Page 55 of Here in Your Arms
The hall erupted into hushed murmurs, voices laced with nervous, malevolent energy. People at the lower tables exchanged knowing looks, their expressions dark with understanding. The younger ones shifted in their seats, shoulders tense, eyes darting between Margaret’s father and Rose.
A wave of heat crawled up Rose’s spine, her pulse hammering so violently she could feel it in her throat.
He wasn’t just warning her. Domnall was condemning her.
And the people—these frightened, grieving people—were listening.
She had known she was unwelcome. She’d known they resented her presence, but she had believed, perhaps foolishly, that time would ease their suspicions, that reason would break through the cloud of grief and superstition that gripped them.
But now, she understood. They would never see her as Rose. They would never let her be anything other than what they had lost. Possibly, Tiernan would never see her as Rose, had only ever seen her as his beloved Margaret.
Christ! Even when he’d kissed her?
She felt the eyes of the hall still on her, felt Leana’s gaze burning with misplaced reverence, felt the weight of every unspoken accusation, every whispered prayer against whatever curse they believed she carried.
Rising abruptly, she pushed her chair back from the table. The movement startled Leana beside her, who reached out instinctively, her fingers trembling as she clutched at Rose’s sleeve.
“Margaret?”
“My name is Rose,” she muttered, her voice unsteady.
She barely heard Leana’s soft, pleading reply before she turned and strode from the hall, her breaths shallow. The corridors were dim and cool but did nothing to lessen the heat crawling up her neck and in her cheeks.
Reaching the solitude of her chamber, she slammed the door behind her and crossed the room in quick, restless strides, her hands shaking as she clenched and unclenched them.
She paced once across the room, then turned sharply back. Her hands flew to her hair.
She began yanking at the pins, one by one, fingers fumbling through the intricate braids and coils the maid had so carefullyarranged. Each pin came free with a small, painful tug, some catching at her scalp. She tossed them to the floor without looking, barely aware of the softclinkas they scattered across the wood floor.
But there were too many—she couldn’t find them all. Somewhere behind her ear, one refused to budge, and she growled in frustration, clawing at the style until the twist collapsed unevenly. Her hair fell in tangled waves, half-loosened, strands catching on the remnants of the undone braid. The result was lopsided and wild—neither properly dressed nor fully undone.
Tears stung her eyes, hot and unwelcome, but she blinked them away. She wouldn’t cry. Not over this.
Damn them!
With shaking hands, she reached for the gown. She fumbled with the laces, but they were drawn too tightly at her back, just out of her reach. She gripped the fabric at the shoulder and yanked, hard, as if she could tear it from her body by sheer will alone. The velvet held firm. With a strangled sound—part sob, part scream—she fought with the gown until finally, breathless and red-faced, she tore it over her head and flung it onto the floor.
It landed in a heap, soft and quiet. For good measure, she kicked off her sneakers, not even flinching when the force of her second kick sent one crashing against the door.
Margaret’s gown.
Margaret’s hair.
Margaret’s goddamn ghost!
Rose stood in her shift, chest heaving, fists clenched at her sides, trembling in the center of the room.
She was a shadow. A replacement. A vessel for someone else's grief or the unworthy ghost of someone dear, and she was drowning in it.
She stared blindly for a moment before making a decision and spinning, searching the chamber. Though there was an ink well and quill atop a small writing desk, there was no parchment. Angrily, she squatted near the loose floorboard, where she’d found and had since returned Margaret’s journal, pulling the book from its resting place. She flipped through the pages until she reached the last entry of Margaret’s and without thinking, tore the next blank page from the book.
She laid it on the table and hastily dipped the quill into the ink. Unfamiliar with the writing apparatus, several globs of dark ink fell onto the blank parchment. Rose shook off a bit more and then turned the sheet upside down so that her wrist didn’t sit in ink.
She pressed the quill to the page, her hand unsteady.
Emmy. Brody. Please come get me.
The words sat stark against the parchment, brief and desperate.
