“Please,” I begged. “Like you don’t know.”
He sat up, inspecting me. “Love… You can look at me,” he said.
“I really can’t,” I whined.
“No,” he said. He reached over and lifted my chin with the tip of his finger. “No, I mean, you canlookat me. Alright?”
“No,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes. You can. You can look at me; it won’t offend me, and it doesn’t have tomeananything. Alright? And I won’t tell Sam either.”
“When you say that it feels like I’m doing something wrong,” I told him.
He exhaled. “Because itiswrong. Sameer is my friend; he’s your intended. But at the same time, I can say…” He considered it. “Roses suit you.”
I did not understand until I looked at my blouse and saw its design. Then I looked at him.
“You…” There was no reply that sounded right.
His eyes ventured over the embroidery of my vest—the vest emblazoned with flowers, and grass, and thorns that I’d worn forhim,and he was just barely polite enough to add an explanation.
“Beautiful; guarded,” Cyrus said. “Yes, that sounds like you, doesn’t it, Swan?”
“I-”I flushed.
“Let’s not fill every silence,” he told me. He collected one of the tiny blocks of cheese and took it to his mouth. He bit into it. “Just sit here with me. We’re just two people. Svana and Cyrus. Leave the Crown behind, and for my sanity, leave Sameer.”
I took a shallow breath.
After the longest pause, he yawned and laid back into the ground, draping a hand over his torso. It was quiet.
He said, “You can lay by me, if you want.”
I froze.
“I won’t touch you,” he promised. “I’m just looking at the clouds. I thought you might enjoy that with me.”
I checked the sky, and there were several large shapes above him. I desperatelywantedto see them from his view.
“I hardly think that would be appropriate, Mr. Evergreen,” I said instead.
He agreed. “It’s not, and I don’t mean to push you,” he said. “I’m sorry I said I wanted to kiss you, too. I’m just very open and you are very attractive, you know. And now I know you are attracted to me. I had a moment of weakness, that’s all.”
“You said you wouldn’t touch me,” I replied.
“I won’t,” he said. “But Iwillcontinue to flirt with you, especially if you are so close. If you don’t feel like you can trust that, fine. Stay seated. It matters not to me.”
So I stayed.
He closed his eyes and stretched a little longer across the field, diligently filling his chest with air, then deflating it again, for so long and so evenly, that I was sure he’d slipped into unconsciousness. The woods around us buzzed unbothered, birds and insects, and on occasion, shuffled its trees. It was minutes before I noticed how perfect the pasture was and another before his breathing sank into a lower, muted pattern that made me feel like I was listening to some rare, forbidden tune.
“Are you asleep?” I asked. He didn’t answer.
Our horses chased each other around in the gated parts of the yard, and the sun was both high and bright as big white tufts scrolled past it in the sky.
Wild poppies and blue eyes weeded their way into the landscape, and though the house had been unloved for a decade, it held strong with its craftsmanship and rural charm—a stranger to the grotesque fortress of stone back home.
“I do trust you,”I whispered.
