Page 63 of Legacy of Roses

“Don’t I?” Rosalie looked away, afraid of what he might see if he looked too deep inside her.

“No one’s perfect, Rosalie,” Dimitri said. “Everyone stumbles sometimes. But you had your heart broken, and you didn’t run away and abandon your family. You’re still here right now, fighting to free both yourself and them from the Legacy’s grip.”

“Your mother didn’t abandon her whole family,” Rosalie said. “She didn’t flee only for her own sake. She left hoping to protect the family member most important to her.”

“Protection that sat as heavily as a vest of stone,” he said with a sigh. But she could read appreciation in his eyes. She hadn’t excused his mother, but neither had she vilified her. It was the truth of Rosalie’s feelings, and apparently it was enough for Dimitri.

“Thank you,” he said softly, and she had to blink rapidly and tip her head back against the soft petals of her chair again.

When she finally mastered her emotions and looked back, Dimitri was gone. She sat alone in the library, ensconced in a giant rose, as the day’s light waxed and waned. When she finally stood on her own feet again, something had shifted. She was no longer the merchant’s youngest daughter, named for a rose. She was merely Rosalie.

Whether they succeeded or failed in the castle, the Legacy had run its course with her. Dimitri had spoken of a vest of stone, but she had worn the Legacy like shackles. But no longer. With Dimitri’s help, she had stepped free of them.

The day’s efforts might not have been physical, but she felt a tiredness in her limbs regardless. As she walked toward the door, she wished aloud that her bed chamber was on the other side. The thought of stairs seemed daunting.

Pulling the door open, she blinked at the sight of purple and gold. Had she somehow sleepwalked from the library to her room? She twisted around to peer behind her. She was still standing on the threshold of the library, as she had thought. Buther bedchamber didn’t open off the library. They weren’t even on the same floor.

Cautiously she stepped through the impossible doorway, finding herself in her bedchamber, just as her eyes had promised. Looking back, she could still see the library, as if the two rooms were joined after all.

She closed the door, her hand moving stiffly as her mind struggled to grasp what was happening. Had she fallen asleep in the rose chair, and she was about to awaken from a dream?

She counted out five seconds before pulling the door back open. The corridor outside her room was there just as usual. She pinched herself, but she didn’t seem to be asleep.

A slow smile spread over her face. “Now that,” she said aloud, “is a very handy feature.”

They continued to eat each evening meal together, and the food grew progressively better. Dimitri kept insisting he had been right about the Legacy needing practice, but Rosalie was unconvinced.

“I still think you’re humanizing it too much,” she protested as they ventured out to explore the manor for the third day in a row.

“Then how do you explain last night’s scalloped potatoes?” he asked with the air of one delivering a winning argument.

“Theywerequite compelling.” Rosalie hummed at the memory, and Dimitri laughed.

“Do you even realize you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Hum in appreciation of delicious food.”

Rosalie flushed. “Do I?” No one had ever pointed it out before.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s charming.”

She flushed and looked away. “What about that door over there?” she asked quickly. “Where does it go?”

Most of the rooms they had explored the day before had turned out to be bedchambers, but their patience had finally been rewarded with an incredible hothouse full of plants just as lush as the ones outside. It had been a happy find since the gardens were currently barred to them, and she was hoping for another equally exciting discovery.

Dimitri chuckled softly before giving the door a proper look. “You know,” he said after a moment, “I can’t remember. It must not have been something very memorable.”

“But that was before.” Rosalie’s hand hovered over the handle, and she looked back at Dimitri, savoring the anticipation. “Who knows what marvel the Legacy has put in here now!”

He responded to her smiles as he always did, smiling back as if he couldn’t help himself.

“Why don’t you open it and find out?” he invited.

She turned the handle and pushed the door open, giving a dramatic flourish that died halfway as she saw the empty room on the other side.

“This is disappointing.” She walked slowly inside anyway.

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