Still Star-Crossed (5 page)

Rosaline pressed her lips together and bent her head closer to her task, so that her hair shadowed her face. Gentlemen of the court offered such flirtatious compliments to ladies as a matter of course. If there was a blush staining her cheeks, it was no doubt due to the excitement of the night.

“You seem not like a lady given much to swooning, anyway, from what I’ve seen,” he said.

“Not much, sir. Swooning stains one’s gown with earth.”

“But not if one is there to catch you, lady.”

“ ’Tis true. But men can’t be relied upon to follow me about with outstretched arms, and so I think it best to stay upright.”
Rosaline wrapped her handkerchief around his arm as a makeshift bandage.

“Your pardon, lady, for what my kinsmen did,” he said. “They never should have offered such discourtesy to any lady, Capulet or no—ow!”

Rosaline had tightened his bandage. “ ‘Capulet or no’?”

He flinched away from her ministrations. “I mean
your
kinsmen ought not to have provoked them.”

“Provoked them? Saw you not what
your
kinsmen did to our poor Juliet’s statue?” To Rosaline’s horror, her voice had started to shake. “Has she not suffered enough, but must be slandered from past the grave as well?”

“They made no slander, lady. For your kin had no right to presume that it was they. No kin of mine would so defile the dead.”

“Nay, only one that lives. Your wound is sound, sir. Good e’en.” Rosaline tied off his bandage and rose to leave the churlish Montague.

“Lady, wait.” He caught her hand, and she turned to find him looking sheepish. “I am sorry.”

Rosaline sighed. “A thousand times have I cursed this grudge between our houses,” she said. “Yet I no sooner meet a Montague than I have mounted a new battle. ’Tis I who must beg your pardon, sir.”

He gave her that crooked smile again and bent over her hand in a florid bow, as though they’d just been introduced at a ball. “We’ll start again, then. Benvolio, at your service, lady.”

She returned his smile and swept him the prettiest curtsy
ever made by a mud-covered girl in a graveyard. “Good e’en, sir. They call me Rosaline.”

He dropped her hand like it had burnt him.

“Rosaline,” he repeated. “Rosaline is thy name?” He sat down on the steps of the tomb and barked a laugh, running a hand across his forehead.

“Do I amuse you, sir?”

“Oh yes, lady,” he said. “An excellent jest, to find myself bowing and begging for pardon from the very cause of my family’s misfortunes.”

“Cause of your misfortunes?” she said. “When have I ever given a Montague a moment’s care? Except—”

“Aye. Except.” Benvolio surged to his feet, all traces of mirth gone from his face. “Except that you, in your pride, your prudishness—
you
brought this plague of death down on both our houses.”

Rosaline met him glare for glare, refusing to back down in the face of his fury. But her heart sank. Benvolio. She had been too frightened during the fight to remember why his face was familiar, but she knew him now. He was not just any Montague—the bloody youth clutching his sword before her had been Romeo’s best friend. So she knew what was coming. Few in Verona knew of Romeo’s brief passion for her, but Benvolio was certainly one of them. “If you refer to my friendship with Romeo—”

“By God! Say not his name.” Benvolio grabbed her by the arm. She tried to pull away but his grip was firm as he hauled her toward a fresh grave. “Mercutio,” he read from the tombstone.
Before she’d had a chance to reply or even catch her breath he’d hauled her away to another recently opened crypt. “Paris.” Another. “Tybalt.” His grip was as tight as Orlino’s had been. When they arrived at the entrance to the cemetery, he spun her around, holding her shoulders from behind. “Look,” he said behind her. Rosaline felt her back stiffen. He was a solid wall of fury behind her, his angry breaths hot against her ear. “Look upon thy handiwork.”

She didn’t want to. She wanted to close her eyes—didn’t want to look on the face of her erstwhile suitor, now immortalized in stone. But she would not show such weakness, so she took a deep breath and looked on Romeo’s lifeless golden visage.

“He loved thee,” said Benvolio, giving her shoulders a little shake. “He spoke of nothing but thy wit, thy beauty, thy kindness”—his fingers dug into her arms—“and thou—thou didst spurn him.”

Rosaline finally shook him off. “And after what hath passed, you dare tell me ’twas imprudent?” she said, whirling to face him. “I would not hear Romeo’s suit because I wished not to add fuel to the troubles that have consumed our families so long. ’Tis not my fault that he straightaway lighted on an even worse choice of bride, nor that poor Jule succumbed to his advances. Think you Romeo would have fared well had he married a niece of Capulet, rather than a daughter?”

Benvolio’s breath hissed through his teeth. “Would he have fared well? No. Would he live? Aye. My friends would live still, and so would Juliet, hadst thou the wit to accept the
love of a man a thousand times thy better. Or for that matter, had ‘poor Jule’ the wit to keep her legs closed.”

Rosaline’s hand flashed out and she slapped him hard across the face. “Speak so of Juliet again and I swear I’ll cut thy throat!”

The chiming of the nine o’clock bell broke the spell of their vicious grief. Rosaline tore her gaze from his furious face and stepped back. “I go,” she said. “For repelling your brutish kin, you’ve my thanks. I shall show my gratitude by troubling you no longer. Good night, sir.”

She searched for her black shawl, lost in the earlier scuffle. Finally spying it, she shook the grass away and wrapped it over her hair, then headed for the gate.

Benvolio followed. “ ’Tis not a safe night for a lady alone. I’ll go with you.” He did not sound as though he relished the prospect.

Rosaline shoved away his proffered arm with as much rudeness as she could. He may have saved her life, but after calling her an idiot and her cousin a whore, did he really expect her to be grateful for his grudging show of courtesy? “Your kinsmen have taught me well how dangerous this night is. But I’d rather let the villains hack me to bits than go one step with you.”

She set out for the cemetery gate. He strode after her, grabbing her arm again. “You brainless girl. I am trying to do you a kindness.”

“Montague kindness is of the sort that gets one killed. I’ve no wish for it. Let me be, Benvolio.”

His nostrils flared, his dark eyes furious. For a moment
she thought he might throw her over his shoulder and lend her his protection by force—even now, she was oddly certain that he would not offer her any physical harm himself, no matter how he hated her—but instead he spread his hands and backed away, offering her a mocking bow. “As you wish, my lady Rosaline. And if you meet with more brigands who wish you harm, do give them my compliments.”

“I shall, for they will likely be your kin.” Without another word, Rosaline turned and left the cemetery, heading up the hill toward her uncle’s house. As she hurried through the dark streets, fingernails still biting into her hands in anger, she sent up a silent but vehement prayer that she would never see Benvolio of Montague again.

Benvolio soon walked the streets once more.

The skirmish with the young men, far from clearing his head, had only made him feel worse. The yearning fury that swelled in him when he thought of Romeo and Mercutio was growing in strength, and he felt that if he did not get an outlet for it soon, he might burst.

Especially when he thought of that devil of a girl.

Benvolio’s steps quickened. The hilt of his sword bit into his palm. What sort of a lady insulted a man who had just saved her life?

In his mind’s eye, he could see her straight, proud back, hands clutching her shawl as she marched away from the graveyard, from him, to be swallowed by the Verona night.

Hell. He shouldn’t have let her go.

No gentleman would have let a lady walk alone into the night, no matter how grievously she’d insulted him. Not with the city in the state it was. But she’d been so vexing, so ungrateful.

No fool, though. He thought of the moment he’d first seen her clearly, after he’d chased off her attackers. Loose brown curls tumbled over her shoulder, face flushed with fear and red from Orlino’s slap, and yet her eyes had been keen and searching as she decided to trust him enough to let him help her to her feet.

Benvolio scrubbed a hand across his face. Aye, ’twas no wonder his cousin had spent long weeks in her thrall. She was a beauty, there was no doubting it. All the easier to flay a man with her hell-forged tongue and icy scorn.

Benvolio wondered suddenly what had won Romeo’s heart away from this Lady Rosaline. He’d never met Juliet—his only memory of her was watching her whirl across the dance floor from afar, the night she had met Romeo. She’d been young, not much more than a child. With her long dark hair, she’d had much the look of her cousin, but Benvolio could not imagine that laughing, innocent face ever holding the pain he’d seen in Rosaline’s.

But of course, it must have. For had they not all felt that anguish these past weeks? He did not imagine there had been much mirth left in fair Juliet by the time she buried her husband’s dagger in her own heart.

Two ladies of House Capulet had Romeo loved. Gay Juliet, reserved Rosaline. The latter a scandalous enough choice of
bride for Montague’s heir, but the former so unthinkable as to be fatal. Benvolio and Mercutio had tried so many times to sway Romeo from his Rosaline-induced melancholy by swearing to him that one pretty wench was much like another. How wrong they were.

Somewhere in the darkness a bell tolled the quarter hour, and Benvolio came to a halt. Oh hell. In all the trouble, he’d forgotten that his wanderings were not entirely aimless tonight. His uncle Montague had asked to meet him at a nearby church.

Benvolio turned and retraced his steps back up the hill. He knew not why his uncle had instructed him to go to the church instead of the Montagues’ house, but if he took a shortcut, he could be there inside of five minutes.

His uncle was already waiting outside when Benvolio arrived. Lord Montague was a tall man, like Benvolio himself. His close-cropped hair had been a steely gray as long as Benvolio could remember, but it was almost white now. Unlike his wife, Romeo’s father had survived the death of their son, but he had become an old man almost overnight.

“Ah,” Lord Montague said. “Benvolio.” He started, as though just then noticing him. “My boy.” His normally sharp eyes betrayed a certain dullness—perhaps grief had so shrouded his sight that even the familiar face of his nephew was hard to recognize.

Benvolio bowed. “Uncle.”

Lord Montague frowned, taking in his disheveled state, then inclined his head toward the door of the chapel. Benvolio followed him inside.

Lord Montague took a seat in a pew in the back. Benvolio sat down beside him. He knew not what to expect when his uncle had summoned him. This small chapel in an unfamiliar part of town, far from the square where the Montagues made their homes, did nothing to abate his confusion.

They sat in the dark, empty chapel for some time before his uncle broke the silence.

“Thou art grown so tall,” he said.

“My lord?”

His uncle sighed. “I remember the three of you, hopping around the courtyard with wooden swords.” He held out his hand, as though measuring the height of an invisible small boy. “And now thou art the last of them.”

A chill washed over Benvolio’s skin. His uncle was a kind man, but proud and reserved. He had never spoken so to Benvolio in his life. “Uncle, why have you summoned me?”

A slight smile flickered on Montague’s face. “Because,” he said, “I was sure that if I told thee where we were really going, thou wouldst not have come.”

“Where—”

“Mark me well.” Lord Montague turned and gripped him by the shoulders. “The Montagues have never known such a dark hour, Benvolio. My wife is dead. My only child—” For a moment his mask of composure cracked, and he looked as though he might break down in tears. But he recovered, gripping Benvolio harder, heedless of his wound. “But thou, thou liv’st.” He shook him slightly. “Thou
liv’st
. And we Montagues have need of thee now. Wilt thou help us?”

Benvolio clasped his uncle’s hand. “Anything.”