She mounted with effort, her shoulder still aching, and Johnathan instinctively moved to steady her, his hand resting lightly at her waist. She met his gaze briefly, a flicker of pain quickly replaced by quiet determination. The gesture was not just about balance—it was a reminder that they were no longer facing the road alone. They resumed their journey at a cautious pace, the road slick with rain.
As they traveled deeper into the woods, Johnathan occasionally glanced her way, as though to make sure she was still there. Still real.
And every time, Frances met his gaze with quiet certainty.
They rode side by side through the narrowing path, and while neither spoke of the kiss, both carried its fire with them—steady, dangerous, and impossible to forget.
Night fell quickly.
By the time they reached the edge of a small, mist-shrouded valley, the moon had risen behind tattered clouds. Johnathan found a hollow beneath a rocky outcropping—a place dry enough to rest for the night, shielded from view. They tethered the horses nearby and made a modest camp from their remaining supplies.
Frances sat close to the small fire Johnathan coaxed into life, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth.
“Will you sleep tonight?” she asked, watching him from across the flames.
He glanced up. “I will try.”
She hesitated. “May I stay near you?”
The question was not bold. It was not flirtation. It was raw and open—a request born of fear, of closeness, of the instinctive need for safety.
Johnathan nodded and spread his coat out next to him.
They lay beside each other in the shelter of stone and night, their bodies barely touching, but every inch of space between them brimming with unspoken understanding. He did not reach for her, did not pull her close—but he stayed awake, listening to her breathing, feeling the steady rise and fall of her chest beneath the borrowed cloak.
He wanted to hold her—not with lust, but with reverence. With the ache of a man who had finally found something worth protecting, something he feared losing more than he could admit. Her.
She shifted slightly, her head brushing his shoulder.
“Johnathan?” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“If we make it… If we survive all of this—I do not want to go back to the life I had.”
He turned his head toward her in the dark. “You will not have to.”
“You do not understand. I do not want ballrooms. I do not want marriage for duty. I do not want to be anyone’s pawn.”
“You never were,” he said. “They just tried to make you forget.”
She bit at her lower lip. Then, said, “What do you want?”
Johnathan exhaled. “You.”
The air between them held still, suspended.
“Not the girl you remember,” she murmured, vulnerability threading through every word.
“No,” he said. “The woman you have become.”
Frances was quiet for a long time.
Then she reached for his hand in the dark. Her fingers laced with his beneath the stars.
No kiss. No declarations. Just this moment, where childhood friendship gave way to something deeper. Steadier.
