“Let’s go home, then,” Bennett said, his breath ruffling the top of my hair.
I nodded. He flicked the reins and we clip-clopped down the road at a leisurely pace. Riding astride with Bennett behind me felt cramped and awkward.
His chest alone was nearly the width of my shoulders. I never noticed how small I felt in his presence recently—in size and in significance.
Bennett reached for my hand. His palm was warm and dry and utterly engulfed mine. I let a stone gate on our left pass before pulling away.
“You may lean on me if you like,” Bennett said after a moment. “You must be tired.”
My muscles were tense, but I didn’t indulge his invitation.
“Cissa.”
The saddle creaked as he shifted. I begrudgingly turned to look at him. The crease between his brows had dissolved, leaving his face unbearably earnest as he gazed down at me with shadowed eyes. The gas lamps illuminated them for a moment, green and amber flecks flashing before returning to darkness. “Are you unhappy with me?”
“No.” I turned back.
“Stoicism is usually my thing,” he said. I heard the smile in his voice.
The back of my eyes burned with tears. We approached the fork in the road. The right led to the palace. Its pointed turrets rose high over the silhouetted buildings of the city, an icy blue in the moonlight. Inside, he would be the crown prince again, formidable and dutiful. My better in every way. He would avoid my kisses. Gossip would fly and all I’d be able to do was bear it and try to follow in his footsteps when he had already left me far, far behind.
To the left was another mile until Greenwood Abbey.
I took the reins.
Bennett released them. “Cissa?”
I jerked the horse to the left, urging it into a canter. Wind whipped back my hair as the buildings blurred past us.
He grabbed my waist. “Where are you going? We have to go back home!”
I ignored him.
“Youareupset with me. Cissa! Slow down, please,” Bennett said. His hold on my waist tightened. I was being reckless, but I couldn’t stop.
“It is you who is unhappy with me!” I burst out. My tears fell. The darkness and our speed made me feel like I could rage at him without consequence. “For the past month you’ve been acting like...like we haven’t even met! Why don’t you treat me like you used to?”
“How did I treat you before?” Bennett asked, bewildered.
“Like you loved me!”
Bennett sucked in a breath as I broke into a sob. He reclaimed the reins. I wiped my face quickly as we slowed down.
“I want to go to Greenwood Abbey. Don’t...you...dareturn around,” I demanded, gripping his wrists.
But my forbidding words were dulled by the tremor in my voice and the tears that streamed down my face in rivulets. My breaths came in and out in shaky gasps. I had never dared to cry for long under Mother’s watch—but now it was as if every childhood tantrum I had suppressed burst to the surface.
It was horrid and unladylike and utterly unbecoming.
Bennett gently extracted himself from my grasp. “I won’t.”
He said nothing after that. We continued down the road at a sensible trot. His silence made my throat seize. Somehow it was even worse than if he had reprimanded me. Mother had not been kind after my tantrums. I didn’t expect Bennett to be either. Was he thinking that he had held me too high in his regard? That I was not fit to be his crown princess after all?
Minutes passed, and my swollen eyelids grew heavy. We passed the open field that separated Delibera from Greenwood Abbey, populated by dirt roads and tall grasses beginning to turn yellow from the summer heat. The night was cool, however, and I grew cold even with Bennett’s warmth at my back.
It wasn’t long before Greenwood Abbey’s low stone walls and iron wrought gates came into view at the top of a slight hill, the solid structure familiar and comforting. Father wasn’t expecting me back for another month at least. I wondered if he’d be disappointed in me too.
Bennett stopped us beneath the large elm tree before the gates. The branches hid us from view of the guards standing watch.
