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“Ah, Lady Harold, I have been looking for you,” Anna heard Lord Rosenkranz say behind her, when she left the rose bushes and was about to enter the castle again.
Anna turned and saw him stand behind her on the garden path. He had an apologetic smile on his face. If only he would stop being so self-effacing, then she might actually... no, it did not matter, she would never marry him no matter how much he changed.
“Lord Rosenkranz,” Anna greeted him and could hear that she did not sound very pleasant.
“I just wanted to know, whether you would like to go on today? Or perhaps wait until tomorrow?” he asked her.
Anna had not thought about it, but despite her aunt’s desire to play matchmaker, she did not want to go on right now.
“Not today at least, I don’t know about tomorrow,” she said in a more agreeable tone.
“Very well,” Lord Rosenkranz said and bowed his head to her. “I’ll go for a walk in the countryside then. After several days in the saddle, it’s nice to move in a different way.”
He held the door for her, and Anna went inside.
“All I need is a good long nap,” Anna said.
“You didn’t sleep well?” Lord Rosenkranz asked and looked anxiously at her.
Anna shook her head.
“I hardly slept at all,” she admitted.
The thoughts of the two robbers and what they might had done to her had been flashing before her eyes every time she closed them.
“You... you didn’t injure yourself with your fall from the horse, did you? I think I forgot to ask you,” Lord Rosenkranz said.
“Just bruised my knees and scraped my hands,” Anna said and held up her palms to him. To her surprise he took one of them and examined the wounds.
“Your aunt has skilled people working here; it’s clearly someone who knows how to take care of a wound,” Lord Rosenkranz said and let go of her hand.
“It was Joana, actually,” Anna said and could not help but smile proudly, despite the fact that she had not even known the girl for a week and could not take any credit for her skills.
“You should hold on to her then,” he said, smiled and motioned to walk in the opposite direction of her.
“You look like you haven’t slept either,” Anna said. She thought she might repay the courtesy and ask about his health, but it came out rather wrong.
“I haven’t,” Lord Rosenkranz admitted to her surprise. He added in a lower voice: “I never sleep well when I’ve... taken a life.”
“But you’re a soldier,” Anna could not help but exclaim.
He was a soldier. He had been to war. He had killed people before. This was what he was trained to do. It could not be right that he should be bothered by it.
“Nevertheless,” he said and moved a little and Anna realized how much he must trust her to confide something like that in her. Most men probably would not.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But there was no way to avoid it...”
He still did not meet her eyes.
“No,” he said after a pause.
“Maybe you should go lie down as well...” Anna suggested.
To her surprise she felt like touching him. She wanted to comfort him like he had comforted her before. But it was absurd. He was so much taller and stronger than her, what kind of comfort could she offer him?
“I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” he said and looked at her only briefly before his gaze moved to something else. The floor, the wall, her foot, the ceiling.
“No,” Anna said.
She should go now. She should let him go and walk to her room and try to sleep.
“Every time I fell asleep...” he started, but then stopped himself.
Anna reached for his hand. It was warm and strong, and he instantly squeezed hers. A bit too hard, but she did not mind.
“There was nothing you could have done,” she said softly. “They would have killed us if you hadn’t...”
She could only imagine the horrible image that was burned into his mind forever and was there when he closed his eyes.
“It’s not that,” he began.
Anna looked at him, wondering whether he would go on. She should withdraw her hand, walk to her room... but he had comforted her, he had saved her life. The least she could do was hear him out.
“Every time I would fall asleep, I would have a nightmare where they would...” he paused again. His dark brown eyes were looking straight at her now. “Where they would...” he began again but was unable to finish.
“Where they would what, Wulfric?” Anna deliberately used his first name, trying to coax him into speaking. He clearly needed to say this.
“I kept having a nightmare where they raped you... right in front of me,” he said and quickly looked away from her again.
His grip of her hand was so tight now, like he would never let go.
“But they didn’t,” Anna said gently. “You would never have let them.”
“No,” he said hoarsely and when he looked at her, she thought his eyes gleamed with unshed tears.
He quickly released her hand and turned around to walk down the hallway.
“You should go rest,” he said over his shoulder.
She looked at his back as he left. She should probably think nicer of him; his aloof manner made her think that he did not really feel, but it was clear that he felt very deeply. Despite his yearlong crush on her being unwanted he had never said or done anything inappropriate. He had always recognized that he did not have a chance with her because she was in love with Valdemar.
Anna turned around and walked up the stairs. Yesterday when he had put his arms around her, there had been a moment where she thought that he would kiss her – and there had even been a brief moment, where she wanted him to. The shock of being attacked had made her want to be close to someone. But not just anyone, she realized now. The driver or Joana could not have held her and comforted her.
She sighed as she sat down in the windowsill in her room and looked out over the fields below her. She was not in love with him, she told herself. It was merely a friendship. A very unequal friendship where one person was in love with the other. It would never work if they married.
Her mind wandered to the prospect of marriage in general. The hardest part about not marrying would probably be having to live without being intimate with a man. The last couple of months she had felt the desire to be with a man come back gradually.
It had felt strange living with the nuns that had vowed to never have sex, and think about how much she missed it. She could satisfy herself, but she was unsure whether that would be enough for the rest of her life.
Being married though would not ensure a great sex life. Many married men only slept with their wives to get them pregnant and completely ignored or was ignorant of their wives’ desires. She could not be with a man like that either. Valdemar had been attentive and kind – and passionate and wild. She could never expect to find a man like that again.
Lord Rosenkranz walked into her point of view from the window. He was walking with long strides towards the fields. Anna wondered what he would be like in bed. His insecure manner made her think that he might be insecure in that area as well.
Anna could feel that the thought of being the most experienced in bed actually appealed to her, despite the fact that it should be the other way around. She shook her head. She would under no circumstances sleep with Lord Rosenkranz, thus it could never concern her how he was in bed. She climbed down from the windowsill and went to the room, that her aunt usually stayed in during the daytime.
“Ah, have you calmed down now my dear?” Aunt Mathilda said. Anna could feel her bad mood returning immediately and did not answer.
“What are you making?” she asked instead and looked at the needle work in Aunt Mathilda’s lab.
“It’s a tapestry for your cousin Gregory,” Aunt Mathilda said with proudness in his voice.
Since she was his mother, she was probably also the only one that could be proud of Gregory. He was living at court with his young wife. Anna knew him to be lazy and a philanderer, but also funny and charming.
Anna sat down on a stool next to Aunt Mathilda and started helping her with the tapestry. Working closely together without speaking mended the gap between them, that had been created by their argument earlier. Anna knew that Aunt Mathilda never apologized, and she had no intention of apologizing herself. Aunt Mathilda was the one that was wrong for interfering with this.
“I thought of inviting some of the neighbors tomorrow for a little gathering,” Aunt Mathilda then said.
“But my father has just died, I shouldn’t be attending a party already. I don’t feel like attending a party at all,” Anna said.
“It won’t be a party. Just a chance to show you off to my neighbors,” her aunt looked at her and smiled. “It’s so rare that I get to see you these days and I’d like my neighbors to meet my influential niece. It’ll be beneficial to you too to meet them.”
“I’ll think about it,” Anna said.
“Don’t think too long, I need to send a messenger today to invite them.”
Anna got up from the stool and looked out the window. She saw Lord Rosenkranz returning to the castle below her. He looked up briefly and waved when he saw her at the window. Anna waved back. He had talked about leaving tomorrow... maybe if she agreed to attend her aunt’s get-together, he would think that they were to spend too much time there and leave.
“I think that it’s a great idea that you invite them,” Anna said and turned around from the window. She did not give herself time to think about, why she would prefer that Lord Rosenkranz left.
Her aunt smiled beamingly.
“I’ll tell a messenger right away,” she said and got up from the chair.