Still Star-Crossed (38 page)

“I thank you,” she said finally. “For Livia. ’Twas your idea to send her with Isabella, was it not?”

“I hope thou wilt not mind.”

Rosaline shook her head. “I shall miss her desperately,
but I knew not what else to do for her here. I think if she stayed, she would pine herself to death.”

“We’ll have no more of that,” the prince said fervently.

“Amen.”

“That night you fled,” he said. “You left no sign of where you were going. Left me no sign.”

His voice was as calm and polite as it always was, but she could tell he had been thinking about this. “I am sorry for the pain I caused you,” she said. “More sorry than I can say. I should have woken Livia, or left a note, but I had to leave in all haste—Benvolio was pursued, and we knew not how much time we had before he was discovered.”

He smiled to himself. “Benvolio.”

“Your Grace—”

But he put a finger to her lips, just as he had the day of the battle. “Sweet, I have not asked thee what passed between thee and Signor Benvolio, and I never shall. But I confess I have thought much of that night in these weeks since. Why didst thou need to go at all? Why not come to me?”

“To thee?”

“Just that afternoon I swore I loved thee. Why not come to me for help, when Benvolio sought thee out?”

It was just the question she had asked herself of late. But the truth would hurt him, so she kept silent.

But Escalus had already arrived at it. “Thou didst not trust me.”

“
Thou
didst force me to broker my freedom for my virtue,” she snapped back before she could stop herself.

“I know. And if thou wilt forgive me that transgression,
I’ll forgive thee thy flight.” He stopped, taking both her hands in his. Escalus took a deep breath. “Verona must return to peace and quiet. To do that, my people must know that my reign is stable. I believe ’tis time I took a wife. Rosaline, you are one of Verona’s most eligible daughters. Your beauty, your character, and your lineage are all beyond reproach. What is more, you are well known to me, and I know you will occupy my mother’s throne with the utmost wisdom and delicacy. Your loyalty has proven itself a thousand times over.” He drew another shaky breath. “And you know well how I love you. I do not believe another could make me happy. Sweet, I do love you. I hope you will believe me this time.”

He smiled at her, nervous but sincere, and she remembered how gingerly he’d patted her little back as she wailed over his abandonment when they were children. She knew Verona’s prince, inside and out, as perhaps no other soul could claim to. This time he meant every word he was saying. Framing her face in his hands, he leaned in and kissed her, slowly and delicately, like a sunbeam kissing the face of an upturned flower. Rosaline sighed against him.

“Well, my love?” he asked, taking both her hands in his and pressing them to his chest. “Will you be mine?”

Rosaline gazed at the expectant face of her sovereign. The man she’d longed to marry for most of her life. Finally, the turmoil she’d felt for so long whenever she thought of him was calm. She knew her answer.

“Nephew, are you quite sure that you must go?”

Benvolio winced internally as he looked at his uncle’s pleading face. The old man stood next to him at the city gate, one restraining hand at his elbow. He knew that he was being dreadfully irresponsible as House Montague’s heir. He ought to stay in the city, let one of his cousins undertake this long trading journey.

But with all Verona telling him that the prince was on the point of announcing his betrothal to Rosaline of House Tirimo, he knew he could no more stay at home than he could stab himself in the heart. “Right well you know that House Montague has need of a champion abroad, Uncle. Our fortunes at home in Verona have suffered a grievous blow. We must do what we can to augment our properties elsewhere.”

He worried that his uncle would order him to stay, but the old man only sighed and shook his head. “Very well. Write when thou canst. I hope to see thee before a year is out.” He nodded beyond Benvolio’s shoulder. “Look, here’s another to bid thee farewell.”

Benvolio turned around to find none other than Rosaline, mounted on a fine white horse and wearing a sour expression. Benvolio turned back to his uncle, planning to avoid her gaze, but his uncle gave him a dry look and a bow and withdrew, heading back into the city.

“Good morrow, Montague.” She slid from her horse. “So ’tis true. You aim to quit Verona.”

He nodded to her mount. “Pretty. A gift from your prince?”

“He is your prince too, unless you’ve turned the traitor you were once believed to be.”

He had not been so close to her since the day of the battle. It had been even longer since they’d conversed privately. The weeks of recovery had done wonders for her. She was arrayed in a fine gown of pale green—another gift from the prince, surely—with matching ribbons in her hair, just as she’d been the day they were betrothed. He had seen many women in similar hues of late—Rosaline, it seemed, was setting Verona’s fashions. Not surprising, in a future princess. But it was not just her new finery that made her look so lovely. The strain that had marked her face during their travails was gone; the weight she’d lost had returned. She was as lovely as a breeze off the water on a summer day. He turned away, preoccupying himself with Silvius’s bridle. “Wherefore are you here, my lady?”

“Merely to bid you adieu. You saved my life. I’ve not had the chance to offer my thanks.”

“ ’Twas thanks enough when you saved mine in turn.”

“Still, you deserve to hear it.”

“Very well. I am thanked.” And he shut his jaw with a snap. They stared at each other in sullen silence, but she did not move to leave.

Rosaline bit her lip. “Why came you not to see me?”

He barked a laugh. “Why should I wish to do that?”

“Bare courtesy, perchance?” she muttered, then fished about in her sleeve. “Here. I made this for you. ’Twas finished weeks ago. I should have known better than to expect your attentions when you had no further need of me.” She thrust a scrap of cloth at him. “Here.”

He took it. It was a handkerchief, embroidered with the Montague crest. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Go choke on it.”

What did she expect from him? Was she so vain as to demand he hang about and pine for her as she made ready to wed his sovereign? He went to shove the cursed thing to the bottom of his saddlebag, but her hand shot out and seized his wrist. “It is customary, when a lady makes you a gift, to wear it upon your person,” she said icily.

God in heaven, she would be the death of him. He gave her a mocking bow, then took the handkerchief and began to tuck it into his sleeve. He tried to turn his back slightly, but when he drew his sleeve up she drew in a sharp breath. Benvolio closed his eyes. Caught.

Her fingers were gentle now as she turned his wrist over and brushed his sleeve up to reveal that he already carried a handkerchief—one embroidered by the same hand. She stayed like that, dark curly head bent over his hand, fingers tracing the stitches she herself had worked. Benvolio clenched his jaw against a shiver.

“I knew ’twas thee who had it.” She raised her face, her big green eyes clouded with hurt and confusion. “Why didst thou keep it?”

“Thou knowest right well why.” He turned away, fussing with Silvius’s buckles again until the horse nickered in protest.

“Then wherefore hast thou in all outward behavior seemed to hate me?” she cried. “How have I fallen so from thy favor?”

He whirled on her, incredulous. “What claim to my favors hast thou when thou art to wed the prince?”

She frowned. “Wed the prince? Who told thee so?”

“ ’Tis all Verona speaks of.”

“As usual, Verona speaks not right.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Rosaline. He has scarce been seen out of thy company for a fortnight.”

She ducked her head, a blush staining her cheeks. “He—he asked me,” she admitted. “I had to refuse him.”

His chest began to fill with shaky hope he hardly dared to feel. One disbelieving hand drifted up to her shoulder, then hesitated, hovering without touching her. “Refuse him.”

“Aye.”

“Why?”

A slight smile graced her lips. Her eyes darted up to his. “Thou knowest right well why.”

He swallowed hard, and gripped both her shoulders. “Rosaline.
Please
.”

“I could not wed him when I love another,” she said. Her eyes were tender now, softer than he’d ever seen them, as she shook her head and mouthed, “Benvolio.”

“Oh thank
God
,” he said as he drew her to him.

If he had been asked before this moment, he would have said that nothing in this world or the next could improve upon the previous kisses he’d stolen from her. But he had to admit that subtracting rain and mud and mortal peril from the equation was even better. She was eager and soft and sun-warmed in his arms, and he felt that he could quite happily live out his life right here, running his fingers down her
spine and feeling her sigh and smile against his lips, with only the hoots of passing peddlers to distract them.

They continued that way for quite some time, until Benvolio pressed her a little too enthusiastically against Silvius’s side and he shied away in protest, sending them both stumbling. Laughing, he grabbed her waist to right her, and she pressed her forehead against his.

“If I once more broach the subject of marriage,” he murmured, “wilt thou scream to the heavens and march off to a nunnery?”

Rosaline laughed. “After thieving through Montenova in your clothing, I am quite certain no decent nunnery would have me.”

“Good,” he said, and kissed her again. “Friar Laurence will have another Montague and Capulet to marry, then.”

“Montague and Tirimo.”

“Of course.” He bent to kiss her once more, but she drew back.

“What of thy yearlong exile from Verona?”

“I’ll send Marius.” His lips found hers again, muffling her laughing protests.

“We’d best go now and tell our families. If we carry on so in public, House Montague will not allow thee to wed such a scandalous jade.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Didst thou not just say thou art a confirmed wanton? Where’s the harm, then?”

“Benvolio!” Laughing, she placed a hand to his chest to hold him at bay.

He gave a mighty sigh. “As you wish.” He stole one more
kiss, then they mounted their horses and turned back from the gates. Benvolio grinned as they rode up the street. His city had not seemed such a beautiful sight in months. It was as though the burden that had been lifted from his shoulders had relieved all Verona too. The streets were crowded with merchants, nobles, and servants, the color and clamor of the city overwhelming as it returned at last to life. On such a fair day, it was impossible to imagine that even the dead could slumber through it. A group of young men were bent over a dice game, and he imagined that he saw Gramio’s and Truchio’s slim young forms among them—that Mercutio’s lanky form flashed him a mile-wide grin in the corner of his eye.

And, at the crest of a distant hill, he thought he saw another young Montague, hand in hand with a slim, dark-haired maiden, both of them smiling down at the newly betrothed couple. Beside him, Rosaline reached over and laced her fingers through his. And they smiled too.

The wonderful thing about Shakespeare is that we all feel like he belongs to us. We’ve heard his words our whole lives, but his stories still feel as fresh and moving as they must have when they were first performed. In some plays, the settings he creates feel very self-contained—it’s hard to picture Elsinore after Hamlet, for example—but with
Romeo and Juliet
, he created a world so bursting with life that it’s impossible not to imagine what happened afterward.

That’s what inspired me to write
Still Star-Crossed
. Since Shakespeare himself borrowed liberally from other stories, I trust that his spirit will forgive me for borrowing the characters and setting I love so much. But to further my hope that he and I will one day have a less strained meeting up in writers’ heaven (lots of coffee, no writer’s block, chairs with lumbar support), let me lay out which parts of
Still Star-Crossed
are borrowed from Shakespeare’s works and which are my own creation.

First, a note about the setting.
Still Star-Crossed
doesn’t take place in Italy—it takes place in Shakespeare’s Italy, an
imaginary country where the geography is slightly different and everyone speaks English. Thus this book makes no claim to historical accuracy for any period of Italian history. I did my best to keep the characters’ speech true to Shakespearean diction and vocabulary, but I felt it was more important to channel Shakespeare’s love of language than to painstakingly replicate his style. His vocabulary is famously vast; I didn’t want to make mine smaller than usual, so there are doubtless plenty of anachronisms. You may have also noticed that each section begins with a line or two on its own; those are in iambic pentameter, which is the usual rhythm of Shakespeare’s verse.
Romeo and Juliet
contains some of the most beautiful examples of it.