AS HAWTHORNE TENDED HER foot, Emeline showed him the sheet music for “Rose’s Waltz,” along with the photo of her mother. After pointing out her mother’s moon tattoo, she recounted what Tom told her about Rose falling in love with someone in the Wood King’s court.
Hawthorne straddled the bench beside the harvest table, facing her. Steam rose from the bowl of hot water in front of him, and on the table was a jar of Rooke’s moonshine and clean strips of white cotton gauze. Taking her heel in his hands, he checked for glass shards embedded in the wound before starting to wash it.
“My mother was the Song Mage’s muse,” she told him. “I’m sure of it.”
As he listened, Hawthorne’s hands gently wiped the dirt and blood from her foot, avoiding the cut at first, then prodding it carefully until it was clean.
“I think his death broke her. I wish I had the photos to show you. She looked … dead inside.”
The opposite of how she looked with Tom.
Hawthorne was strangely quiet. He hadn’t said one word since she first started talking. He unscrewed the lid from the jar of moonshine. With her foot in one hand and the jar in the other, he glanced up, asking permission.
Emeline nodded, giving it.
Her grip on the bench tightened as he poured alcohol over the wound, sanitizing it. She hissed through her teeth at the sting. When it was over, she sucked in a breath and relaxed.
“My mother could still be in the King’s City.”
Silently, Hawthorne took strips of gauze and wrapped them generously around and around her heel, pinning them in place. When he finished, he set her foot in his lap and, very gently, dragged his thumb in slow circles around her anklebone.
“I don’t know of any Rose Lark living in the city,” he said finally. Almost distantly. “But the Song Mage and his consort were … before my time. I can ask around. Aspen might know something. Her father used to be the Song Mage’s tailor.”
It was difficult to focus with his thumb caressing her like that. It made her shiver. Good shivers. Shivers that sank down below her skin.
He fell quiet.
“Emeline?”
She glanced from his stroking thumb to his watchful eyes. There were shadows in them, and a careful cadence to his voice. “If the stories are true, and the Vile was jealous of her…” His thumb stopped its gentle motion as his eyebrows drew sharply together. “It’s possible the Vile killed your mother too.”
Emeline pulled her foot back towards herself, nodding silently. She’d thought of that already.
The twisted butterfly pin was proof that someone had tried to escape that cellar. But did they succeed? Until she found evidence suggesting otherwise, Emeline had to hope her mother was alive.
“And if this is all true,” he went on, “then the Song Mage was your father.”
She nodded again, staring at the pine floorboards beneath Hawthorne’s gray wool socks. My father. She hadn’t said the words aloud to herself yet. They were too strange.
Was that why her voice did unexpected things, sometimes?
She thought of her last lesson with Hawthorne. Of the power coursing through her as she sang, stripping him bare. Seeing things she had no right to see.
Something dinged in the kitchen. Hawthorne turned sharply in that direction.
“The bread…”
He screwed the lid back on the moonshine, then cleaned up the mess on the table.
“I should go,” she said, rising. “If I’m going to find my mother…” She only had so much time to look. She needed to be in Montreal in two days, for the opening night of her tour.
How she would get to her opening night was less certain—she doubted the king would let her leave, even if she had found his missing sheet music. But this was a problem she would deal with later.
Hawthorne reached for her wrist, stopping her. Her skin sparked at the contact. “When was the last time you ate?”
Emeline pressed a hand to her empty stomach. “Not since yesterday.”
“Then stay for dinner and afterwards, we can go see Aspen and ask her father about Rose Lark. He won’t be home for a few hours yet, so you have some time.”
Since Emeline had no other leads, she nodded. “All right.” If Hawthorne thought the man could help her, she could afford to wait a few hours.
Gathering the gauze, the moonshine, and the bowl of lukewarm water, Hawthorne brought them into the kitchen, where Emeline heard him wash his hands. When he returned, one arm cradled a ceramic bowl covered in a red-checkered cloth while the other carried a large muslin bag full of flour. He hefted both onto the table. After rolling his shirtsleeves back to his elbows, then sliding that plain white ring off his finger and placing it in his pocket, he peeled the checkered cloth back from the bowl. A pale hump of dough sat nestled inside.
She came to stand beside him. “Can I help?”
He raised a dark brow. “Do you know how?”
Uh, no. The process of making bread was a total mystery to her. But Maisie baked bread all the time. So she rolled up her sleeves and shrugged. “How hard can it be?”
He smirked.
She crossed her arms. “You don’t think I can do it?”
“We’ll see.” He reached into the muslin bag and pulled out a handful of flour, sprinkling it across the surface of the table.
Emeline braided her hair back, then washed her hands in the kitchen sink. When she returned, Hawthorne held out one flour-dusted hand.
“First, you’ll need to punch down the dough.”
Emeline reached for his hand, determined to demolish his skepticism. His fingers folded around hers, pulling her between himself and the end of the table. The heat of him rushed up her back, spreading like wildfire.
In front of her sat the bowl of dough.
Was she actually supposed to punch it, or was he teasing?
“You’re already hopeless,” he murmured, his warm breath grazing the back of her neck. “First, make a fist.” She heard the smirk still in his voice as his hands folded around her right one, curling her fingers into her palm. “Then, bring your elbow back.…”
“Okay, okay,” she said. “I know how to throw a punch.”
His hand coasted around her hip, settling on its soft arc. “Go ahead then.”
Emeline fisted her hand and punched the middle of the dough.
Mmmfff.
The bump collapsed.
Emeline watched it caving in on itself, slowly, like a deflating balloon. Hawthorne’s arms came around either side of her, his hands pushing the dough down, flattening it out. She smelled the forest on him, earth and moss and pine.
“Get the air out,” he said, stepping out from behind her and flipping the bowl over so the dough spilled out onto the floured table. He started tearing it into six roughly equal chunks. “Take one in your hands and tuck it into itself, like this.” He folded his dough, then rounded it into a perfectly smooth circular orb in less than a minute.
But when Emeline tried to copy his movements, hers ended up a lumpy mess that stuck to her fingers.
Hawthorne’s mouth quirked again. “You’re thinking about it too much.”
Or possibly, she wasn’t thinking about it enough. She was thinking about his hands, and how efficient they were. How they knew exactly what to do.
His forearm disappeared inside the bag. When it reemerged, his hand held a fistful of white flour. He tossed it across the table, back and forth, like gently falling snow. “Cover it with more flour, then try again.”
While she worked on her lumpy mess, Hawthorne finished his second, then third—cupping the dough on both sides and moving it in circles until it was perfectly round. He worked quickly and skillfully. By the time he finished shaping his fourth loaf, Emeline had turned her first back into a sticky bulge.
She pulled her hands away.
“I’m ruining it.”
He swapped out her mess with the last chunk of dough, then held out the bag of flour, as if to say, Again.
Emeline reached inside, grabbed a handful of flour, and threw it the way he’d shown her …
Or not.
She’d taken too much flour, and it slipped out of her fist all at once instead of sparingly. A dusty white cloud billowed up, forcing Emeline to close her eyes.
When she opened them, a white haze coated her eyelashes. Her lips tasted dry and powdery, and her button-up shirt and jeans were dusted in flour. Blinking up at Hawthorne, she found him covered too.
Emeline laughed at the sight of his dark hair speckled with white.
He raised both eyebrows. As if to say, Oh really. Reaching into the bag, he tossed a fistful back at her. She gasped as the flour hit, splattering across her shirt like a soft snowball.
A slow grin spread across her lips. This is something I can beat him at.
Grabbing the bag of flour, she hoisted it high and dumped the whole thing over his head.
It was like standing in the midst of a snow squall. The room disappeared. Emeline couldn’t see the table, or the dough, or even Hawthorne.
And then there he was: lunging at her through the white cloud. Emeline dodged out of reach, shrieking and laughing as she ran for the other end of the house. Halfway to the bedroom, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off the floor. “We’re not finished.”
She attempted to fight him as he half carried, half dragged her back to the table, but she was laughing so hard, she couldn’t kick her legs.
He set her down before the table. With his arm still looped around her waist, he held her snug against him, her back to his chest. Laughter softened his voice as he whispered against her cheek, “Try again.”
The brush of his lips made a warm ache roar to life inside her, and her laughter fell silent.
“You said it yourself,” she swallowed, breathless. “I’m hopeless.”
She squirmed free of his hold, turning to face him, and his arm fell away from her.
Only a sliver of space divided them. She leaned back into the table behind her, gripping the edge, peering up at him. He lifted a hand to her face and as his thumb gently smeared flour off her cheekbone, a startling thought flickered through her.
I want him.
Not the way she wanted the others. She didn’t want him to use—as a shield between her and the things she was running from. To feel normal. To soothe that lonely ache.
She wanted him. His sharp edges and surprising tenderness and quiet strength. She wanted him spooning homemade soup into her mouth in his cozy, tidy house that smelled like bread. She wanted him discussing poetry in the dark with her grandfather. She wanted that fervent, desperate kiss in the palace hall.
She wanted Hawthorne Fell. The Wood King’s henchman. Not exactly boyfriend material, but still. He called to her the way the forest did. Called to something deep and forgotten. Something that longed to come alive again.
Emeline reached for the hand that had smeared flour off her cheek. He let her take it. Let her turn it palm up between them, tracing its calluses and flour-caked creases.
Such strong, capable hands.
“Emeline…”
He was all dark hair falling into river-rock eyes. Eyes that were, at present, captivated by the sight of her. Hot silence simmered between them. She stared at his mouth, so close to hers. Deliriously close. Letting go of his hand, she reached for his face, savoring the roughness of his jawline against her palms.
“Emeline.” Her name was a growl. Part warning, part yearning. But whatever he’d been about to say was lost in the softness of her mouth as she arched to kiss him.
Her fingers twined through his hair, pulling him closer.
“We can’t do this,” he murmured. But his hands slid behind her thighs as he lifted her onto the edge of the table. “What about Joel?”
She gently bit the curve of his jaw. “I broke things off with Joel.”
At those words, Hawthorne gave in to her. Securing her legs around his hips, he drew her against him. Desire burned through Emeline. Her blood hummed as he hooked his finger into the collar of her button-up shirt, tugging gently downwards. The buttons opened, one after another, and Emeline sucked in a breath as cool air rushed against her skin. He pushed the shirt down her arms and kissed the smooth curve of her shoulder, his teeth grazing her bare skin.
A low hum escaped her throat.
His eyes glazed over. Suddenly, his mouth was hot against hers, his tongue urgent. She kissed him back, pulling him closer, tighter, and still: it wasn’t enough.
She wanted him to lay her down.
She wanted him to …
Her hands fumbled with his belt, trying to undo it. Realizing what was happening, what she wanted, Hawthorne stilled. His hands slid away from her. His fingers wrapped around her wrists.
“Emeline, darling.” His voice was ragged and rough. “We can’t.”
A bubble of frustration expanded inside her and she nipped the soft place between his shoulder and throat, showing her displeasure. “Why not?”
He didn’t answer. Only unhooked her legs from around him and stepped back, looking her over, assessing the damage he’d done. He immediately stepped forward again, his fingers shaking ever so slightly as they buttoned her shirt.
His face was flushed, his hair mussed. He looked … undone.
It made her want to kiss him again.
Sensing this, Hawthorne abandoned the buttons and backed away. Emeline pushed herself down from the table. “Tell me why.”
He ran both hands through his hair. “If circumstances were different…” He glanced away from her—but not before she saw the desire raging in his eyes. “I would happily take what you’re offering. More than happily.”
Emeline gripped the edge of the table, not trusting herself to let go. What did that mean, if circumstances were different? If she weren’t a prisoner here? If she weren’t secretly planning to leave all of this behind and escape?
Maybe that’s it.
Emeline remembered what Nettle told her the night they met: that someone in Hawthorne’s past broke his heart. She remembered the girl Hawthorne had mentioned the night he walked her home.
Where did she go?
Away from me.
“You loved someone, and she betrayed you.” Emeline’s voice sounded raw. “Is that what this is about?” Because whoever she was, I’m not her.
“Yes.” His eyes turned to stone. “And no. There are things you don’t know.”
She crossed her arms. “Then fill me in.”
He ran his hands raggedly over his face. He looked everywhere but at her.
“She didn’t betray me.” He paused for a long moment. When he finally raised his eyes to hers, he said, very quietly, “I betrayed her.”