Page 73 of Love & Letter Charms
“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” he said softly. “Something most people do not know.”
“Hmm.” Her gaze drifted upward, tracing the dark lacework of branches overhead. The silence between them was easy—warm, unhurried. “My siblings call me Lise,” she offered eventually.
Several moments of quiet followed. Then: “Lise.” He spoke the name like a secret, the sound barely more than a breath. Then he laughed, quiet and wondering, and when she turned to look at him, he was shaking his head as though he’d just discovered something miraculous.
“What?” she asked.
He met her eyes, and the tenderness in that single glance caused her breath to falter. “Nothing,” he answered, though his smile held secrets she couldn’t decipher. “It suits you perfectly. I like it.Lady Lise.”
The way he said it, like he was tasting something sweet, sent heat flooding through her. “Your turn,” she said quickly, though she did not look away. “Tell me something about yourself that remains hidden from society.”
He was quiet a long time, and when he finally spoke, his voice had gone distant. “My father never loved me.”
The words fell between them like stones into still water. Aurelise’s lips parted on a soft exhale. “What?” She rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows, her gaze intent on him.
“He was not a good man.” Ryden stared up at the canopy of leaves above them, his profile sharp in the moonlight. “He treated my mother abhorrently. His treatment of me was hardly better. He gave me this, actually.” Without looking at her, he pulled aside the loose collar of his shirt, pointing to the vaguely star-shaped marking just above his collarbone. The scar she’d asked about the night they had swum in the lake.
Without conscious thought, her hand moved toward him. Through the fog in her mind, some part of her shrieked in alarm—what was she doing, touching him like this?—but the voice seemed very far away. He went utterly still beneath her touch,his breathing shallow, while her gloved finger traced the edges of the scar.
“You told me it was the result of an accident,” she murmured.
“In a way,” he said, his voice little more than a breath, “it was.”
She became acutely aware of their proximity then. The now familiar scent of fresh rain on cedar trees, of how she was almost leaning over him, how if she simply lowered her head …
No.
She pushed herself upright abruptly, her hand flying to her hair which had become somewhat disheveled and likely had bits of grass in it. “That was … considerably more serious than my own revelation.”
“Would you prefer something lighter?” His voice had gone rough in a way that sent shivers down her spine.
“Only if you wish to share it.”
“Very well.” He sat up as well, though they were somehow far closer now than when they’d first positioned themselves on the grass. “My favorite event of the Season—that’s appropriately frivolous, isn’t it?”
“Perfectly so.” She drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them in a gesture that would have horrified the majority of her family and made Rosavyn grin with delight. “Let me guess—the Gleamcatcher’s Soirée? You did win the moonflare, after all.”
“And gifted it to you,” he said quietly, his gaze steady and unguarded.
A faint tremor stirred in her chest as their gazes held. She had found his gift the night of the Soirée, a small silver token resting atop the pianoforte. It had unsettled her then, though she’d pretended it hadn’t, insisting to herself that it meant nothing. But now, under the stars, with that quiet intensity in his eyes,nothingno longer felt like the truth.
She swallowed and looked away. “So … the Gleamcatcher’s Soirée, then?”
“Yes, though there is perhaps another event I enjoy equally. The Festival of Lantern Wishes.”
“I don’t believe I’ve heard of that one.”
“It’s one of our smaller gatherings, usually held close to the Summer Solstice Ball.” His eyes took on a distant quality, seeing something beyond the present moment. “Guests inscribe wishes on enchanted parchment, then fold them into lanterns. When released, they rise into the night sky. The wishes that align with the constellations—that is to say, that find their matching stars—are said to come true.”
She smiled. “It sounds beautiful.”
“It is.” He turned to look at her again, and something in his expression made her heart skip yet again. “You’ll see it for yourself this Season.”
For a long, quiet moment, the space between them seemed to deepen, filled with a warmth that swelled and grew until it was almost too much to bear. It felt big, too big, as though it might spill over and remake everything she thought she understood.
I have no intention of choosing you.
What need have I to charm you?
