Odilia sat in the shade of the terrace, her book long forgotten in her lap as she let the breeze soothe the warmth of the day and distract her with the view of the leaves and grasses and flowers rippling with the peace of the countryside.
It was quiet here. She could get used to that.
“My lady?”
She tucked some of her dark hair behind her ears as she turned to acknowledge the maidservant standing at the door to the estate. The girl dipped a curtsy and said quietly, “There was a letter for you.”
Odilia carefully marked her forgotten spot in her book and set it aside. “From?”
“From the palace.”
Carefully, Odilia smoothed her hands across the neat draping of her skirts before she nodded slowly. “I will read it.”
Her fingers broke the seal on the letter, and she sat back to read what they had sent her.
An hour later, when the Duc de Chalasse returned from his afternoon hunt with a brace of rabbits and some waterfowl for the kitchens, his manservant informed him that his guest had ordered her things packed and a carriage prepared for the next morning. And Roland went on the hunt again, but this time for his little flower.
“The servants tell me you are leaving,” he said once he found her sitting at the edge of one of his fountains.
She didn’t look up from where she was playing with a curious bumblebee that had come to investigate the scent of her perfume. “They tell you correctly.”
“Have I so failed in my host duties that you would return to the City of Elua without telling me?”
“No,” she said, letting the fat, fuzzy insect land on her fingers. “You have been a perfect host. This time here has been wonderful for my soul.”
“You must see how I will take insult to this.”
“Of course,” she said with a quiet smile, as the bumblebee finished its exploration of her hand and turned its attention instead to the water lilies floating in the fountain. And she looked up at him. “You are a proud man, Roland. I know your first instinct is to see this a failure. But it is not. I have no choice.”
“I am a proud man,” he agreed, pulling his riding gloves from his hands and looking down his nose at her. “I have enjoyed the prize of your attentions for quite some time, am I to let you go willingly?”
“You do not have a choice either,” she said, watching how he bristled at it. But, when she withdrew the invitation from where she had tucked it into her sleeve and held it out to him, he did take it. Yet, she didn’t need to watch him read it. She trailed her fingertips through the water of the fountain, tracing the edge of the lily pad.
She didn’t look up as he sat down next to her, the peace was too important now that it was so soon to be shattered.
“So I must let you go,” he said quietly.
“You must,” she said. “I cannot ignore a summons from the palace.”
“I had a letter from Rosanna,” he said, folding the invitation back up neatly and tilting his head back to consider the estate at the top of the hill. “She will be coming here soon.”
“It seems it is the time for the important conversations to occur,” Odilia said absently. “I am sure there are a great many things the family must discuss. I would not wish to be in the way of what you must say to each other and the answers she will demand.”
They sat together—quiet and still and so far away from each other even as they shared the same air.
Finally, he reached to take her hand, his voice impersonal even as his touch was warm and soft. “I will miss you, little Dahlia.”
“I am grateful for everything you have given to me,” she said, shaking the last droplets of the water from her fingertips as she withdrew her other hand from the fountain. “I know it was not for me. I know you have your own goals and purposes. But that does not change that you have shown me kindness in your own way. I respect you a great deal, Roland. That will not change.”
His arm slipped around her shoulders. “Perhaps it began selfishly on my part, seeking to find a weakness in the woman the royal court accused of turning the young king from his new duties. But I see what in you has so captured him. I am not a good man, little Dahlia, nor have I claimed to be. Yet the time I have spent with you has been my own, and you have…”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “I know.”
But she had run for long enough. Come the morning, she was in the carriage and returning to the City of Elua, the invitation in her reticule and the memory of Roland de Chalasse’s kiss on her lips.