Before he could, she stepped toward him, stopping only inches away.
“If I thought you were beneath me …” Her eyes were hard as pewter, searching his. “… why would I be out on a walk with you?”
He searched hers back.
Why indeed?
Lifting his hands, he gathered the wild tangle of hair blowing across her face. It surprised him when she didn’t flinch away, when she let him scrape it back instead. She seemed to soften as he held it, allowing him to see her clearly.
He shouldn’t have liked it so much—the feel of her hair against his palms, the way she relaxed beneath his fingers.
“Beautiful heiresses might court common soldiers,” he said. “But they don’t marry them.”
Her mouth quirked a little. “Did you just call me beautiful, Gideon?”
“I’m stating the obvious. Don’t change the subject.”
She looked away.
“You know it’s true, Rune. People of your station don’t marry down.”
In Gideon’s experience, those born into wealth and privilege wanted more of it, not less. Like the first hit of a drug, the moment people tasted power, they needed more to quench the craving.
“I don’t know how to dance to your songs,” he said. “I don’t have the esteem of your friends. I don’t use seventeen pieces of silverware at dinner.” He let go of her hair, and it billowed out, catching in the wind once more. “I have no means of expanding your inheritance.”
He knew he was walking a fine line, reminding her of the reasons they made no sense. That this charade they were playing was a weak one. But if the goal was to be vulnerable, to entice her to be vulnerable, too, he needed to speak the truth.
“People like you are impossible,” she said. “I don’t care about those things.”
He almost rolled his eyes. “Of course you do.”
“Then why are we here? If I’m so shallow—all trappings and no substance—what are you doing with me? Why would someone like you want someone like me?”
Gideon opened his mouth to respond, only he didn’t know the answer.
He studied her, hair ablaze in the setting sun. Gray eyes like molten steel.
In his silence, Rune came to her own conclusions.
“Maybe you’re right.” She stepped around him, lantern in hand, and unlatched the white gate at the garden’s edge, stepping into the meadow beyond. “One of us thinks ourself too good for the other. But it’s not me.”
The gate swung closed behind her.
Gideon stared after her.
What?
From this side of the gate, he watched her follow the footpath through the tall grass, heading toward the woods in the distance. For some strange reason, his thoughts trickled to Cressida.
He’d learned very quickly not to challenge Cress. Arguments with her came with consequences. When he disagreed or disobeyed, she would punish him—and sometimes others. Until he stopped resisting her altogether.
Rune, on the other hand, seemed rattled by his insults, but unfazed by his defiance.
It was uncharted territory. And without a map to guide him, Gideon stood motionless, watching her get further away. Not even Harrow’s voice in his head was any help.
If you genuinely liked this girl, he told himself, you would go after her.
Hopping over the gate, Gideon jogged down the path after her, his pulse beating wildly. As a general rule, Gideon avoided situations that rendered him vulnerable. Yet here he was, running straight into one.
“If we’re going to do this,” he said when he caught up with her, “there are some things you need to know.”
She glanced at him.
“So you can decide if this is what you want. If I am what you want.”
The forest ahead obscured their view of the sea, but he could taste the brine on the breeze. They were getting close.
She studied him in the light shining from her lantern. “All right. Tell me.”
This is a game, he reminded himself, his chest tight. It means nothing.
But if that were true, why did he feel like he was walking straight off a cliff, hoping he wouldn’t fall?
THIRTY
GIDEON
“THE LAST GIRL I fell in love with was a witch,” he said.
Rune stiffened beside him.
“I met her the day my parents became royal dressmakers.”
His mother’s designs had been catching the eye of the aristocracy for nearly a year. Several months before, the money from their growing business had allowed them to move out of the Outer Wards—the poorest district in the capital—and into a tenement building in Old Town.