Page 10 of Tusk Love

He drew the hood of the cloak over her head with stern finality. Then he nodded to himself, as though satisfied, before answering her question. “Short of sleeping on the street, I’m afraid you’ll have to take me up on my offer.”

Guinevere was frustrated, embarrassed, and exhausted, and her feet hurt something awful. She couldn’t think clearly enough to guard her next words. “The gentlemanly thing to do would be to put me up at this inn for the night.”

All trace of amusement fled from Oskar’s demeanor. “I’m not a gentleman.”

“It’s not much for a room, only a gold piece,” she said wildly. Rules, she had to follow the rules; if it ever came to light that she’d slept in a strange man’s house, her parents would die of shame, and Lord Wensleydale would—

She realized too late that her desperation had made her sound petulant. And that she’d made a terrible mistake.

Oskar’s golden eyes had turned hard and sharp. No longer soft honey, but unforgiving, crystalline topaz. His oakmoss-hued features shuttered, and the craggy lines of his powerful shoulders went tense.

“I can’t afford it, Guinevere.”

A blunt statement of a simple fact, given in a cold voice stiff with desolate pride.

And how could it be that someone’s pride could humble her like this? She hadn’t been thinking. She was used to having money. Business had started going bad only two years ago, and her parents had shielded her from the worst of it. To her, a gold piece was nothing. She had not stopped to consider how that wouldn’t be the case for everyone else.

Flooded with shame, Guinevere hung her head. “I’m so s—”

Before she could finish apologizing, Oskar grabbed the trunk. He tucked it under his arm again, the same way he’d been carrying it around all day. Forher,even though she didn’t deserve it.

“Let’s go,” he said crisply. “I’m tired.”

She trailed behind him, out of the inn and down Druvenlode’s stone-paved labyrinth of dark streets. The Silberquel mines did not cease their operations at night; the cacophony of hundreds of rumbling trolleys and pickaxes was a ceaseless aural wallpaper. Every once in a while, the shadowy mountains groaned as though in protest.

Oskar kept his distance from Guinevere. He wore night like a cloak around him, the pulsing glow from the streetlamps flickering over the plane of his broad back. They had reentered the Dustbellows by the time she mustered what little courage she had and bridged the space between them, her hand reaching out in front of her, fingers latching into the folds of his sleeve. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything,her throat clogged with apologies that would never be enough, so she just held on and refused to let go.

He didn’t look back or slow his pace, but at least he didn’t shrug off her grip. That was something. Perhaps it was even enough.

I will stop being spoiled,Guinevere vowed fiercely to herself.I will learn people’s names. I will eat rabbit and be thankful.

I will be better.

Chapter Seven

Oskar

His house was one of fifty carved into a singular massive slab of the Silberquel, grouped in vertical layers that were connected, tenement style, by a crude staircase that had also been chiseled out of the rock.

It was very near the mines. Oskar hadn’t realized justhownear until he set out on the Amber Road and found sleep almost impossible in the silence of the forest, with no constant hammering of pickaxes or churning of stone in the background.

The one-room affair that he called home was located on the ground floor of the tenement. He fit a key he hadn’t expected to use again anytime soon into the lock on the creaky wooden door, and then he was leading Guinevere inside, setting matches to the tallow candles in the tin holders on the lone table.

As the stale air filled with the sour smell of burning animal fat and the interior was cast in a sickly yellow glow, Oskar tried not to think about how it would appear through Guinevere’s eyes. He wouldn’tgive her the satisfaction. It had suited him and his mother well enough. There were two pallet beds, each one partitioned off with makeshift curtains for the sake of privacy. The stone floor had seen better days, but it had always been meticulously swept clean of the soot from the forges that tended to drift in through the window. He’d emptied out the cupboards before he left, but, prior to that, there had always been at least a wedge of cheese and some onions, and even as a boy he’d gladly helped his mother out by warming these over the bakestone in the shabby but well-maintained hearth.

It wasn’t a palace, but neither was it total squalor. He could be proud of the life his mother had eked out for him. And if Miss Guinevere saidanythingabout it—

Her stomach grumbled. She clapped her hands over the offending body part and stared up at him with a stricken expression on her face, her eyes so wide that a flicker of reluctant mirth tugged at him.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he told her. “I’ll go find us something to eat.”

Oskar went to the house directly above his, calling in the favor the inhabitants owed him for fixing their rickety wooden shutters a week ago, and he came back down with a warmed loaf of bread made from black ale and rye seed, as well as a jug of sour wine.

His little guest had set the table while he was gone, using some of the much-vaunted merchandise from her satchel. The tallow candles and the house’s grand collection of two chipped earthenware plates and a plethora of mismatched utensils had been carefully arranged on top of a red silk cloth trimmed in gold brocade, joined by two engraved silver cups. There were linen napkins on top of the plates, emerald green and folded into the shape of four-leaf clovers.

Guinevere beamed at him from across her handiwork, her violet eyes sparkling. Her hair was spun starlight even in the dull glow of the cheap candles. Her smile shone, and not just because her teeth were small and straight and perfectly white against her copper skin; there was an incandescent happiness to it. The simple pride in a job well done.

Oskar was severely unamused by the way his breath caught in his chest. He stomped forward and plunked their meager repast on thetable. The irony of all the accoutrements costing more than the meal thousands of times over was not lost on him.

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