LITMIR.BIZ

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give it to her. When they were married, it would be different, Ruth told herself. She’d run her own home, she’d have independence, she’d have children. Albert could provide all that. It was a practical, sensible choice…that stuck in her throat like a sharp slice of apple.

      “Yes, a good idea, off with you,” said Osbourne, dismissing the youngest in their party.

      A resigned huff left Albert, before he said, “If we must.”

      In the dying light, the canal looked molten gold. Men and women in their finery rowed themselves along the water, laughing and drinking as they navigated the reeds and narrower stretches. One intoxicated group bumped and scraped the stonework beneath a low bridge as they bobbed by, calling and hooting. The three waited for them to pass – Lottie with amusement, Ruth with concern, and Albert with sheer disapproval – before climbing into their own craft. It dipped alarmingly at Albert’s end and only Ruth’s harsh looks kept Lottie from laughing.

      “It’s not fair. I think the people in the other boat are having far more fun than the rest of us,” observed Lottie.

      “Or they want us to think they are,” said Ruth.

      Lottie was delighted at the opportunity to perch herself in a rowboat and spoke far too quickly for Albert to keep up, and with too much force for him to interrupt. She always chattered away when trying to impress someone and Ruth was grateful that, for once, her friend made an effort on her behalf. Albert nodded along and was already sweating from the small effort it took to wrestle with the oars. Ruth let Lottie’s words fade into background; she’d had years of practice, after all. She trailed her hand in the water, spied pale lilies with petals so thick they could have been made from marzipan, and watched dragonflies dart across the ripples that marked their progress.

      “Did you hear about that awful Miss Ollis, the one who left the academy before us?” continued Lottie, though no one listened. “Ran off to France you know, to become an English tutor. There was a gentleman involved, and I use that term loosely, though heaven knows who’d want her…”

      It won’t be so bad, Ruth reassured herself, as she let her gaze wonder over to Albert. When she’d imagined marriage, she’d hoped for love. Perhaps it had been childish. Her uncle would think so, and she desperately wanted to please him. After all he’d done, with how generous he’d been, she owed it to him to be grateful, to be obedient, to never be a burden…to marry Albert.

      As they approached the bridge, claps and exclamations could be heard from an audience surrounding a performer. Another display, skit or creation. It was their shouts – along with a hard THUMP – that alerted Ruth to the fourth member in their little boat.

      A snake, dropped by its keeper on the bridge, took its bearings. Thick and fat, it began to wind its way along the wood. Albert screamed. It was a high, quivering noise emitted as he bumbled back and – with a comical roll – fell into the canal. The motion jolted the boat dangerously. Ruth clung on, while Lottie scrabbled to climb behind her, sloshing water over their legs.

      “Get it away, get it away,” hissed Lottie, her fan wielded like an offensive weapon. “Do something. Kill it, Ruth.”

      “With what?” It was the harshest response she had ever given her friend and had they not been frightened for their lives, Ruth knew she’d have gotten an earful.

      A pressure smoothed itself along Ruth’s ankle, over her skirts, winding upwards. Shock and fear kept her still as the scaled, dark green monster coiled its way towards her. She looked to Albert for help, only to find he had fled to the nearest bank, dripping profusely, not even casting a glance back. They had been abandoned. Left for dead. No one was coming. No one would help them; no one cared to.

      “Albert,” she called, but he wouldn’t answer, pretended he couldn’t hear. His name felt clumsy on her tongue, as though it didn’t belong there and never would. “Albert, please!”

      A heavy splash showered the two women. Strong, firm hands grabbed their craft and kept it steady.

      “Hold still.” The stranger reached out and easily pulled the snake from Ruth’s gown. He draped it across his shoulders as one would a shawl. “Stay where you are. I will come back and get you.”

      He moved so quickly that Ruth didn’t get a real look at him, only an impression. Tall, dark and controlled. She watched him go, unable to disobey his instructions even if she wanted to.

      The man waded towards dry land and gave the creature back to its handler, who snatched it up and vanished into the mass of spectators, trailing foreign apologies behind him, before any repercussions could follow. True to his word, the stranger returned and eased the boat to a shallow stretch, bumping it into a grassy ledge. The assembled crowd cheered and Ruth felt her cheeks redden, suddenly aware that they were being watched. In fact, it seemed that many party guests assumed the entire scene had been a performance put on for their benefit. Her fear had been entertaining to that faceless, fickle lot.

      God, she couldn’t do this, couldn’t be like this – like them – and they knew it.

      Lottie was the first one to scramble back onto the grass in a sprawling unladylike manner. Her fingers were hard on their rescuer’s forearm and were hastily removed for appearance’s sake, while she muttered darkly about her ruined dress and sought to blame someone for it. Others came to help her, friends, ones Ruth did not share.

      “Come on, love, let’s get you up,” said the man to the forgotten girl, slipping his warm hand into hers and pulling her to her feet. “Steady now, I’ve got you.”

      And he did, for she could not have let go if she tried.

      Speechless, Ruth allowed herself to be guided onto the bank, where Albert – sopping wet – was berating the nearest servant he could find for his “brush with death” and stealing away any attention or concern that might have been offered her way. And although Ruth was coasting away from the crowds, beyond sight and prying eyes, she wanted it. To escape Albert – her future – and Lottie and the awkward conversations with people who did not even care to remember her name.

      A stone bench squatted nearby and Ruth was steered towards it. She groped for the cold surface. There was no one to stare here, no quips to reach her, a chance to gather herself. It was almost like solitude, were it not for the man who lingered beside her – an afterthought.

      “I – I don’t understand these people,” she stuttered, after taking a deep breath, fighting to find her calm. “They all stood and watched. I heard them laughing.”

      Mocking ghouls, monstrous smiles, masked intentions.

      “No one even tried to help until you – you – I – I, you’re – forgive me, I haven’t even thanked you,” she forced out, dragging her eyes up to meet the stranger and losing any other words she might have offered.

      This man was not like Albert. Where her future husband was circular, puffy and flappable, this man was the exact opposite: broad shoulders, hard features, dark eyes and tanned skin. There was nothing ridiculous or comical about him at all. No faults, no failings, no foppish tendencies.

      She had not known men could look like that, like the ones from her books. The legends about knights and brave warriors had been fiction, a lie, non-existent, with crumbling illustrations in old yellow tomes. No one real, no one in existence had ever stirred the deeper, darker places in her core. Yet the figure who stood before her was very much flesh and blood.

      A warmth curled in Ruth’s stomach. She felt a blush rise up her neck, and once she knew she was blushing, she blushed further.

      “No thanks are necessary.” The way he stood, shadowed by the fading sun, made it hard for her to see his face. “You were far from danger; the creature was harmless.”

      His clothes were dark and heavy with canal water. They clung to him and invited her gaze.

      He spoke again, disrupting her thoughts – and she was glad for it – for that chance to find her composure. “You have the same expression you

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