Still Star-Crossed

by Melinda Taub

  So why did the back of her neck still prickle with unease?

  Beside her, Livia preened, oblivious to her distress. The duchess was waiting just in front of them, and turned to give them a glance.

  “Hmph,” she said, before sweeping through the doors, which Rosaline took to be a grudging approval that her nieces’ appearance would not disgrace her. For the thousandth time Rosaline reluctantly blessed the absent tenant who so generously rented their house. His steward had just sent a pouch of gold for another year, so in a rare fit of extravagance, Rosaline had had a new dress made for Livia, and her sister was in heaven. The delicate blue and cream concoction was the latest fashion, from the embroidered collar to the beaded hem, and Livia looked like an angel in it. An effect that was rather spoiled once she opened her mouth.

  “Look at Lady Millamet,” she whispered in Rosaline’s ear. “See how she stares daggers at me? Well, ’tis not my fault our dresses are the same color. Perhaps I shall push her into a wine barrel. Then we will have quite different hues.”

  Rosaline smothered a smile. The ball had thrown Livia into a frenzy of excitement. Attending was worth it if only to see her sister so happy. “Lady Millamet is unlikely to fit in a wine barrel,” she whispered to Livia.

  “True,” Livia reflected. “She is quite fat. Oh! It’s us.”

  As they reached the doors, Rosaline took a deep breath. Too late to turn back now.

  The Great Hall was a blaze of light. Every lamp was lit; every chandelier glowing. Livia and Rosaline were two of the last to arrive, and as the butler’s voice boomed, “Lady Rosaline of House Tirimo and her sister, Livia,” it seemed to Rosaline that the face of every noble in Verona was turned toward them. To her right, Rosaline saw her uncle Capulet give her a scowl and a “Hmph” as she passed by. A cluster of Montagues stood near the prince’s throne, Benvolio among them. Rosaline found her eyes locked on his cool dark ones as she wondered what he thought of her now. Was he relieved that she’d managed to break off their disastrous match? Or had her antics merely humiliated him?

  A subtle tug at her elbow from Livia brought her attention back where it belonged. As they reached the end of the long red carpet, they came before the prince and his sister, enthroned side by side. Princess Isabella’s polite smile became warmer as Livia and Rosaline sank into deep curtsies before them. The prince looked on coolly. But as Rosaline rose to her feet, he too allowed them a smile. “Welcome, ladies,” he said. “We cannot tell you the joy we feel to have you in our house.”

  Rosaline released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Perhaps this evening really would be all right.

  Tomorrow it would be three weeks since Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths. Tonight was the first major social event since the summer tragedies, and the relief of the city’s nobles at a chance to take off their mourning clothes and be merry again was palpable. The evening soon dissolved into a whirl of dancing, wine, and gossip. Rosaline tried to stay clear of the latter, as she was sure she was the subject of much of it (she half overheard Lady Millamet whisper something nasty). She had no interest in satisfying Verona’s curiosity about the goings-on at House Tirimo.

  Instead, she danced until she was out of breath, drank chilled white wine, stole a few minutes to speak with Isabella of their plans for the morning, and kept an eye on Livia—although, in fact, Livia seemed to be behaving herself. Normally she was a scandalous flirt, but tonight, though Rosaline watched her laugh and tease a succession of boys, she was no worse than the other young ladies. It seemed her heart was not in it. Odd.

  So distracted was she by Livia’s unheard-of decorum that she failed to notice that Orlino was drawing near to her side until the steps of the dance had landed her in his clutches. She tried not to wince as the young Montague’s fingers dug into the fabric at her waist. His handsome face was still marred with an angry red cut.

  “Good e’en,” Rosaline said coolly. “Your face is healing, I see.”

  He smirked. “Ah yes. Your champion’s handiwork.” He leaned closer, his hot hideous breath brushing her face. “How did you repay him for his service after he left? I can think of but one way a Capulet wanton could turn a brave man of Montague against his own kin. Didst thou thank him upon thy knees atop his cousin’s grave?”

  Rosaline gasped and tried to pull away, but his painful grip on her stayed firm as he whirled her about the dance floor. “Orlino, only you would think that bare courtesy needs to be bought so dear,” she hissed. “Now, let me go.”

  “Ah, but the eyes of every Montague and Capulet are on us, dear kinswoman,” he said. “We must finish our dance so the world may see what a happy family we are now.” His fingernails, she was sure, were about to break the skin of her hand. But ’twas true, she could feel the hard stares from her cousins and his. She would simply have to wait till the dance was over to escape him. No matter what poison he poured in her ear.

  “May I?”

  Orlino stopped. In their path stood Benvolio.

  “My apologies, dearest cousin,” he said to Orlino, loudly enough for the crowd to hear. “My friend Rosaline promised me a dance. I am sure you will not mind if I collect it now.” He extended a hand, and Rosaline, after extracting her fingers from Orlino’s talons, took it. “Thank you, lady. Orlino, our uncle Montague would speak with you.” He gestured with his head to where Lord Montague waited, arms crossed. Before Orlino could respond, Benvolio had swept her away in his arms.

  Rosaline felt the tension at her neck ease slightly. Benvolio was a much better dancer than his cousin, his hand feather-light at her waist as he guided her gently through the steps. Of course, anyone who did not view dance as a sort of weapon would be better than Orlino.

  “It seems I’ve rescued you again, lady,” he said, his dark eyes locked on hers. Orlino’s cruelty might be absent from Benvolio’s face, but there was no kindness there either.

  Rosaline gave him a mocking smile. “And for that you’ve my gratitude, as usual, my lord,” she said. “Of course, I’ve rescued you as well. Am I not owed thanks?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Rescued me? From what?”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  Understanding appeared in his face. “You mean—” He leaned in closer so he could speak in her ear, below the hearing of the crowd. “You mean our betrothal?”

  “Our attempted betrothal. The prince shall trouble us no more.”

  He chuckled softly near her ear. “If you’ve managed to save me from the terrible spectre of yourself, you’ve my gratitude indeed, lady.” Rosaline resisted the unholy urge to tread on his foot. “Indeed, not having to marry you would be the greatest boon anyone has ever done me—”

  To hell with resistance. She gave him a healthy stamp. He jumped. “But art thou so sure of your triumph, Rosaline?”

  She pulled back to frown at him. “What do you mean? I’m here, am I not? Think you that I would show my face without my house were there any chance of this forced union going forward?”

  “I am quite prepared to believe that a lady as curst as thee would happily stay within her walls until she died a withered crone. I meant merely that if you think our prince so easily defeated, you have underestimated him.”

  The dance came to an end and Benvolio pulled away to bow to her. As he did so, there came an attention-seeking little cough next to them.

  “Pardon, Signor Benvolio,” Chancellor Penlet said. “Lady, the prince would speak to you.”

  “Of course.” Benvolio lifted her hand to kiss it in farewell, and gave her an I told you so look over her knuckles.

  Churl. Rosaline retrieved her hand and followed Penlet across the hall to where the prince was surrounded by a knot of nobles and flatterers. When he spied her, he waved them off with a flip of his hand so she could make her way to his side. “Ah, Lady Rosaline,” he said. “Your beauty graces our house. Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse us, my lady and I have matters to discuss.” With that, he took her arm and led her away.

  A hush fe
ll in their wake as the crowd saw the prince offer his arm to a shabby little half-Capulet. Rosaline’s nervousness grew as she realized he was drawing her not to some quiet corner of the ballroom, but out of the Great Hall altogether, toward his private study. “Your Grace?” she whispered. “Perhaps we ought not—”

  Escalus merely drew her arm tighter around his. “Peace, Rosaline. We’ll not cause a scandal. I promise.”

  Rosaline swallowed. In truth, it was not unheard of for the prince to draw this noble or that aside for a private word during a ball—but said noble was normally not an unmarried young girl. Uneasy as she was, though, she could hardly refuse her sovereign in front of all Verona. And no matter how they had quarreled, she still knew Prince Escalus was an honorable man. Surely he would not do anything that would besmirch her honor. A few minutes couldn’t hurt.

  Besides, the touch of his arm at her elbow had kindled a shy, fluttering warmth in her belly. Even if she should, she did not want to draw away.

  As they drew near the top of the staircase, the crowd’s hush was broken by a sudden commotion in the back. A loud crash was followed by a female voice calling, “Oh, Lady Millamet, you fell, you poor thing, let me help you.…”

  The prince craned his neck back to see what was going on. “What in the world was that?”

  Rosaline, for her part, had no need to look. “Lady Millamet being pushed in a barrel of wine,” she said. “Shall we?” Escaping the ballroom had suddenly become much more attractive.

  The air in Prince Escalus’s study was cool and quiet after the press of bodies in the Great Hall. Lamps hung around the walls, but when the prince released her arm, he lit only one, leaving the room filled with ruddy light and black shadows. He took a bottle of wine from the cupboard and poured himself a glass and, without asking, one for her as well. Rosaline took a polite sip, though she’d already had as much wine this night as she thought wise.

  Escalus drew her down to sit on a chaise by the window. He leaned easily against the arm; she sat so straight her spine ached. With a deep breath, she said, “My lord, I hope you do not take my attendance here tonight as a sign that I have changed my mind. I assure you, I am as adamant as—”

  He laughed at her. “Peace, my lady Thorn, for God’s sake.” He took her hand when she tried to rise, pulling her back down. “Did you never imagine that I might have invited you here to ask your forgiveness? That I might truly hate forcing such a dear friend as you to marry against her will?”

  He had not let go of her hand. Between that and the wine, she was having trouble thinking. “Trying to force me to marry, Your Grace. You’ve not succeeded.”

  “Of course.” He leaned back, gazing at her with a warm, lazy smile she had not seen on his face since he took the throne. His eyes, however, were as sharp as always. “Isabella said to give thee her regards, by the way. She regrets she had not more time to speak with thee tonight, but she had to retire early, since she is to leave in the morn.”

  Rosaline smiled. She and Isabella would have plenty of time to speak on the way to Arragon. Escalus was staring at her glass, so she took another sip. “ ’Twas wonderful to see her tonight. If only because you had to stop tormenting me while we were all in the same room. I am sure that had she learned what you are about, she would shave your stallion’s mane again.”

  “Ah, so that was she. She always denied it.”

  Ought she to admit it? The bravery of two glasses of wine said yes. “Well—not she alone. I had a hand in it.”

  “You too?” Escalus shook his head. “Trouble even in the nursery. And you looked so innocent. I should have known.”

  “You deserved it,” she said. “You were forever pulling our hair.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “So I was. Well, were there more in this tiny conspiracy? Or just you two?”

  “Oh, no, just me and Isabella,” she said. “The little girls were far too in awe of you.”

  He sighed. “Well. Juliet, at least, learned to flout my will.”

  “Aye. I would she had not, poor wretch.”

  Silence fell. Through his open window, laughter and music drifted up from the party below.

  Rosaline tried again to rise. Again, he pulled her down, holding one of her hands in both of his. His smile was gone now; his gaze lost somewhere in the darkness. “Sit thou with me, Rosaline,” he said. “Just—sit with me awhile. Be not afraid of your old friend.”

  She returned to her place. “Very well, Your Grace,” she said. “Just for a moment.” He said nothing else, but refilled her wine glass.

  Livia was growing rather bored.

  Now that the grand feast was nearly over, she was no longer sure what it was she had been so looking forward to. Her feet aching from dancing, she slipped outside to wait for Rosaline to reappear from wherever she’d got to. Livia was ready to go home.

  She smothered a yawn, nodding and smiling to the stream of nobles leaving the feast. Their aunt had long since returned to her house, leaving Livia with a few coins to hire a carriage. Thus discharging her financial duty to her nieces for the summer, Livia supposed. Good, Rosaline would say. We’ve no need of her help. The less we are under the Capulet thumb, the better.

  Livia wondered, occasionally, if the Capulets’ neglect of them was really as much of a snub as Rosaline believed, or if it was also a response to Rosaline’s own fierce independence. Rosaline might not need the Capulets, but Livia was not sure what she needed. Certainly Lady Capulet had been nothing but kind to her these past two days that she’d helped to nurse Sir Paris.

  She’d been surprised tonight at how often her thoughts returned to him. She had always loved feasts—dancing and flirting and fashion, and the notion that she could at any moment meet her one true love and be swept away to a life of riches and ease.

  But now it all seemed so frivolous. Livia heartily approved of frivolity as a rule, but spending the last few days trying to save a dying man took some of the joy out of fancy clothes. She could not smell the ladies’ perfume without remembering the scents of the sickroom. And her handsome young dance partners only called to mind the heat of Paris’s cheek against her fingers as his feverish eyes burnt into hers.

  She sighed at the remembered romance of the moment. What was a dance compared to that?

  Rosaline had made her promise to meet here when the clock struck midnight—she said they had an early morning on the morrow, but she would not say why. And now it was nearly one and Rosaline was nowhere to be found. The stream of guests leaving the Great Hall had slowed to a trickle before Livia realized that Rosaline wasn’t coming out. She must have gone home without her. Oh, spite.

  “Another Capulet harlot,” a voice slurred behind her. “Waiting for thy strumpet of a sister?”

  Livia turned to find a young man with a jagged scab across one cheek. This must be he who’d attacked Rosaline. “Indeed no, Orlino,” she said. “I wait for a physician to sew up that ugly hole in your face. But I fear that if he mends the ugliest one, ’twill leave you unable to speak.”

  Orlino’s face darkened with drunken fury. “You little shrew!” He raised an arm. Livia took a step back, heart pounding. Would he really strike her on the very steps of the prince’s palace?

  “Let her be, Orlino!”

  Livia looked to her left. Her cousin Gramio was there, hand on his sword, glaring at Orlino. To her right stood Lucio and Valentine, two more young Capulet kinsmen. “Leave her alone,” Gramio repeated. “Get thee gone. And the next time you speak a word of discourtesy to one of our kinswomen, ’twill be your hide.”

  Orlino barked a laugh at that, but he was clearly outnumbered. With an obscene bite of his thumb at Livia, he turned and ran off into the night. Young Lucio made to pursue him, but Gramio seized his arm.

  “There’s naught to be done so near the prince’s palace. We’ll see to him anon.” He gave Livia a smile. “For now, let us see our sweet cousin home.”

  Livia’s cousins had not taken such notice of her in yea
rs. Apparently all it took to be valued as a Capulet was to be threatened by a Montague. She allowed Gramio to help her into their carriage, but when they set off, the thought of going home to her dark house was suddenly frightening. “Would you take me to our great house, please?” she asked. “I shall spend the night with my aunt Capulet.” Rosaline had slipped off without her, after all. Let her sit at home and worry about Livia in turn. She would spend the night at Paris’s side.

  Rosaline, the prince realized, was drunk.

  That had not, strictly speaking, been his intention. But he’d simply had to distract her somehow, so that she would not insist on returning to the ball. The maid had a very overdeveloped sense of honor.

  The danger of her departure was quite past. The stiff, cold woman of two hours ago had melted once he’d poured a bottle of wine into her. She was now ensconced on his chaise, giggling into the arm, feet tucked beneath her. Her curls had come unpinned, and they tumbled over her shoulder.

  A knock on the door was quickly followed by a cough before it opened to reveal Penlet. His eyes widened when he saw Rosaline, but if he had any opinion of the scene before him, his years of service kept him from revealing it.

  “Your Grace, your guests have all departed,” he reported. “Your sister is abed. Shall I arrange a carriage for the—ah—” His eyes landed on Rosaline. “The young lady?”