“Nathar—that is the country Mother was from. Do you remember her?” Rose asked wistfully, turning around to regard her sisters. Even though she had asked the same question many times throughout her sixteen years, she always craved the answer as if it were the first.
Adara nodded—she understood well her sister’s desire to know about their mother. “I remember some. She looked a lot like Chase—tall, with coppery hair that reminded me of fire. I used to wish mine looked like hers instead of brown like Father’s. Her eyes were blue like yours, and they shone with dazzling energy. They twinkled like stars in the candlelight when she would kiss me goodnight.”
“That is about all I remember, too,” Chase said, her voice nearly as full of yearning as Rose’s had been. “Just a kiss on the head and the sound of her voice. She had a beautiful voice, just like yours.”
“Sing for us, Rose,” Adara requested. “Sing the song I taught you—the one that was her lullaby.”
Rose smiled her acceptance. There were not many things she could do well, but singing was one of them. She settled onto the warm ground and crossed her legs underneath her skirt as her sisters did the same, then took a deep breath and began:
“The clouds may rain and the wind may blow
But there is one thing I will always know
The best place I could ever be
Is the one where you are here with me . . .”
Two birds alighted near the girls, and then a third.
“Keep singing, Rose,” Chase whispered, her eyes wide. Rose nodded, silently willing the creatures to keep their distance.
“. . . The sea may come and the sea may go
And times grow hard through years of woe
But all this I will face gladly
As long as you are here with me.”
Rose’s voice, sweet as birdsong, drew down blue jays and robins, sparrows and wrens. They perched upon the garden fence and the dirt between the rows of plants, listening intently as though they could comprehend her words.
When Rose’s song came to an end, a single sparrow hopped toward the girl, chirping inquisitively. She swallowed hard. While she was singing, she had managed to ignore her audience, but now she fought to hold her ground as the bird hopped closer and its chirps grew more urgent.
“I am sorry, I do not understand,” she said with a puzzled glance at her sisters.
The sparrow gave one deep cheep of indignation and took off, followed within seconds by all the others who had been listening.
“I think he thought you were a bird!” Chase giggled. “He was probably trying to court you.”
“I should have told him I already have a beau,” Rose grinned.
“You could have ten beaus if you wanted,” Chase returned. “You are pretty enough.”
“I only want my one,” Rose replied firmly.
“And a good thing too, or else I would be too busy fighting the others off to spend time with you,” a male voice called, and Rose turned her head to see her sweetheart leaning against the garden fence.
“Darren!”
She scrambled to her feet, brushing the dirt off her skirt and hastening over to the young man. He leapt lightly over the rail and seized her in an enthusiastic embrace, picking her up by the waist and spinning her around before setting her back down once again.
“Darren, you saw me only yesterday!” she protested, laughing at his enthusiasm.
“Mmm, and it was too long ago by far. What do you think? Can your sisters spare you today?”
“Go on, Rose,” Adara called. “We are almost done anyway. Just be back in time for supper.”
“I guarantee it,” Darren said, sweeping the girls a courtly bow and making them giggle. “If you ladies will pardon us.”
Taking Rose by the hand, he led her out of the garden and across the fields that stretched behind her house. The fields seemed to stretch on forever, but Rose knew they were only a fraction of what Aunt Tess had once owned. Rose’s uncle had died in an accident before she was even born, and Aunt Tess had been forced to sell most of his land and to lease the rest to neighboring farms. Still, she had chosen to remain on her husband’s farm rather than return to her family in Nathar, which turned out to be a fortunate choice for Rose’s father. Shortly after Rose was born, disaster had struck his merchant business, causing him to lose all that he owned. When this happened, Aunt Tess had been more than willing to take him and his family in.
Though Rose could remember nothing of life in Nathar, she knew her family had once been wealthy and that now they were not. Renting out their remaining fields allowed them to scrape by, with Aunt Tess retaining only enough workable land for their family to put food on their table. It was a simple enough life and they did not have much, but they did not lack for what was important.
“Where are you taking me, Darren?” Rose probed, even though she could easily guess. There was only one destination of worth in this direction.
He did not answer, just chucked her under the chin with his free hand and led her through billows of burgeoning wheat and stalks of corn until they emerged at the banks of a small pond.
With a sigh of contentment, Rose slipped off her shoes and stepped ankle-deep into the water, relishing the feel of the dark mud squishing between her toes. She turned around to see Darren staring at her, his warm brown eyes showing such an intensity of feeling that it made her shiver in delicious response.
“Come and sit with me,” he said, guiding her under a willow tree. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it deftly, not minding that her fingers were still lightly stained with dirt.
“As soon as I have saved enough money, I am going to marry you, and we will have lots of children, and you will never need to work another day in your life,” he promised her.
Rose looked at him slyly. “I think you are missing an important step there, or do you not think you should ask me first?”
“Why, do you have someone else in mind?”
“Well, there were a lot of handsome boys on the road today,” Rose teased.
Darren’s brow creased with mock concern. “Then I better make sure I am still the one you want.” Pulling her close, he kissed her ardently. When at last they broke away, they were both breathless. “I take that as a yes.”
“Impertinent youth!” Rose laughed, her blue eyes bright. Darren reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear, stroking the scar along one of her cheeks with his thumb as he did so.
“I love your hair,” he murmured. “It is like sunshine, but even more radiant. It suits you well, my beauty.”
Rose blushed. She always felt self-conscious when he complimented her. “Anyway,” she said, “I like to work. Besides, I know your family. You cannot tell me that managing a house full of children is not as demanding as any man’s job.”
He chuckled. “You are probably right.”
Darren settled back against the bole of the willow tree and pulled Rose to him so that her back was resting against his chest. Rose listened to the sound of the willow’s branches swaying in the breeze, loving the strong feel of Darren’s arms wrapped around her and the muscled hardness of his chest. Her sweetheart whispered in her ear about the house he would one day build for her. She tried to shush him, but could not stop him sharing his dreams with her, nor herself from dreaming along with him.
“Play me a song,” she said after a while.
Darren obligingly rose and removed a comb and piece of waxed parchment from inside the pouch on his belt. Rose looked up at him from where she sat as he folded the parchment over the comb, propped one foot upon a root, and began to play his makeshift harmonica. It was a tune often performed at weddings and festivals—simple, yet lively. Rose sang along softly, basking in her sweetheart’s music and the golden the afternoon; even the birds that fluttered down to listen could not diminish her contentment.
CHAPTER TWO
Tess watched through the window as Rose strolled out of the vegetable garden with her beau.
&nbs
p; “At least one of them has prospects,” she commented to her brother. “I worry about Adara. I was married for two years already by her age, and yet she continues to show no real interest in any of the village’s men! They certainly do not lack interest toward her.”
“Adara will find a beau when she is ready. You had no interest either until you met Graham. Then you had plenty—enough to move to a different country to be with him,” Mercer remarked. He kept his eyes fixed on the hoe he was mending. The shaft had recently split and the new one he was carving was still a little too wide to fit on the metal head.
“And then there is Chase,” Tess continued, unheeding. “That girl has more suitors than she knows what to do with, and she toys with their hearts something dreadful. She should commit to one and let the others go.”
“She just likes the attention. It is the boys who are foolish to pursue her when she clearly has no interest in anything but flirting,” Mercer said calmly.
“Harrumph! You would defend her caprices to the ends of the world.”
“That I would,” Mercer replied. “As for Adara, why should her lack of suitors concern you? You manage life very well without a husband. You were young when Graham died and could easily have married again had you so chosen. In fact, you could still marry again—I personally know of several men in the village who are more than interested in your hand.”
“My hand or my land?” Tess asked with a wry smile. “Anyway, I am far too busy caring for you and the girls to want to add in a husband.”
“Suit yourself.”
* * * * *
“I told you I would bring her back before supper,” Darren announced as he opened cottage door for Rose.
“So you did,” Tess acknowledged. “Rose, dear, please bring in some wood for the fire. Darren, would you care to join our meal?”
“I would at that, thank you.”
“It seems you eat with us more often than you do with your own family,” Mercer commented as he cleared his things from the table.
“Does that bother you, sir?”
“Not in the least. It is good to have another man’s company in the house.”
“I am pleased to hear that. If you will excuse me, though, I am going to go help Rose.”
But Rose did not need his help. She greeted him with a smile as he approached, seemingly untroubled by the large bundle of wood she carried on her back.
“Really, Rose, how much does your family need?” he asked, amazed by the quantity she had chosen to bring.
“It is not yet summer, and I know Father gets cold at night,” Rose replied, not the least out of breath.
“Here, let me carry that. I am a woodcutter after all, and I am used to it.”
“I can manage,” Rose demurred. “I have a strong back. It seems I was meant to be a farmer’s daughter.”
“You were meant to be a princess,” Darren said, taking the bundle anyway. It was even heavier than he had thought, and he staggered for a moment until he rebalanced.
“Well, it is a good thing I am not, then, or I would never have met you.”
“In that case, a very good thing!” he agreed.
* * * * *
The family took their seats around the large oak table with Mercer and Tess on the ends, Adara and Chase on one side, and Rose and Darren on the other. The food on the table steamed deliciously in the cool evening air, but no one reached to serve it.
Instead, Mercer picked up Rose’s right hand and Adara’s left in his own, and the others all followed suit. Not every family prayed before a meal, but his did so without fail.
“Thank you, Lord, for another day. Thank you for family and friends who make it worthwhile, for food that sustains us, and a home that keeps us well. May our lives be worthy of these blessings. Amen.”
Mercer ended the prayer, but did not break the circle of hands. Instead, everyone sat in silence, each mentally adding their own devotions. Mercer waited a few moments after he had finished his, then lightly squeezed Adara’s hand. Only after the squeeze had passed around the circle and returned to him once more—signifying that everyone was done—did he release their hands.
“Well, daughters, the garden looks lovely,” he said as he served himself some stew. “Not a weed to be seen. We should have a good harvest this year.”
“I think so,” Adara affirmed. “My friend Meg gave me some peas her father imported from Gurion. I hope to get them to grow.”
“I have no doubt that you will,” Mercer replied loyally. “You seem to have a gift for making things flourish.”
He blew lightly on his bowl of stew and took a sip, taking care not to get any on his beard. Chase noticed his precaution.
“Are you going to shave that off this summer, Father?” she asked. “Surely you get hot under there.”
Mercer’s eyes twinkled at the old debate. “In a house full of women, I must do something to maintain my male pride.”
“You have more than enough pride, male or otherwise,” Tess snorted.
“What would you think if I grew a beard?” Darren asked Rose.
“I would think that I needed another beau,” she teased.
“Imagine trying to kiss someone through a beard,” Chase grimaced. “Disgusting! No offense, Father.”
“None taken.”
“Really, Chase, can you speak of nothing else? Such conversation is hardly appropriate, let alone at the dinner table!” Tess scolded.
“Sorry, Aunt,” Chase replied, not the least abashed.
* * * * *
“I had a lovely afternoon,” Darren said, bidding Rose farewell. “See you tomorrow?”
“If I must,” she smiled.
Adara watched her sister wave goodbye to her sweetheart, a wishful ache rising up inside her. “I will take the scraps to the goat,” she volunteered abruptly, seizing the trencher from the table before Aunt Tess could ask.
Once outside, Adara hastened to the goat’s pen as quick as she could. She tossed the scraps into the enclosure, her eyes searching the surrounding area as best she could in the dimming light. Even so, he still surprised her.
“Late tonight,” he murmured against her hair as he hugged her from behind.
“Jon,” she breathed, turning to face him and tilting her head up for a kiss. He willingly obliged her, and once again she fell in love with everything about him—his height, his smile, the way he smelled of dirt and sun from days spent in the fields. Hopeless. She was hopeless.
“Marry me,” he said, and Adara felt the moment shatter. She started to pull away, but he held her close, taking her chin in his hand and making her look at him. “Why do you refuse me? When others are near, you do not even acknowledge me. I do not understand.”
“Yes, you do,” she countered. “I have told you why before.”
“Then tell me again, and maybe this time it will make sense.”
It hurt too much to meet his gaze, so she took his hand in her own and looked at that instead. “I am poor, and your family is even poorer. You have no land on which to build a house for us—your father has to rent some of our farmland just to get by. And I have no dowry—nothing we can use to help start a life together. How can I tell my family about us? My aunt would just chide me for loving someone I cannot have, and my father would feel ashamed for not being able to provide a dowry for me. Knowing about us would only cause them pain.”
“I see.”
She knew Jon did see, though he was not as pragmatic about it as Adara forced herself to be. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she could not stop them from spilling down her cheeks.
“Hey now,” he said, brushing them away with his thumb. “Even if it takes me a lifetime to save up the money, I will buy us some land, and I will build us a house, and I will marry you one day, Adara.”
“Is that a promise?” she asked, her voice quavering.
“It is indeed,” he replied, sealing his oath with a kiss.
“Adara! Where are you?” Chase called from the house. “Did t
he goat kick you in the head or something?”
“Be right there!” Adara called back. She pulled Jon close and lost herself in another kiss. “I have to go,” she said at last, breathless.
“Until tomorrow, then?” he asked, not letting go of her hand.
She nodded. “I promise.”
* * * * *
Rose lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the crickets in the fields. The household had long ago stilled into slumber, but she lay awake, etching every bit of her afternoon with Darren into her memory. Maybe it would give her good dreams tonight. She could hope for that.
Pesk lay curled up on her feet, a warm weight against the cool spring night. Even now, his presence there still surprised her. He had appeared on the farm years before and had immediately attached himself to Rose. With her fear of animals, he had scared her to pieces, but he had refused to leave her alone. Rose had begged her father to get rid of him, but he had abstained—she suspected on the advice of Aunt Tess, who seemed to think having a dog around would help lessen Rose’s fears. So Rose had been left to deal with the dog on her own.
Desperately, she had tried chasing the hound away, shouting at him, throwing sticks at him, and then finally ignoring him. No matter what she did, the dog had continued to follow her everywhere. If she shut a door in his face, he would just wait patiently outside the room for her to emerge. It was only when she woke up one morning to find her arms wrapped tight around the dog (he had crept in through her open window while she slept, snuggling close so carefully that she had not woken) that she finally surrendered to his presence.
Now, comfortably wrapped in her blankets and warmed by the weight of the old dog, Rose let her mind drift back to Adara’s description of their mother and her lullaby.
“The clouds may rain and the wind may blow, but there is one thing I will always know: the best place I could ever be, is the one where you are here with me,” she sang softly, trying to imagine the verse in her mother’s voice. Pesk rumbled in his sleep, and Rose sighed, giving up. How could she envision something she had never heard?
Bound: A Merged Fairy Tale of Beauty and the Beast & Sleeping Beauty (The Enchanted Rose Trilogy: Book 2) Page 2
