Page 26 of Pawns of Fate
ROSE
L unch passed in a blur. Ava and York couldn’t stop hugging and stealing kisses as if it were their last few minutes on earth and they weren’t standing in a courtyard full of other people.
Nicholas stayed in his office.
Rose did her best to conceal her disappointment, but her hunched shoulders and puffy, red eyes gave her away.
Camillus’s observation was right. She didn’t look like a woman in love. She looked like a woman in pain.
Nicholas didn’t reappear when the servants loaded the women’s baggage into a horse-drawn wagon.
Lyla, however, appeared, dressed in a unique maid’s uniform that covered her from head to toe and seated on a horse behind one of the Ojoh warriors.
Apparently, they still didn’t mind if their captives had a ‘maid.’
Marquess Sharp approached Rose and hugged her.
“Don’t worry about Nicholas. He’ll come around when all of this is over.”
Rose tried to reply but choked on the words. After a minute, she managed to grit out a thank you.
Ava and York said a dramatic, passionate goodbye, and then Depaerth seated Ava behind him on his horse. Rose looked around one last time for Nicholas. Camillus pulled her up by the waist to ride with him.
It reminded her of how she rode to Onanish with Nicholas all those weeks ago. She’d felt warmth and even a little attraction toward him then. Now, seated on a horse with her first lover, she felt like her body was turning to stone.
When everyone had mounted, the horses began the journey to the Ojoh desert.
Rose turned to look at Sharp Castle one last time. A silver-haired face in one of the upper-floor windows caught her attention. She and Nicholas locked eyes for a moment. Rose waved goodbye, then turned around before she lost her composure.
NICHOLAS
Nicholas angrily thumbed through another pile of documents, but he still couldn’t drag his eyes away from the window. The delegation was leaving soon; they may have already left. He should go down there and apologize before Rose was out of his reach.
But he couldn’t get the moment her face crumbled out of his head.
The moment he’d accused her of not wanting this marriage.
He’d known it was wrong, but he was just so angry…
at York. At Ava. At that stupid, smug Ojoh warrior.
At anyone but Rose. Yet she’d borne the brunt of his anger.
He took a long draught of liquor. Then another.
The sound of many horse hooves striking cobblestones floated through the window. The delegation was leaving.
He raced over to the window. There was Rose, seated behind that stupid, smug Ojoh warrior. And yet, instead of rage, Nicholas just felt sad.
Rose waved at him, and he thought his heart might fall out of his chest because it grew so heavy.
After she turned around, Nicholas waved after his wife like a helpless idiot. He almost screamed. He’d never felt so impotent before.
He wanted to race after the Ojoh, steal his wife back, and ride away with her into the wild forests of Onanish. They could forget all of these politics and live happily as commoners.
But Rose was doing this for the Sharp family.
She’d just sacrificed her happiness to keep the peace and avoid war.
It helped the people of Onanish and the Ojoh clan, not to mention Ava.
She’d never forgive him if he ruined all of her efforts, though it made his heart heavy with loss. He missed her already.
So instead of stealing her away, he waved like a lovesick fool and watched for almost an hour as the Ojoh party made their way down the mountain, through Onanish town, and finally disappeared into the coniferous forest.