Page 84 of Edge of the Wild

Oliver swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “Comforting.”

“Don’t worry: I still like you.” Birger winked, and Oliver couldn’t help but smile, a little. “And,” he said, growing serious, “Erik still loves you, even if he doesn’t show it much the next little while.”

Love. Oliver glanced down into his mug. Thought of the winter garden, and that moment when Erik had saidI need to tell you something. It hadn’t been the confession he’d expected.

“Now,” Birger said, “let’s get you a refill.”

10

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Tessa stopped short, startled, foot suspended above the snow-dusted garden path, and turned her head to find Rune ensconced on a bench tucked back in a depression in the hedge.

Worry flared. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

“I’m sitting,” he said, and tapped the marble edge of the bench with a walking stick – a new acquisition, one of black lacquered wood with a silver head shaped like a wolf, its eyes tiny rubies. “Two of the guards were kind enough to walk me out here like the old man I’ve apparently become, and now I am sitting. And it’s usually freezing: I’m used to it.” He grinned, expression between true gladness, and frustration. It was his first time outside since his injury – but he’d had to be helped there.

She set her foot down. Drew her own cloak more tightly around her shoulders. Started to speak–

“Please don’t say that I should be in bed. I’msickof bed.”

“All right.”

“And youhave beenavoiding me.”

She resisted the urge to fidget, because he was right. After Revna had caught them…in so compromising a position…she’d made an excuse to leave the royal apartments, and then stayed away from them, all that afternoon and the next day as well. She’d wanted to go, but her moment of weakness had proved that spending time with Rune was a bad idea for multiple reasons. Namely, that the gossip to which Lady Estrid had hinted would only grow the more hours she spent in the royal apartments, in his bedroom. But, perhaps worse than that, she didn’t feel she could trust herself at this point.

In the course of her deliberation, his expression fell; a slow drop that brought out the lines of fatigue that still marked his brow, and the skin beneath his eyes. He leaned back, so the bare limbs of the hedge caught at his hair – loose and wild, again, her tight braids long since unraveled. “I’m sorry.” His gaze dropped. “I have no claim over your time–”

“No, it’s–”

His gaze lifted, nearly hazel in the sunlight. Cautious, but hopeful.

She said, “I didn’twantto avoid you.”

He flashed a quick, rueful grin. “I should have expected it, though, shouldn’t I? After I…” He gestured between them, groped for the words, then cleared his throat. “Well. After – that. I didn’t mean – that is, I wouldn’t have actually…” He let out a deep breath. “Leif is my brother, and I love and respect him, and you’re his fiancée.” The words sounded as if they’d been practiced beforehand. “If I gave you the impression that I might – might try to actinappropriately.” Tessa wondered, dimly, if Revna had insisted he say this. “I would never put you in that position. I’m sorry for any distress I may have caused you.” He swallowed, after.There, that’s done,his face seemed to say. And also, a little, that he was terrified of her reaction.

She stepped off the path so she stood right in front of him – too close, their knees almost touching. “Rune, you didn’t do anything inappropriate, and you definitely didn’t cause me any distress.”

He tipped his head back to look up at her. “But…” When he wet his lips, her tongue followed the movement, and,oh, this was why she’d kept away. She had no defense against this, against the way even just standing close to him made her feel.

Face heating, unable to look him in the eye, she whirled and sat on the bench beside him – right in a pile of snow, and didn’t care. She clenched her gloved hands together in her lap. Her breath came quick, and sharp; her pulse skipped.

Rune said, “Well. You seem distressednow.”

She laughed, but it was a thin, wavering sound. “I seem to be, don’t I?” The leather of her gloves squeaked as she twisted her fingers tighter, tighter–

Rune’s bare hand covered them, stilling her. She could feel the heat of his skin even through the gloves; imagined she could feel the shape and texture of each callus. A warmth bloomed in her chest, one that boiled, and swelled, pressing at her ribs, heating every inch of her until her clothes felt too hot and restrictive. A flush; a simple, girlish flush of pleasure at being touched, even so chastely – and a desire to be touched less chastely, even if the resultant mental images were indistinct and blurred.

“I’m being so dramatic,” she lamented.

“Tessa.” He said her name so gently. Leaned in close enough for her to smell the pine oil in his hair, and feel the warmth of his breath against her ear. If she turned her head… “What’s the matter?”

“Amelia truly is braver than me.”

“What?”

“My sister. I told you how she was in love with a man at arms? How she refuses to marry my mother’s choice for her?”

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