Just Ella

by Annette K. Larsen

  I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. I wanted to know if he saw me as more than a friend, because I now found it impossible to ignore the fact that I thought of him as much more than a friend—and that frightened me. Because if I embraced those feelings and let them grow...then what? I didn’t know, but at the moment, I chose not to care.

  I didn’t want to let Gavin go.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Another Dance

  MY STOMACH WAS in nervous knots as I approached the maze the next morning. I hadn’t been nervous about seeing Gavin since our first meeting. The encounter in my room kept running through my head and I welcomed it, relishing the memory of those feelings. They had been potent, real. I wondered if those feelings would return when I saw him again, or if it had just been his unexpected appearance in my personal space that had caused the chaos in my soul. My back was tight and rigid as my hands rested against my stomach, attempting to calm my anticipation. I shook my hands out at my sides, trying to relax, trying to breathe normally and reacquire the casual manner I had managed to achieve around Gavin.

  I was so distracted by my nerves that I jumped when he appeared at my side. He raised his eyebrows, alarmed.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized for my overreaction. “I wasn’t paying attention and you startled me.” He simply cocked an eyebrow and then turned his eyes to the ground as he rotated a small tool in his hands.

  “Would you like to help me with something?” he asked, keeping his eyes on his hands. That was odd for Gavin. He always looked me in the eye, so much so that it oftentimes made me uncomfortable. Having him ask me a direct question without so much as a glance in my direction was peculiar.

  “Of course,” I managed to answer.

  His project was in one of the open rooms. It had a large tree in the middle surrounded by a circular bench. The tree had several branches hanging too low and they needed to be trimmed. He explained the process and then handed me a knife. I stared at it, holding it gingerly. I had certainly never held this kind of knife before, and if felt awkward in my hands.

  “Come on up here.” Gavin stood on the bench, pulling a branch down, the muscles in his arms becoming more defined as they worked.

  “I’m going to cut off my hand, or yours,” I warned.

  He smiled, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “I trust you. Come on.”

  The undercurrent of flirtation in his manner roused my curiosity, so I carefully hoisted my skirts with the unfamiliar knife in my grasp, climbed up onto the bench, and stood close to him.

  Gavin took a moment to grin at me before directing his attention to the branch in his hands. He told me where to cut off the thin shoots, and I gave it a try.

  He shouldn’t have trusted me. He had to dodge out of the way when the knife went through the first branch and sliced toward his right shoulder. I dropped the knife and covered my face with my hands, horrified that I had come so close to hurting him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I mumbled through my hands.

  “Shh,” he said, wrapping one arm around my shoulders. “I’m fine.” He actually sounded amused.

  I pulled my hands from my face and hit him squarely in his chest. “I told you I would hurt you!”

  “You didn’t hurt me.” He still sounded like he found the situation funny. “I anticipated that happening. I was ready for it.”

  “You anticipated that happening?” My voice hardened with each word. “Then why did you let me try?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “I wanted to see what would happen.”

  His hands were lightly gripping behind my elbows. I pulled my arms free and stepped off the bench. “You’re a rogue!” I called over my shoulder.

  He jumped down and followed. “What?”

  I turned on him. “You find it amusing to scare me out of my wits?”

  Having heard the tremor in my voice, the mischief left his eyes and he studied my face. He approached me and once again pulled me to him with one arm. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m sorry. I was just curious.”

  My forehead rested against his chest; his chin grazing my hair. “What were you curious about?” It was difficult asking a coherent question. I was distracted by the fact that he embraced me. It was only with one arm, but it was much more contact than he usually initiated. The only other time we had been this close was just after I’d overheard my betrothal. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but couldn’t summon the courage. Instead I clutched the fabric of his shirt at his sides.

  “I wanted to see you in a new situation.”

  I frowned, confused. “Why?” I mumbled into his shirt.

  “I’ve only ever seen you in this maze, with only me. Then last week—seeing you at the dance was—different. And yesterday in your room...” I was suddenly very glad he couldn’t see my face. It burned.

  “So you decided to risk my stabbing you out of curiosity?”

  He chuckled and drew back slightly. I looked up at him and he raised a shoulder. “Stabbing me wasn’t actually part of the plan.”

  I shook my head, trying not to smile and relinquished my hold on his shirt. He dropped his arm, but didn’t move away. “Do you still need help?” I asked after a moment of charged silence.

  His face lit up at my willingness. “How about you hold the branch and I’ll use the knife?”

  “Will I be safe?” I asked facetiously.

  “Perfectly,” he answered as he walked backwards away from me.

  Back up on the bench, he pulled a branch down and had me take a hold of it before cutting off several offshoots. After letting it go, he pulled down another for me to hold, but I folded my arms, regarding him with suspicion.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You could do this just as well on your own. It might even be easier.”

  The mischief came back in his eyes as he ignored my question and pulled my hand up, placing it on the branch, though his eyes never left mine. “I like it when you help me.”

  We worked silently for several minutes, going around the tree. The silence was...tense. He just watched me much of the time and I couldn’t help staring back. I think we were both trying to work out what was happening between us. Though in my estimation, it was not so much what was happening with us, but with him. He was different—more bold, more comfortable.

  When the tension started to make me feel anxious, I decided to start the conversation again.

  “I want to go to another dance.”

  A broad smile stretched across his face. “Just tell me when.”

  “You’re the one who knows when they are,” I pointed out. “So you’ll have to tell me.”

  He finished the last branch and moved so close that I could feel his body heat. His head dipped slightly toward mine, hovering for just a moment before he pulled himself back. “I will,” he promised, then jumped down and offered a hand to me. For the first time since we started our task, he didn’t meet my eyes. It was not the same as earlier when he had looked at the ground. This time he seemed more ashamed or...guilty. My thoughts went to the moment when his face had dipped toward me; I thought perhaps he might kiss me. Was that why? It had happened so quickly, I couldn’t be sure. The entire afternoon, the air around us had been thick with so many unspoken sentiments that it was impossible to make sense of it all.

  It was time for me to return for my lessons, so I started away. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” I meant to say it as a statement, but it came out as a question.

  He smiled at my question. Not the roguish grin from the past half hour, but a soft smile, a familiar smile. “Of course, Ella.”

  His straightforward response put me more at ease. I had enjoyed the roguish grin, the boldness, but it felt good to leave with a morsel of normalcy.

  As I walked back to the palace, I thought of the prospect of going to another dance and realized it would be a good idea for me to obtain some common clothing. I didn’t want to deprive Gretchen of hers, not when I was perfectly capable of buying some myself. Well, not exactly m
yself. I spoke with Gretchen about it that evening, came up with something to trade, and had her do the actual shopping. She came back the next morning with a full-length white chemise and a blue apron dress to go over it. She also got me shoes, a shawl and two kerchiefs. I would fit in nicely.

  ***

  The next time I went back to the maze, I armed myself with a book. I found the tension between us interesting—exciting—but I wasn’t ready to be roped into another project where I had to stand only a step away from Gavin and feel the pull between us once more.

  I found him beneath a bush, elbow-deep in soil, trying to dig it out. It was the kind of project he would never ask me to help with. Perhaps he wasn’t ready for another heady encounter either. I sat five paces from him, tucked as much fabric from my dress beneath me as I could, and opened my book, reading silently to myself so I wouldn’t distract him.

  A moment later, he pulled himself out of the hole he was burrowing and said with mock offense, “You’re not going to read to me?”

  I smiled easily, enjoying his disheveled hair and dirt-streaked face. “I didn’t think you’d be able to hear me under there.” I turned the page back and started reading out loud. He ducked beneath the bush and returned to work.

  Forty-five minutes later he let out a groan as he fell back, arms splayed out at his sides, drenched in sweat and breathing hard. “I don’t know if I’m going to win this fight.”

  I stood and surveyed the hole. “Certainly not today.”

  “What happened in the book?” he asked, his eyes closed against the sun.

  “I told you you wouldn’t be able to hear.”

  “I can’t hear every word, but I like listening to your voice.”

  I sank down next to him, ignoring my billowing skirts, and opened the book, preparing to summarize what I had read.

  “The next dance is tomorrow,” he said before I could begin.

  My head shot up. “Really?” The excitement in my voice was obvious. “You should show me another dance.”

  He turned his head toward me and cracked one eye open to look at me as though I were crazy. “Now?”

  “Oh.” Of course he couldn’t show me now. “No.”

  He smiled, hearing all too clearly the disappointment in my voice. “How about this afternoon?”

  I tried to suppress my grin of triumph. “All right.”

  He put his forearm over his eyes to block out the sun more fully. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand your fascination with common dances.”

  “Have you ever seen a formal ball?”

  “Of course not.”

  “If you had, you would understand.”

  He didn’t respond, but the lower half of his face showed his amusement.

  I wanted to keep our conversation going, so I searched my mind for a safe topic.

  “Tell me more about Janie,” I requested, wanting to know more of his family.

  “What would you like me to tell?”

  “Does she have a special gentleman in her life?”

  He lifted his arm away from his eyes. “A special gentleman?”

  “You know what I mean.” I looked down, refusing to blush at my choice of topic.

  “She does,” he finally answered. “In fact, I think she’ll be engaged soon.”

  “Really? And how does that work?”

  “How does what work?”

  “Proposals, betrothals, engagements, marriages. How does it work among common people?”

  “It depends. There are those who find themselves attached to someone and simply propose. If their families do not object, they are married a few months later. Then there are those who only want a reliable companion or someone to take care of them. Their parents will talk with other parents and try to find a match. If a match is found, they become engaged, usually for a year. They spend time together, get to know each other, and if they find themselves still happy with the situation after a year, they are married. If, at some point during the year, one or the other realizes that they simply can’t accept the other as a spouse, then the engagement is broken.”

  “What if they end up falling in love during the year?”

  He smiled at my question. “They can choose to marry sooner if they wish.”

  “And what about betrothals? Do parents ever agree to a marriage when their children are young?”

  “Once in a while, but the only times I’ve heard of it, it was because the families were very great friends.”

  “Hm.” I found this all very interesting, especially the idea that even if an engagement had been agreed upon, they could choose to break it if they ended up not liking each other.

  I watched my fidgeting hands as I asked, “Have you ever thought about who you might end up with?”

  “Not lately,” was his only reply, and I couldn’t bring myself to inquire further.

  The silence settled around us before he spoke again. “You’re really not going to say no to your betrothal?”

  I looked up, surprised by his abrupt question and serious tone. “I’m not even supposed to know about it. How do you propose I go about rejecting a proposal I should never have overheard?”

  “You could at least make your dislike known.” He usually said such things in a teasing manner. He was not teasing now.

  “Believe me, I’m trying,” I said, glancing down. When I looked back at him, he looked like he was going to say something else. Instead he threw his arm over his eyes once more and I wondered if he was angry. I sat frowning for several minutes until he sat up and sighed. My eyes remained fixed on my lap as he pushed himself to his knees and came to sit beside me. He ducked his head, trying to see my face better.

  “I would say no if they gave me the chance,” I whispered into my lap.

  He sighed once more before putting an arm around my neck and resting his chin on top of my head. “I know.”

  ***

  The next evening, Gavin and I snuck out of the castle grounds. Gretchen had done my hair in a low bun, helped me rub dirt into my new common dress, and tied my shawl around my waist in an attempt to help me blend in. After Gavin and I left through the wall, we met up with Gretchen again, and though we were all nervous, they seemed to find sneaking around as fun as I did.

  Gavin left us to walk on his own and as I strode alongside Gretchen, I pulled all the pins from my hair and shook it out, letting it settle in its natural waves down my back before retying my kerchief over it. I would have preferred to go without the kerchief, but knew it would make me too conspicuous.

  Gavin rejoined us just at the edge of the square and I watched his reaction as he approached. He seemed a bit stunned, staring at the waves of blonde now loose from their confines. He stepped up beside me, his hand grazing down my hair then settling at the small of my back for a moment before dropping away. His fingers squeezed mine for just a moment before going to join the men, while Gretchen and I moved into the group of women. I fanned my face, feeling suddenly overheated.

  The buzz of energy around me soon distracted me. I gripped my hands together, trying to contain my excitement, but ended up bouncing up on my toes instead. Knowing what to expect made the anticipation all the more wonderful. Instead of everything being a fantastic, confusing blur, I could take in the experience more fully, enjoy it even more. When the crowds of men and women flowed together, I felt immediately swept up in the atmosphere and the feeling of this gathering. It was so different from my day-to-day life. These people—these hardworking, wonderful people—held so much joy, so much life. And I got to be a part of it.

  As I twirled through the crowd, Gavin caught me in his arms and spun me to join a group of couples dancing in a circle. The women would clap while the men did high-stepping footwork. Then the men would clap while we women danced from one foot to the other, swishing our skirts from side to side. I had seen a group doing this at the last dance and so had some idea of what to do. I breathed deep, trying to take in the revelry.

  Throughout the night, I fou
nd myself closing my eyes when I danced with Gavin, trying to experience more fully the feeling of being held by someone I cared for—to hold onto those moments of utter abandon and elation. When he played with my hair, I would close my eyes, inhaling the scent of soil and fresh air that came off his skin as a tingle started at my scalp and ran down my neck. It only happened twice, but I wanted to engrave upon my mind what if felt like, especially since he stopped as soon as he realized what he was doing. But those few moments made me feel...adored.

  It struck me as odd that it took the simple gesture of a common gardener to make me feel that way, when I was “adored” constantly by all my subjects.

  Each time he touched me I felt a thrill rush through me. Even when he wasn’t touching me, I could feel something in the air between us—a pulse of energy trying to pull us together. But I made myself remember that we were in the middle of a large gathering of people, even though it felt like we were the only two people in existence.

  As the dance wore on I felt my envy growing each time I caught sight of the swirl of color created by the scarves used by married or engaged couples. I wished for one of my own, wanting to be spoken for, but wanting to choose the person on the other end of my own lovely scarf.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Caught

  WHEN THE LAST song came to an end, Gavin wrapped his arms around me from behind as we cheered with the crowd. As he tightened his arms around me, he bent his head and casually kissed my cheek, right by my mouth. It all happened so naturally, so innocently, that for a moment I thought perhaps he hadn’t realized what he had done.

  But as he loosened his grip and pulled his lips away, he became very still. I had no idea what to do or how to act, but when I felt him start to slowly remove his arms from around me, I knew I didn’t want that. So I trapped his hands with my own where they rested on my stomach and turned my head slowly to look at him.

  His face was still close and his eyes were on my mouth. He moved closer just a fraction, then stopped himself, looking into my eyes. I held his eyes for a moment and then glanced at his mouth, hoping he would recognize the invitation.