Page 9 of Modern Romance Collection Books (5-8)

She turned, and that was like the sunrise. “Oh,” she said. “Where were you?”

“Sleeping,” he said.

“Right. Only... The servant said that you were not in your room.”

“I was,” he said.

“Oh. I...”

“I was there,” he said, gesturing down the stairs.

“That is not your room,” she said, “that is a dungeon.”

He shrugged. “It was the only place that I slept or did anything for sixteen years. I find that too much change is uncomfortable. I prefer to sleep in a familiar place.”

He realized that the expression on her face was one of... Pity.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I’m not a small animal that you need to rescue. I have been rescued, in fact.”

For a great many years he had fantasized about saving himself. Building up enough strength to rise up against the guards all on his own.

But the issue remained of what he would find past the guards that surrounded the cell. And he knew that would not be so simple.

He had continued to build up strength, but for his own benefit, and not really for a longer-term plan. That was the lesson he had eventually learned. That he had to find a way to live as best he could within an existence he would never have chosen, and not make his will to survive dependent on what might happen in the future. He had learned to take it day by day. And it was how he was taking things now. Even though he had the sense that the people around him were impatient.

“I don’t pity you,” she said.

But he could see that she was lying. “Don’t you?”

“No,” she said. “I might have some concerns. Why punish yourself?”

“Imagine having to try and exist in a world...” He changed tactics. “Imagine trying to live in the desert. Out there. Very different, I would think, to New York. To a town house there. Imagine living there. Nothing to shelter you from the elements. Everything is brighter and hotter than what you’re used to. Nothing feels the same. That isn’t what it’s like for me. I have lived here before. I have lived in the world.

“But it has been a very long time. And these things that you seem to think are reasonable and comfortable, they are not reasonable and comfortable to me. I need to take shelter from them. In much the same that you might do if you were out in the desert. You would need to get away from the elements.”

“Right. I’m sorry. I realize that what you’re doing is for your own comfort. And that it makes sense to you. But we just... What we are working on is appearances.”

“Right. So you should not care what I do when no one can see me.”

“I find that I do, though. Because I don’t want you to be sleeping on a stone floor when there is a perfectly good bed upstairs.”

Flames licked at his gut. Lust that took him by surprise.

A bed sounded appealing. If she was in it.

He wondered what she looked like naked. How her body would look uncovered.

Was she pale like that all over?

His references for female nudity were classical artwork. And she reminded him a bit of Renaissance paintings. All red hair and pale skin. He could imagine her being curved in just that way. But would she look at him with need or with pity if he touched her?

He could not stand the latter.

“What is the lesson today?”

“I had thought that we would take breakfast, and then that we might spend some time in the library. There is a very expensive library here.”

“Still?” It was one thing that he had not thought to explore, but then... He wondered. Had the palace guard been bringing him books from the palace library all this time? He had been afraid... Afraid that his father’s extensive collection of literature had been destroyed. Books were so much his companion that the idea of it had... Had been like another death.

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