Still Star-Crossed (8 page)

“By heaven, Rosaline, Benvolio is an excellent gentleman.”

“He is none.”

“I say he is. Wilt thou not take my word?” His smile, when it came, was as dimpled and sweet as ever. How was that possible? “As thou didst say, we were friends once.”

“Sweet little Rosaline, why dost thou weep?”

“Thou knowest right well why, thou churl,” she said with a sniff. “ ’Tis right a maid should weep when she’s heartsick.”

Escalus began to laugh. “I’ faith, who has left thy tiny heart so bruised?”

“Is’t true, my lord, you go at dawn to Venice?” She turned her little tearstained face to his
.

Escalus looked startled. “Aye, of course.” His adolescent chest was puffed with pride. “I serve the Duke of Venice as his squire.” Rosaline burst once more into tears. Escalus patted her shaking back. “Cry not.”

“I shall,” she vowed. “Yea, I shall weep and weep, and never cease till thou return’st to wed me.”

Escalus laughed, and ruffled up her curls. “Pray dry thy tears. I swear I shall return.”

Return he had, several years later, when his father fell ill. But her own father had died in the meantime, and her mother died shortly after his return. The little girl of seven he’d left behind had been replaced by a poor, grim young maid barely acknowledged by her own family, not nearly grand enough to be friends with the prince. She’d seen little of him.

All traces of that merry, adoring child were long gone, except her love for him.

She stayed sunk in a deep curtsy, eyes modestly lowered—the picture of the polite obedience she was refusing him. With an impatient sound, Escalus’s hands gripped her shoulders, pulling her gently upright. “Stand up, for God’s sake.”

Rosaline tried to hide the way her breath hitched at his touch. He was standing just a handspan away from her, peering quizzically into her eyes as if he could divine the secret to her defiance there. “Aye, we were friends once,” she said, stepping back out of his grip. “But thou hast spoken not a hundred words to me since thou didst return to Verona, Escalus. Canst truly say thou account’st me amongst thy dearest friends? If not, why should I count thee so? Pray do not so insult me.”

Escalus’s frown deepened. “You are too familiar, lady. You forget yourself.”

“Familiar, am I?” There was a harsh, jeering tone in her voice, but she could not seem to stop herself. “One moment
thou dost plead thy will on the strength of our friendship, the next thou dost chide me as an upstart peasant. Punish me, then, your lordship, for my temerity. Deprive me of my fortune—I have none. Forbid me to wed. I shall thank you. Exile me—oh, dear sweet
friend
, you could do me no greater boon.”

“You’re so angry,” Escalus said, but quietly.

She swiped a furious hand across her eyes. “No less are you.”

Escalus looked a bit surprised at that. But yes, she still knew him well enough to see the fury beneath that polished surface of his. “Aye. This feud has treated neither of us kindly.” He took out his handkerchief and offered it to her. She ignored it. “ ’Tis why I would move to bring it to an end.”

“A noble aim, but your methods are wanting. Marry me with Benvolio and our cousins shall slaughter each other over the wedding feast.”

“You’re wrong.”

She smiled mirthlessly. “We shall never know. I have given this feud my blood. It shall not have my body too. I know Your Grace cares little for my happiness, but I promise you ’twill be so.”

He looked as though she’d struck him. “Think you truly I care not for your happiness?”

“I know you do not.” She swallowed hard. “ ’Tis no matter. A sovereign’s not obliged to befriend orphans of modest means, too lowly for notice even by their own kin. Livia and I have no need of your patronage, nor that of anyone else in this accursed city.”

A flash of sadness passed across Escalus’s face. “Think you that is why I stayed away? Rosaline, I—mine own father was newly dead, my sister in a foreign city, myself just crowned. My old intimacies could not continue once I took the throne. I thought only of Verona.”

“So do you still,” Rosaline said. “An excellent trait in a sovereign.”

“They all abandoned thee?”

“Had the Capulets had their way, Livia and I would have gone straight to a convent after our father’s death. ’Tis but luck that renting our house gives us a little income. That is the only reason the duchess lets us keep house in a corner of her estate until we may marry.”

“Your house is in Verona,” he pointed out. “Perhaps you’ve more need of this ‘accursed city’ than you think.”

“Aye, but we shall live in it no more.” She hated the look of pity on his face. Had this evening not been bad enough, but he must pry into her and Livia’s years of humiliation? She closed her arms around the pain in her chest. “Set your heart at rest. ’Tis none of your concern.”

He reached out two fingers, gently tipping her chin into the light. Rosaline took a startled, broken breath as he gently wiped the tears from her face with his handkerchief, just as he had when she was small. Her eyes fluttered shut at his touch. “You would regain your station, and more,” he pointed out, “were you mistress of both the Montagues and Capulets.”

She laughed. “Poor persuasion, after all that you have ranged against my defenses this night. Admit defeat, Escalus.
My chastity shall remain untouched.” She pulled away, offering him a curtsy once more.

He cocked his head, examining her with narrowed eyes, then nodded, giving her leave to depart. “As time shall try, Rosaline,” he said softly. “I am not so easily thwarted.”

“As you say. As time shall try.”

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow
than a man swear he loves me.

—Much Ado About Nothing

P
RINCE
E
SCALUS WAS NOT
sure what to do.

He leaned out the window, feeling the morning breeze on his face. All of Verona was spread out beneath him, and beyond her walls the river, neat green fields, and roads ribboning off past the horizon. The palace of Verona was at the very height of the city, atop the summit of the highest hill.
Verona’s welcome
, it was sometimes called, for if one came up the river, the towers of the palace were the very first part of the city a weary traveler would spy.

Escalus’s perspective on the palace was an unusual one. Immune to its beauty, he found its thick gray walls stifling. Even more so now that he dwelt within them alone. His mother had died when he was fourteen, three years after he’d gone to Venice to be the duke’s squire; he had been too far away to return for the funeral. The next time he had come back was to bid farewell to his father, who was wasting away from a fever. Three days after he arrived, the old prince had died, and Escalus took the throne shortly after his sixteenth birthday. The crown was heavier than he’d expected.

Which was why he was now leaning out the window and
staring down at the river, indulging in a game he had been refining since he was small: Suppose Prince Escalus Forsook His Crown to Become a River Pirate.

A game all the more charming for its juvenility. No more squabbling families. No more demanding ambassadors from neighboring tyrants. No more hurt in the eyes of his childhood playfellow, just because he asked for her aid in keeping the city from flying apart at the seams. Just himself, his trusty crew, and the sparkling blue water …

“Your Grace.”

With an inner sigh, Escalus turned to find his chancellor, Penlet, waiting patiently for his attention. Penlet was middle-aged, and had been for as long as Escalus could remember. His drab black robe, his colorless hair, his mouth always set in a frown—all these looked the same as they had when Escalus was still in the nursery. The man seemed always to have the slightest of colds—not enough to keep him from his tireless work, but enough to provide a discreet cough to draw his liege’s attention back to the business at hand. Escalus trusted him, relied on him utterly, and sometimes loathed him as the plow horse does the whip.

Escalus settled himself behind his desk. “Yes, Penlet,” he said. “What news?”

“My lord,” Penlet said, after covering his mouth for one of those genteel little coughs. “ ’Tis something concerning the houses Capulet and Montague.”

Escalus resisted the urge to turn back to the window and ignore him. “Yes, what now? Has Capulet finally rousted Rosaline
to the altar? I’ve waited three days for him to persuade her. How long can it take a lord to bend a maiden to his will?”

Penlet shook his head. “She claims she is sick, and will see no one, not even her uncle.”

If Rosaline was sick, he was the Emperor of Russia. “What then? Have the watch discovered who defiled Juliet’s statue?”

“No, Your Grace. Lord Montague has had it cleaned and returned to its former beauty. The Montagues swear it was not they who defiled it, and the watch can find no proof it was.”

Of course not. The watch was incapable of finding anything not hidden at the bottom of a barrel of ale. Escalus pressed his fist between his eyes.

Penlet gave another little cough. “There is more, my lord.”

“Yes? What else?”

“ ’Twas in the market square this morning,” said Penlet. “When the merchants arrived at dawn to open their stalls, they found this hanging from a tree in the center of the square.”

He rang a bell, and a footman came in, bearing an oddly shaped bundle of cloth and rope. At Penlet’s nod, he held it up.

It was a cloth effigy in the shape of a man with a noose round its neck. Scrawled across its chest were the words
DEATH TO HOUSE MONTAGUE
.

“Fie and fie again!” Escalus burst out. “Who did this, Penlet?”

His chancellor swallowed. “Not a soul saw it happen.”

“No, of course not. But all the merchants saw it hanging there this morn. Which means the whole town knows.” Escalus slammed a fist against his desk. Penlet jumped and suppressed a small squeak.

Damn them all. If this kind of provocation continues, it shall not be long before the two houses are in open war. God only knows what else they’d bring down with them
. “Send runners to Montague and Capulet,” he told Penlet. “Tell them to keep their swords sheathed. We’ll learn the truth of this. And tell old Capulet that if he knows who did this, he’d better tell me now or ’twill go badly for him.”

Penlet nodded and bowed, backing out of the room.

“Oh, and Penlet,” Escalus called, “tell Capulet I want that niece of his married before the month is out.”

Rosaline had shut and barred the doors.

Usually at this time of year the cottage doors were opened to let cool breezes chase the heat from the house. But for the past three days, they had been closed and locked at Rosaline’s order. Any visitor wishing to speak to the sisters would have to knock on the door and wait to be admitted. Which none were.

“I’ faith,” said Livia, putting aside her sewing as the boom of the door knocker sounded through the house. “That’s the third one today. ’Tis certain we never had so many visitors. Thou shouldst flout the prince’s will more often, Rosaline.”

Rosaline finished an embroidered rose with such violence
that the needle stuck into her hand. “Such company we can well do without. Go and send them away, prithee.”

Livia nodded, carefully folding the tablecloth she was mending. “Who think’st thou it is this time? Uncle again, or one of his servants, or the prince’s men?”

Rosaline laughed, hissing a bit as she unstitched herself. Her uncle and the prince had taken it in turns to try to wheedle, cajole, and command her to wed. Luckily, the duchess, the only person with any real power to threaten the Tirimo ladies, had declined to involve herself. Which, given her hatred of the Montagues, was not surprising. “I care not. Only tell them—”

“I know.” Livia threw a hand across her forehead in an imitation swoon. “Oh, my lord, my dear sister is deathly ill. And though she longs—nay, pines—to see the face of her very favorite Capulet uncle who has not spoken three words to her in years, the doctor has strictly forbidden her to see anyone who wishes to induce her to marry, as hearing the name ‘Benvolio’ makes her break out in pox.”