Chapter Five

There are places in Hawthorne Castle that exist only if you already know they are there.

Passages worn thin by centuries of servants’ feet. Narrow doors disguised as paneling. Stairwells that lead nowhere unless you turn at the correct landing and press your palm to stone polished smooth by repetition. I had known them all since I was a girl small enough to slip beneath carts and bannisters, since the castle had taught me its body the way a mother teaches her child the shape of her hands.

It was why I was not looking where I walked when I heard his voice behind me.

“Edith.”

He did not call out. He never did. The prince spoke my name the way one might test the weight of a word before deciding whether it belonged in the world.

I stopped anyway.

The corridor I stood in was dim, tucked between the eastern wing and the old solar that had not been used since the queen’s death. Dust softened the tapestries here; the air smelled faintly of stone and dried lavender. I should have turned at once. I should have curtsied and moved on.

Instead, I told myself what I always told myself.

It will only be a moment.

I turned.

Prince Roman Davenport stood several paces behind me, dressed in dark riding clothes, his coat unfastened at the throat. The light from the narrow windows caught in his hair, turning the brown almost gold. His gaze moved to me slowly, as though he were still deciding whether he had truly meant to stop me at all.

“I was told the west gallery is being closed,” he said.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“And yet I find you nowhere near it.”

“I was sent for polish,” I replied, lifting the cloth in my hands. “For the silver in the old solar.”

His mouth curved, not quite a smile. “You know,” he said lightly, “you are the only one who never sounds as though you are reciting a lesson when you speak to me.”

My chest tightened in a way I pretended not to notice.

“I speak plainly,” I said. “It is a habit of mine.”

“A dangerous one.”

I should have laughed. I should have bowed my head. Instead, I found myself saying, “Only if one listens too closely.”

Silence settled between us—thick, expectant. The castle seemed to draw inward, as though holding its breath.

It was Roman who broke it.

“Come with me,” he said.

I looked down the corridor, then back at him. “I cannot.”

“You can,” he corrected gently. “You simply should not.”

He turned before I could answer, walking toward a narrow arch half-hidden behind a tapestry depicting an ancient hunt. I knew what lay beyond it without needing to follow. A servant’s stair, no longer used. A forgotten passage. And, at the end of it, a small, unused sitting alcove once meant for a lady-in-waiting long dead.

My feet moved before my conscience caught up.

The alcove was exactly as I remembered it—stone bench beneath a narrow window, ivy pressing against the glass from outside, the light filtered green and gold. Dust lay thick upon the sill. No fire had been lit there in decades.

Roman stepped inside and looked around, something like wonder crossing his face.

“So this is where the castle hides its ghosts,” he murmured.

“They are quiet ones,” I said. “They keep their secrets.”

His gaze met mine then, and something unspoken passed between us—recognition, perhaps. Or agreement.

“This could be ours,” he said, too softly.

The word ours settled into me like a held breath.

I should have protested. I should have reminded him of titles and consequences. Instead, I said, “No one comes here.”

“Then no one will see.”

He brushed dust from the bench with his glove and sat, unthinking, careless. Prince or not, he filled the small space with his presence. I remained standing, my hands clasped tight around the cloth.

“We cannot be seen together,” I said at last.

“I know.”

“We cannot meet like this.”

“I know.”

His eyes lifted to mine. “But we can speak.”

That was how it began.

We decided it would be harmless. Friendship, we told ourselves. A word clean enough to hide behind. A prince might have acquaintances. A servant might answer questions. Nothing more.

No one needed to know.

We needed a signal—something ordinary enough to pass unnoticed. It was Roman who suggested it first, almost amused.

“The white bellflowers,” he said. “They grow everywhere along the inner gardens. No one remarks upon them.”

“If I see one placed on the fountain,” I said slowly, thinking it through, “I will know.”

“And if I say,” he added, “‘The bells rang early today,’ you will answer—”

“‘Then the evening will be quiet,’” I finished.

He smiled then, fully this time, and it struck me how dangerous that smile was—not because it promised anything, but because it asked nothing at all.

I told myself what I always told myself.

This is nothing.

Yet when I turned to leave, when I passed close enough that his sleeve brushed my arm, my breath caught painfully in my chest. He did not reach for me. He did not need to.

The alcove remained behind us, claimed by no words spoken aloud.

And the lie we had agreed upon—just friends, nothing more—settled between us like a promise we would one day have to break.