where their bedroom was, and Nathan reached around Rosalie to open the door. Once they were inside, he carried her over to the bed and deposited her down on the blanket.

“You’re going to have to call Clara,” she murmured, her eyes already closed. “I don’t know how to get myself out of these clothes.”

“Let me,” he said.

Her eyes snapped open at these words, and then she narrowed them. “You’re going to undress me?”

“Just for bed. You’re far too tired to do any more kissing.”

Nathan smirked. That was the other thing that they had done occasionally throughout the day. He was pretty sure he could spend the rest of his life kissing Rosalie and never get tired of it. Her lips were so soft, her skin was warm and silky, her hair fragrant, her body?—

Get your mind out of the gutter! he snarled at himself.

She sat up on the bed and turned to face away from him so that he could begin to undo the buttons on the back of her dress. They were very small, and his fingers struggled with them.

“Having trouble?” she teased, and he laughed.

“I, also, am used to being dressed and undressed by a servant,” he said.

At last, the buttons came undone, and she raised her arms, allowing him to lift the dress off of her. She also pulled off her petticoat.

“Now is the hard part,” she said, and he felt his mouth go dry as he looked down. Her stays.

“I admit, I don’t really know how to do this part,” he replied.

“I think you just undo the laces…”

His fingers came to them, and he slowly and carefully began to pull them apart. It wasn’t easy, and he kept pulling on the wrong ones, accidentally tightening them and making her laugh.

Finally, he managed to get the stays loose enough that she could also lift this off. She turned around. She was now in nothing but a loose white shift, and he felt a strange buzzing filling his ears. He’d seen her in her night rail before, but somehow, because this was meant to be underneath her dress, the shift felt more intimate.

“Now my hair,” she said. She raised her hand to the pins and slowly began to pull them out. One by one, the locks of her pale blonde hair fell around her shoulders. When she was done, she looked up at him with her big, round green eyes.

“You look beautiful,” he murmured. It was going to be very hard not to kiss her, but he knew he had to restrain himself. She needed her sleep tonight; she needed to rest.

But Rosalie seemed more awake now because she scooted to the end of the bed and fixed him with a more serious look.

“What happened there?”

“Where?” he asked stupidly.

She tilted her head to one side. “In the West Wing. Was there a fire?”

Nathan hesitated. The time had come for him to tell her what had happened. Perhaps not the whole story but enough.

If she knew everything, then I would risk the fragile romance that is developing between us. I have to tread cautiously.

Rosalie seemed to misinterpret his hesitation as annoyance because she rushed to say, “I didn’t come here trying to snoop or pry into anything private. Clara and I were going through the castle trying to catalog what needs to be fixed up, and I lost track of where I was. I promise you, I wouldn’t have purposefully gone to the West Wing after you asked me not to. I do respect your privacy.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said, shaking his head. “I was wrong to be so secretive and controlling about where you were and were not allowed to go. You are the Duchess of Carramere therefore you should be able to go wherever you like within Carramere Castle.”

“But I understand there might be some things you’re not ready to talk about,” she replied softly.

“I want you to know me,” he said truthfully, and he felt a small twinge of guilt in his stomach. I am telling her as much as I can without losing her forever. But if he really wanted her to know him, he would tell her everything.

“Yes, the West Wing of the castle burned down about two years ago.”

“Two years ago…” Her eyes flickered to him. “That’s when…”

“Yes, that’s when my brother died.” He took a deep breath. It was difficult to get the words out. Immediately, the smell of smoke filled his nose, and he could hear the screams, the crackle of the flames, and the snapping beams as the floors collapsed.

And then he felt a cool hand on his arm, and he blinked and looked down to see that Rosalie had placed her hand on him. She was looking at him with deep empathy.

It gave him the strength to keep going.

“My brother was killed in the fire that destroyed the West Wing of the castle.” The words filled the room, their weight heavy. Tears rushed to his eyes, but he swallowed them down. Rosalie’s mouth opened slightly then her hand tightened on his arm.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“The worst part is that I watched it happen and couldn’t save him.” The words physically hurt to say; they scraped against his throat, leaving him raw. “My father wouldn’t let me save him; he said it was too dangerous, that I would go in after Ethan and die as well, and then he would lose both of his sons, both of his heirs.”

He swallowed, but it didn’t relieve the pain. There was a knot in his throat, a burning sensation behind his eyes, and his head felt full of buzzing bees. He tried not to think about that day as much as possible. Most of the time, it was lurking just behind his thoughts, and he had to push it down all the time.

And yet, saying it out loud to Rosalie seemed to lessen some of the intensity of it. This surprised him.

He met her eyes and saw that they were soft and steady.

“That must have been unimaginably terrible,” she murmured.

He nodded. “It was. I could hear my brother screaming for me, screaming for me to save him, but I wasn’t able to go to him. My father restrained me.”

“He what?” she spat. “That was wrong of him.”

“Yes, it was.”

Her expression became more thoughtful. “While I don’t agree with what he did, he may have been right, though. You might have died if you had attempted to save your brother.”

“Maybe.” He touched her face slowly, wondering how much he could admit. “But I have often thought, since that day, that I would rather be dead with my brother than alive without him, knowing I couldn’t save him, knowing he died in pain and fear, and knowing I failed him.”

“You didn’t fail him,” she breathed, and there was a hard determination in her eyes that told him she believed this with every fiber of her being. “There was nothing you could do.”

“I know,” he said heavily. Once again, he traced her jawline with his thumb. She was so beautiful and such a good listener; it meant more to him than he could express to be able to tell her these things and to hear her support him. “And truthfully, today was the first time I no longer felt that way. When I held you in my arms after you nearly fell, I felt, for the first time in two years, like I am happy to be alive and here with you now in this castle.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she reached up and wound her arms around his neck.

“I think you have to kiss me after that,” she whispered, her lips against his ear.

He laughed throatily then his mouth found hers. “I think you’re right.”