Chapter 9 The Hour He Had Least

Scarlett’s POV (Now)

I spent most of the morning reading the four notes on the back of the list, then turning it over to read the eleven names. I knew them all by heart now.

Beyond the window, the sky was grey. My door was open, and whenever I heard someone in the passage, I looked up from the paper. Edward usually passed this way by now.

The third time I glanced toward the stairs, I said, "He'll be along in a moment."

Naomi kept folding the linen on her lap. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, heavy and even, and Edward came around the corner. He passed the open door without looking in.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"I guessed." I turned the list face down on my knee.

"Before you could hear him?"

"I heard someone. It happened to be him."

She laid the sheet flat. "Don't put too much faith in what you feel through the bond."

"It didn't tell me he was coming. I know his footsteps. He takes the last two stairs together. You'd recognize him if you listened."

I wished I hadn't said that much. Naomi picked up the next sheet, and I looked down at the list before she could ask how often I'd been listening.

"What's on that paper?" she said instead.

"Four things I can't do myself."

"Then send word that you need to speak to him. You'll get more done than you will waiting for him to pass the door."

I rubbed a thumb over the fold in the paper. "Fine. Just after noon, when he's busy."

"That's when they're training in the yard."

"I know."

I wrote the message myself, asking him to meet me just after noon in the small room at the end of the corridor. The attendant read it and hesitated.

"His Highness will be at the training yard then."

"Give it to him as it is. If he's busy, he doesn't have to come."

When the attendant had left, I turned to Naomi. "I've had to fit around his plans since I arrived. He can fit around mine for once."

"I didn't say anything."

She partly closed the window and returned to her folding. I read the four notes again. A horn sounded beyond the wall, and later another. I wondered whether he'd sent an answer, but I didn't ask anyone to find out.

I went to the small room early and sat with my hands folded, as I used to when Father was about to ask me something I didn't want to answer. The room smelled of cold stone and smoke drifting up from the yard. Every time footsteps approached, I straightened, then relaxed when they passed.

A cart rattled beneath the window. I listened until it had gone, then looked toward the door again. I was beginning to wish I'd stayed in my room until the appointed hour. As I put a hand on the chair to stand, the bell sounded and Edward came in.

He closed the door behind him. He was still wearing a short, sleeveless training tunic, its collar dark with sweat. A fresh scrape marked his knuckles.

"You left the yard," I said.

"I changed the training time."

He paused beside the chair opposite mine before sitting down.

"You could have sent word and come afterward."

"I could have. You asked for this time."

I could feel the list against my wrist inside my sleeve. I'd wanted to inconvenience him. Now he was sitting in front of me in his training clothes, and I didn't feel nearly as pleased as I'd expected. I almost asked about his hand, then looked at his collar instead.

"The guards on my corridor keep changing," I said. "I hardly learn one face before there's someone else."

He waited, so I added, "And the soup is cold by the time it reaches my room."

Those weren't the things on my list. I hadn't meant to start with them, but now that I had, taking out the paper felt awkward. I pressed my fingers against its edge through my sleeve.

"Do you want me to speak to someone about those things," he asked, "or did you want someone to talk to?"

My face grew hot. I wanted to say I hadn't asked him to come just to keep me company, but he was watching me, waiting for an answer, and I couldn't make myself say it.

"Why did it have to be you?" I asked. "Of every wolf alive, why is the man who took my home my mate?"

He didn't look away. "I don't know why. But being mates doesn't mean you have to accept what I've done."

"I haven't." I hesitated, trying to read his expression. "Do you wish we weren't? Is that it? You don't want this?"

"No."

He answered so quickly that I stopped. I knew what I'd asked, but now I wanted him to say more. Did he mean he wanted the bond, the marriage, or me sitting in this room asking him foolish questions?

Before I'd worked out how to ask, he stood.

"There are men waiting for me in the yard."

He opened the door and left. I listened to his footsteps receding, quicker than when he'd arrived. His chair stood crooked beside the table. I stayed where I was, looking at it and trying to think what I should have said. When the bell sounded again, I still hadn't decided.

Naomi was sitting by the window with a hem in her hands when I returned. She looked up but didn't ask how the meeting had gone.

"When's dinner?"

"The usual time."

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the floor. "He wasn't late. I went too early."

She drew her needle through the cloth. "Did you ask about the four things?"

"I didn't give him the list."

Her head came up. For a moment I thought she'd ask why. I didn't know how to explain that I'd sat with the paper in my sleeve and talked about cold soup instead. She lowered her eyes to the hem again.

"I won't ask for that time again," I said.

She didn't answer, and I was grateful not to have to explain that either.

At dusk, the attendant brought a message from Edward asking me to write down what I needed and send it to him. I took a clean sheet and copied out the four notes, adding enough detail for him to understand them.

The tanner's hip was keeping him awake despite the medicine. A man's sister had been taken to the other camp six weeks earlier, and her family had heard nothing. A woman needed coats for herself and her child. Last, I asked whom they could approach with these needs, so they wouldn't have to wait for my next visit.

My hand was steadier than it had been by the hearth. I could read each line easily. When I reached the space beneath the fourth, I held the pen there for a while. I wanted to ask him what he'd meant in the small room, but I didn't know how to put it on the page without wishing I could take it back once he'd read it.

I blotted the sheet and read it over. There was more empty paper beneath the requests than I'd expected. I copied them onto a second sheet and gave that one to the attendant before I could add anything.

The first I folded and put with the original list, between the folds of Father's sweater at the bottom of the clothes cupboard.