Page 63 of Enchanted
She wished he would speak. But he said nothing as they walked through moonlight from her cabin to his. She’d known him long enough to understand that when he fell into this kind of silence he would tell her nothing until he was ready.
By the time they reached his cabin and stepped inside, her nerves were strung tight.
What she didn’t think about, refused to consider, was the fact that he’d withdrawn into that silence after she’d told him she loved him.
“Is it so serious?” She tried for a light tone, but the words came out uneven, and very close to a plea.
“For me, yes. You’ll decide what it means to you.”
He moved into the bedroom and, running his fingers over the wall beside the fireplace, opened a door she hadn’t known was there into a room she’d have sworn didn’t exist.
A soft light glowed from it, as pale and cool as the moonlight.
“A secret room?”
“Not secret,” he corrected. “Private. Come in, Rowan.”
It was a measure of her trust in him that she stepped forward into that light. The floor was stone, smooth as a mirror, the walls and ceiling of wood, highly polished. Light and the shadow she cast reflected back off those surfaces and shimmered like water.
There was a table, richly carved and inlaid, and on it a bowl of thick blue glass, a stemmed cup of pewter, a small mirror with a silver back ornately scrolled and a slim, smooth handle of amethyst. Another bowl held small, colorful crystals. A round globe of smoky quartz stood on the silver backs of a trio of winged dragons.
What did he see when he looked into it? she wondered. What would she see?
But she turned and watched Liam light candles, watched their flames rise into air already perfumed with fragrant smoke.
She saw another table then, a small round surface on a simple pedestal. Liam opened the box resting there, took out a silver amulet on a chain. He held it a moment, as if testing its weight, then set it down with a quiet jingle of metal on wood.
“Is this … a ceremony?”
He glanced over, those tawny eyes distracted as if he’d forgotten she was there. But he hadn’t forgotten her. He’d forgotten nothing.
“No. You’ve had a lot to deal with, haven’t you, Rowan? You’ve asked me not to touch your thoughts, so I can’t know what’s in your mind, how you’re thinking of all this.”
He hadn’t meant to touch her, but found his fingers grazing her cheek. “A lot of it I can read in your eyes.”
“I’ve told you what I think and what I feel.”
“So you have.”
But you haven’t told me,she thought, and because it hurt her, she turned away. “Will you explain to me what everything is for?” she asked, and traced a fingertip over the scrolling on the little mirror.
“Tools. Just pretty tools,” he told her. “You’ll need some of your own.”
“Do you see things in the glass?”
“Aye.”
“Are you ever afraid to look?” She smiled a little and looked back at him. “I think I might be.”
“What’s seen is … possibility.”
She wandered, avoiding him. There was change coming. Whether it was her woman’s instincts or her newlydiscovered gifts that told her, she was sure of it. In a glass case were more stones, stunning clusters with spears rising, smooth towers, jewel-tone globes.
He waited her out, not with patience but because for once he didn’t know how to begin. When she turned back to him, her hands linked nervously, her eyes full of doubts, he had no choice but to choose.
“I knew you were coming here.”
He didn’t mean here, to this room, tonight. He saw her acknowledge this. “Did you know … what would happen?”
