Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 25

And as per usual, Gregory has absolutely no complaints about what it does to him, but with the shifted position, he  notices her hand a little later and grabs it, growling at her to tell him who did this. She’s not telling and that’s the end of it. Rebuked, he just shuts up.

She doesn’t like to just leave it like this, and she’s feeling bold and without inhibitions, so she tells him to wait for a little bit while she goes behind her dressing divider, only to reappear a moment later with the dog leash they’ve used on some excursions to make her wolf form less conspicuous. He blushes and she chuckles, aha, she did see right that he looked funny at her the last time he put the leash on her. Sitting close to him and handing him the leash she giggles, starts asking him if he likes how it looks, or what is going on here? 

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 24

The harp music brings Dr Seward up to the music room, and seeing her so overjoyed makes him smile. He wishes everybody was this easy to read. Emotions are difficult. Then again, reading others’ emotions is easier than reading his own, always elusive, always seeming like there should be more if what he observes from others is any indication. But that isn’t so important when around Darcy, his rose petal. His pride and joy, his little girl, so of course he says yes with a smile when she bounces up from the harp and runs so she can have a dance with the most important man in her life. She giggles at saying it, he thinks he can identify that what he’s feeling there is pain, a fear of losing her when she marries, and for him to identify that so easily must mean it’s a strong emotion. But he can’t let that show, not when she’s always so eager to be an obedient daughter, to be good for him, he doesn’t want to make her unhappy when she’s so elated now. Instead he dances with her and then lets himself be dragged off to give her feedback on the dresses.

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 23

It’s Arthur who finds Darcy in the library after Dr Seward left, deeply immersed in her work- or looking like it. Gregory told him he was leaving for a few days for something engagement-related, so it’s just the two of them. Arthur feels shy about it, but it would be rude to ignore Darcy, and they’ve spent some nice quiet time in the library together before, after all- the library is starting to feel like a safe space. 

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 22

The light is a small orb, hardly larger than a firefly, but much brighter, and in it, a woman crouches down in the grass. Her hair is dark, falls around her shoulders and face in wild, open waves. 

Arthur’s only seen her once, but he still recognizes her: It’s the woman from the prison break. The one who carried the skeleton’s skin over her arm. 

She reaches out to touch something in the grass- something dark and… Arthur feels his gorge rise. 

Something charred and human-shaped. 

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 21

Darcy is back on her feet and charges into the bushes where their attackers are hiding. So, straight through the wards, of course. Arthur’s heart skips a painful beat, because now she’s outside, unprotected. 

Though there’s a shout, and a mighty rustling and crackling of branches, and snarling, and then a choked, gurgling sound, and the blood that arcs up over the leaves looks black in the light of the spell circles. So maybe Darcy doesn’t need the protection of the wards that much. 

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 20

Arthur slides a look at Dr Seward, who seems to be adjusting something at his sleeve when Darcy gives Llew her normal glare, as he walks closer to the middle of the library again, tries to make out what Darcy’s father makes of the sudden and clearly magical appearance of Llew. 

Llew is ignoring everyone except Darcy, in any case. 

“We’re under attack,” he informs her.

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 19

To his worry, Dr. Seward sees Darcy’s eyes flit to him, and, seeing him, she goes beet red and timid a second later. His rose petal, timid with him? What has that ruffian done to her? And, what is going on? Dastardly difficult social situations always.

~~~~

Arthur, despite the risk of drawing attention to himself, decides that information is better than no information, and he’s fed up with not knowing what’s going on, so he asks. 

Instead of a direct answer, however, Gregory straightens with a grin- the grin he has when he nicked the biggest, reddest apple from the fruit stall, or found a new spot to explore that he thinks is amazing. He turns to Dr. Seward and asks: 

“May I ask for the hand of your daughter in marriage?” 

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 18

Life is so much easier when one is in love. Sure, there still are those excursions and having to talk to people to do her duty as baroness but Darcy has her knight, yes, yes, she knows, postulant, still, her knight, to send around. Although, sometimes she wants to make sure he really isn’t getting anywhere too close to all those girls in town.

By now she has learned to control her wolf form better, and there have to be more. Vampires are associated with all those other animals and she loves her night friends, why shouldn’t she be able to giggle together with her bat friends or be as soft as the owls at the edge of her estate’s gardens? That would mean she could be close by and maybe it would spare her embarrassing moments like when she got really worried about Arthur having been out in town for so long that she ended up running up to him as a wolf and nearly, nearly licked his face. That time she had to pretend she forgot herself again… she didn’t, but how embarrassing would that have been?

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 17

Gregory hesitates for a moment- he knows girls, he’s been with girls before, but not any that are as amazing as her- she’s so complex and she always has so much going on, he doesn’t always understand her. But he likes it when she’s determined, confident- just not when she then gets mad at him. 

But really, what else could she want? So he leans down and kisses her. And it feels so good that he kisses her deeper, after all, he’s got practise, and he wants to show her how much fun it is. 

And it’s lots of fun, she doesn’t pull back, it’s him who eventually has to because he runs out of breath, only to blush at seeing the look she’s giving him and hearing her whisper again: “Three is the magical number, remember?” 

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Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 16

Arthur isn’t sure what he’s feeling about the presence of the knight- apprehension, certainly. He’s starting to see the castle as safe, as home, and having a stranger in it feels vulnerable and exposed. There must be so many things that strike the man as strange- like their lack of servants. So he really can’t wait for him to be gone again, too. 

On the other hand, he seems nice enough, friendly and easy-going. And it is kind of cool that Gregory gets to try out to be a knight. A part of him wonders whether he could also be a knight, with how much magic he now has. 

But that’s the boyish, adventure-happy part. The rest of him agrees that here’s no way in hell he wants to draw that much attention to himself. 

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