Fallen in Love (10 page)

B
ack up the outer wall, a second slink along the stone parapet, and then the final sheer ascent to the turret and its balcony and Rosaline once more.

By the time Roland again reached the balcony, the sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows over his shoulder. Announcers shifted and coiled within the shadows, a way of whispering
We are here
, but they left Roland alone. The temperature had dropped, and now the air carried hints of smoke and a coming frost.

He imagined entering the turret via the balcony, stealing through the twilight-dark halls until he found her in her room. And then he pictured her expression:

Images of her staggering backward in amazement, joy plain on her face, hands clenched to her exquisite breast …

But what if she was angry?

Still angry, five years later. It was possible.

He shouldn’t rule it out.

They’d shared something rare and beautiful, and he’d learned that women felt deeply when it came to love. They felt love in ways Roland could never understand, as if their hearts had extra chambers, vast infinites where love could stay and never leave.

What was he doing here? The wind wove its way beneath his steel armor. He shouldn’t be here. This part of his life was over. Cam might have been wrong about love, but he wasn’t wrong about how time had changed Roland.

He should climb back down, get on his horse, and find Daniel.

Only … he couldn’t.

What
could
he do?

He could grovel.

He could drop to his knees and bow before her, beg for forgiveness. He could and he would—

Until this moment, he had not even realized he wanted her forgiveness.

He was near the balcony now, trembling. Was he nervous or excited? He’d come this far, and still he didn’t know what he would say. A few lines of a poem formed in the habit’s corner of his heart …

No—this was where he’d gotten into trouble with her before: She didn’t need bad poetry. She needed bodily, reciprocal love.

Could Roland give that to her now?

The red curtain rustled in the wind, then parted at the bold touch of his fingers. He concealed himself behind the stone wall but craned his neck until his gaze entered the bedroom where he used to sit with her.

Rosaline.

She was glorious, sitting in a wooden chair in the corner, singing under her breath. Her face was older, but the years had been kind: She had grown from Roland’s girl into a beautiful young woman.

She was glowing.

She was spectacular.

Yes, Roland knew he had made a mistake. He’d been green at love and foolish, cynical and unsure that what they had could last. Too quick to heed Cam’s bitter pronouncements.

But look at Luce and Daniel. They had shown
Roland that love could survive even the harshest of punishments. And maybe everything up until this moment—accidentally coming back to this era, agreeing to help Shelby and Miles, riding past Rosaline’s old castle—had happened for a reason.

He was being given a second chance at love.

This time, he’d follow his heart. He was ready to bound in through the open window.…

But wait—

Rosaline was not singing to herself. Roland blinked, looking again. She had an audience: a small child, swaddled in a feather quilt. The child was nursing. Rosaline was a
mother
.

Rosaline was some man’s wife.

Roland’s body stiffened and a small gasp escaped his lips. He should have been relieved to see her looking so well—the happiest she’d ever looked—but all he felt was powerfully lonely.

He rolled heavily away from the balcony door, slamming his back against the tower’s curved wall. What kind of man had taken the place Roland never should have left?

He dared another look inside, watched as Rosaline got up from the chair and laid the baby in its wooden cradle. Roland closed his eyes and listened to her footsteps fading like a song as she padded out of the room and down the hallway.

This couldn’t be the way it ended, his last sight of love.

Fool. Fool to come back. Fool not to leave well enough alone.

Instinctively, he followed her, crawling along the turret’s shallow ledge to the next window. He gripped the wall with his abraded fingers.

This chamber, next to the room where he’d seen Rosaline, used to belong to her brother, Geoffrey. But when Roland leaned in to peek through the curved pane, there were women’s clothes hanging by the window.

He heard a man’s low voice, and then—in reply—Rosaline’s.

A young man sat with his back to Roland at the edge of a damask-covered bed. When he turned his head, his profile was handsome, but not devastatingly so. Smooth brown hair, freckled skin, an honest sloping nose.

A woman lay sprawled across him on the bed, her blond head nestled in his lap in the casual way of two people who were as comfortable with each other’s limbs as they were with their own. She was weeping.

She was Rosaline.

“But why, Alexander?”

When she raised her tear-streaked face to look at him, Roland’s heart caught in his throat.

Alexander—her husband—stroked his wife’s tangled blond hair. “My love.” He kissed her nose, the last place
Roland would have gone had he had access to those lips. “My horse is saddled. The men await me at the barracks. You know that I must leave before nightfall to join them.”

Rosaline gripped the white sleeve of his undershirt and sobbed. “My father has a thousand knights who can take your place. I pray you, do not leave me—do not leave
us
—to go and fight.”

“Your father has already been too generous. Why should another man take my place when I am young and able? It is my duty, Rosaline. I must go. When our crusade is done, I will return to you.”

She shook her head, her cheeks pink with fury. “I cannot bear to lose you. I cannot live without you.”

Roland’s heart stuttered at the words.

“You won’t have to,” Alexander said. “I give you my word: I shall return.”

He rose from the bed, helping his wife to her feet. Roland noticed with renewed jealousy that she was pregnant with another child. Her belly protruded under the fine ruched gown. She rested her hands on it, despondent.

Roland would never be able to leave her in a state like that. How could this man go off to war? What war mattered in the face of love’s obligations?

Any heartache she might have felt for Roland five years ago paled in comparison to this, because this man
was not only her lover and her husband—he was also the father of her children.

Roland’s heart sagged. He could not abide this. He thought of all those years between this medieval heartbreak and the present he’d come back from—the centuries he’d spent on the moon, wandering lost through its crags and pocks, abandoning his duties, just trying to forget he had ever seen her. He thought of the void of time he’d surrendered inside the portal that connected July to September, abandoning everything the way he had abandoned Rosaline.

But now he knew that no matter how long his infinity lasted, he would never forget her tears.

What a narcissistic fool he had been. She didn’t need his apology—to apologize to her now would be wholly selfish, just Roland seeking relief for his guilty conscience. And opening her wounds anew. There was nothing he could do or be for Rosaline anymore.

Or almost nothing.

The young man looked lanky and uncoordinated as he approached the stable where Roland waited. He carried his helmet in his hand, leaving his face exposed. Roland studied it. He hated and respected this man, who clearly felt both obligated and reluctant to fight. Could honor and duty mean more to him than love? Or maybe
this confusion of honor and duty
was
love—paradoxes piled higher than the furthest reaches of the stars.

Who would want to go to war and leave a loving family?

“Soldier,” Roland called to Alexander when he was close enough to recognize the torment in his eyes. “You are Alexander, kin of my lord John, who holds the title of this fief?”

“And who are you?” Alexander stepped across the threshold of the stable. His pale brown eyes narrowed as they took in Roland’s formal armor. “What battle have you come from, dressed like that?”

“I have been sent here to take your place in the campaign.”

Alexander stopped. “My wife sent you? Her father?” He shook his head. “Step aside, soldier. Let me ride on.”

“Indeed, I will not. Your assignment has changed. You know the terrain in this vicinity better than most. Dangerous times may be upon us if the battle does not favor us in the North. If we retreat, you will be needed here to guard the city from intruders.”

Alexander tilted his head. “Show your face, soldier, for I do not trust a man who hides behind a mask.”

“My face is no concern of yours.”

“Who are you?”

“A man who knows that your duty is here among
your family. All the spoils of war matter not in the face of true love and familial honor. Now, stand down if you wish to live.”

Alexander let out a soft laugh, but then his expression changed into something harder. He drew his sword. “Let’s have it, then.”

Roland should have expected this. And yet it galled him. How could this man be so intent on leaving her? Roland would never leave her!

And yet, of course, he already had. Abandoned his one true love like a callous, stupid fool. He had been alone ever since. Solitude was one thing, but it warped into ugly, wretched loneliness after the soul had tasted love.

No man should be allowed to make the same mistake. Even through his jealousy, Roland could see that. It fell to him to stop Alexander.

He swallowed, sighed inwardly, and drew his sword. It was a meter long and as sharp as the pain stabbing his heart at having to confront this man. “Soldier,” Roland said flatly. “I do not jest.”

The man advanced, waving his sword awkwardly. Roland deflected it with an effortless flick of the wrist. The blades clashed dully.

Alexander’s slid earthward with the lightest guidance from Roland’s blade, until it glanced off the wet hay on the floor of the stable.

“Why would you so willingly ride to your own death?” Roland asked.

Alexander grunted and lurched back into fighting position, raising his blade chest high. “I am not a coward.”

Perhaps not, but he was exceptionally unskilled. He had probably picked up some swordsmanship as a child, jousting at haystacks at summer festivals with his boyhood friends. He was no soldier. He’d be dead in an hour on the front.

Or Roland could kill him now.…

In that moment, he had a vision of his blade swinging deftly down on this man’s bare neck. The shock of a severed spine and the slick red blood dripping from the steel onto the dirt.

How easy to end this man’s short life. Take his place up in that tower and love her as she needed to be loved. Roland knew how to do it now.

But then he blinked and saw Rosaline. The baby.

Do not slaughter
, he reminded himself.
Only persuade
.

He leaped forward lightly, swinging his sword toward Alexander, who scrambled backward, spinning wildly away. This time he avoided Roland’s blade by sheer luck.

Roland laughed and his laughter tasted bitter. “I am offering you a boon, soldier—and I promise you, I follow
a higher command than your liege. Know that I will not dishonor your intentions. Let me go to war for you.”

“You speak in riddles.” Alexander’s fear had stretched the skin around his mouth tight as a leather drum. “You cannot replace me.”

“Yes,” Roland said, seething. “If nothing else, at least I know
that
.”

In a burst of violence, Roland forgot his purpose. He went at Alexander with the fury of a lover scorned. In the face of Roland’s blade, Alexander stood rigid, sword extended. To his credit, he did not back away. But with another clash of their swords, Roland had disarmed Alexander. He held his blade’s tip at the young man’s heaving throat.

“A true knight would yield. He would accept my offer and serve his people here, protecting his home and his neighbors when they need protection.” Roland swallowed. “Do you yield, sir?”

Alexander gasped for air, unable to speak. He kept casting his eyes downward to the blade at his neck. He was terrified. He nodded. He would yield.

A calm came over Roland, and he let himself close his eyes.

He and this pale mortal Alexander loved the same bright thing. They could not be enemies. It was then that Roland chose his side. He would not spare Alexander’s life for Alexander’s sake, but for Rosaline’s.

“You are a braver man than I.” And it was true, for Alexander had been strong enough to love Rosaline when Roland was too afraid. “Embrace the luck I give you this night and return to your family.” He had to work to keep his voice steady. “Kiss your wife and raise your children.
That
is honor.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long, tense moment, until Roland began to feel that Alexander could see through the slit in his visor. How could Alexander not feel the ache in the air between them? How could he not sense how close Roland had come to killing him and taking his place?