“Elinor,” he replied.
This was one of the finest restaurants in Oath, where Roman’s parents had fallen in love over a long candlelit dinner. The setting was dim and romantic, with black and white floors, vases of roses on every table, marble statues in the corners, and velvet-draped windows.
Roman had never been more uncomfortable in his life, and he cleared his throat as he glanced over the menu. Elinor seemed uninclined to talk, and he had no idea what to say to her. Thankfully, a waiter emerged to pour them each a flute of champagne and to take the order for their first course.
But then it was back to a stilted silence, and Roman glanced around the restaurant, his eyes eventually landing on two marble statues in the nearest corner. Lovers, entwined together, and so magnificently carved that Roman could imagine they were real. The wrinkles in their raiment, the give of their skin as they clung to each other, the flow of their breaths …
“So,” Elinor finally said, and Roman returned his gaze to her. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” he echoed, and when she held out her flute, he clinked his glass to hers. They drank to this strange arrangement, and Roman’s palms were slick with perspiration when he looked at his fiancée. “Tell me more about you.”
Elinor snorted. “You don’t have to pretend, Roman. I know you don’t want to marry me any more than I want to wed you. We can eat in silence, appease our parents, and then return to our separate lives.”
He blinked. He didn’t know what to make of her statement—whether she was performing or if she truly felt that uninterested in him. He was marrying her in three weeks, and she was an utter stranger to him. He knew nothing about her other than her name and that she had once played the piano. And that she assisted her father in his laboratory, creating bombs.
The first course arrived.
Roman decided he would keep quiet, as she wanted, and see how long the two of them could eat in complete silence. He made it through three courses before he couldn’t stand it. He raked his fingers through his hair and set his eyes on her. She had scarcely looked at him the entire lunch, as if he didn’t exist.
“Why are we doing this?” he asked bluntly.
Elinor’s sharp gaze almost cut through him when she glanced up. “It’s for the good of both of our families.”
“Is it good when it’s to our own detriment?” he countered.
Elinor held his stare. “There are things happening beyond us, Roman. Things that are bound to unfold. And we must prepare for them.”
“Like what?” he asked a bit loudly. “Dacre coming to Oath?”
“Hush!” she whispered, but her eyes blazed. “You shouldn’t speak of such things in the open.”
“Such as how you’re helping your father build bombs to send to the war front on my father’s railroad,” he said in an icy tone. “To allow Dacre to destroy innocent people.” He inevitably remembered the night he had paced, worried sick about Iris. His hands curled into fists beneath the table.
Elinor froze. Her cheeks flushed, but she recovered swiftly, granting him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Bombs? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I saw them, Elinor. A huge crate of them in my father’s office.”
She took a sip of champagne. He was amazed by how callous she was.
“They aren’t bombs, Roman,” she said at last in a condescending tone. “They’re something else. Don’t judge or speak of things you don’t understand.”
Now he was the one to flush, embarrassed. “Then what are they?”
“You’ll find out once we’re married.” She drained her champagne and gathered her shawl closer about her shoulders. She was ready to leave before the last course had arrived, and Roman watched her rise.
“You’re in love with someone else,” he stated, which made her pause. He could see her swallow, and he knew she was working to hide her emotions. “You should be with them, not me. Don’t you see it, Elinor? You and I will be miserable together.”
“We can keep to our separate rooms, until we need an heir,” she murmured.
Roman was quiet as the weight of her words unfolded. His fiancée was suggesting they would take their own lovers, then. Their marriage would be in title only. A sad binding with hollow vows.
You deserve this, a voice whispered to him. The voice of his guilt, which still flared brightly even four years after Del’s death. You don’t deserve to be happy or loved.
“As you want, then,” he said.
Elinor met his gaze for a brief, unguarded moment. She was relieved he had agreed to it, and it only deepened his despair.
She strode away, her heels clicking on the checkered floors. But Roman remained seated at the table as the dessert arrived. He stared at it for a long moment before his gaze wandered back to the statues, entwined in the corner.
He would soon be married to a girl who had no interest in knowing him. Her heart belonged elsewhere, and he’d never know what it would feel like to be loved by her.
It’s what I deserve, he thought again as he drank the rest of the champagne.
He left the restaurant and began the walk back to the Gazette, hands shoved into his pockets and a scowl on his face. There was a crowd on one street corner, and Roman began to divert his path until he realized it was gathered around the newsstand.
Quickly, he changed course, getting in line to purchase whatever paper it was that had stirred up a frenzy in the people. Of course, it wasn’t the Gazette. It was the Inkridden Tribune, and Roman paid for a copy.
He walked a few paces away, told himself to quickly glance over the front page and then toss it in the nearest rubbish bin. Zeb Autry would fire him on the spot if he knew his newly appointed columnist was entertaining the competition. Roman could skim and walk, and he snapped the creases from the paper as he read the headline.
He came to an abrupt halt.
His heart was suddenly thrumming, pounding in his ears.
In bold type, the headline raced across the page:
THE UNEXPECTED FACE OF WAR by INKRIDDEN IRIS
Roman stood in the sunshine and read every word of her article. He forgot where he was, where he was standing. Where he was going. Where he had just come from. He forgot everything when he read her words, and a smile crept over his face when he reached the end.
Damn, he was proud of her.
There was no possible way this paper was going into the rubbish bin. Roman carefully folded it, hiding it in his jacket. As he hurried back to the Gazette, he couldn’t think of anything else save for Iris and her words.
He thought of her as he waited for the lift. It was broken. So he took to the stairs, and his heart continued to race long after he had returned to his desk, and he didn’t know why.
It was that ache again. The one that tasted like salt and smoke. A longing he feared would only grow stronger with each passing year. A regret in the making.
He shifted, listening to the paper crinkle in his jacket. A paper inked with her words.
She was writing brave, bold things.
And it had taken him a while, but he was ready now.
He was ready to write his own story.
* * *
Iris remained with Marisol at the infirmary that night. After all the mattresses had been laid down, the two of them had helped in the kitchen, preparing soup and bread. Then they had washed plates and linens and scrubbed blood off the floors and prepared bodies for burial.