When We Met

CH 33 Rosaline

Maria's soft-spoken words of admiration hung between us, the air seeming to thicken with an unexpected tension. "You're even lovelier than Logan described," she murmured, teeth catching her plump lower lip as her gaze roamed over me with an unmistakable hunger for company.

A becoming flush crept into those freckled cheeks, rendering her seem even more disarmingly youthful and naive despite the womanly curves only hinted at beneath the simple cotton sundress. There was an almost childlike innocence about her demeanour that somehow managed to be both charming and deeply disquieting.

Before I could find an appropriate response to that candid appraisal, the sound of approaching footsteps from the hallway forestalled me. We both turned as Logan strode into the lavishly appointed sitting room, every inch the imposing betrothed

don exuding easy power and confidence.

His intense obsidian eyes found his sister first, and I witnessed that imperious mask fracture ever so slightly. A flicker of unmistakable warmth fond exasperation, perhaps surfaced in the slightly upturned quirk of his lips as he regarded the girl.

"Maria," he said, that rich timbre carrying undisguised tones of fraternal affection and rebuke in equal measure. "I thought we discussed you're wandering the family quarters unaccompanied. Especially..." Here his scrutiny slid towards me with a weighing look. "When we have guests."

The gentle admonishment made the girl visibly wilt, those delicate shoulders slumping infinitesimally as her chin dipped in a picture of contrition. "Forgive me, brother. I only wished to greet our... visitor properly, we normally never have guests."

Her eyes cut towards me again, a fleeting look of entreaty and something more inscrutable flickering across those beguiling features before sliding away once more.

Logan regarded his sister for a protracted moment, brows furrowed ever so slightly. When he spoke again, an unmistakable paternal edge had seeped into his words. "You've made your... enthusiastic introduction. But in the future, you would do well to exercise more discretion, little sister. For everyone's sake."

The subtly weighted meaning in that final phrase wasn't lost on me nor was Maria's immediate, instinctive compliance as she bobbed her chin with murmured acquiescence. "Of course, Logan. You're quite right, we don't want father to look too suspicious."

A heavy silence fell between the three of us then, ripe with unspoken undercurrents and tensions no less palpable for their ambiguity. I watched the siblings regard one another, getting the distinct sense there was an entire subtext unfolding between them that I wasn't privy to.

At length, Logan's penetrating stare slid fully towards me once more, the brief humanising glimpse of familial care eclipsed by his usual impenetrable poise and control. "If you'll excuse us, Rosaline? I need a private word with my sister."

It wasn't truly phrased as a request, though that silken courtesy gilded it exquisitely. Maria shot me one last lingering look from beneath her fan of sooty lashes and waved her tiny hand, an entreaty? A challenge? Some muddled combination of both that I couldn't parse?

Then she turned and preceded her brother from the room without a backwards glance, back straight, steps whispering faintly against the plush carpet. Only once she'd withdrawn fully, the soft snick of the door latching shut behind her, did Logan angle his full focus on me once more.

A frisson of dread needled along my nerves as I faced him alone, holding that hawk-like stare steadily despite the instinctive urge to squirm beneath its weight. Something had shifted irreversibly in our dynamic, some new gambit slinking in with all the subtlety of a serpent in the underbrush.

"Forgive my sister's...enthusiasm," he said at last, the words precisely measured in that fathomless tone of his. "She can be... overeager in her desire to please at times, and she doesn't have much contact with nay stranger apart form the guards and they rant allowed to speak to her directly."

The underlying implication in that observation made my stomach churn uneasily. Just how precisely did the Walsh's groom their young for the depravities that appeared to be their family's stock in trade?

I found myself scrutinising Logan anew through narrowed eyes as those disquieting questions ricocheted through my mind. For not the first time, I wondered whether there mightn't be some glimmering vein of decency or regret lurking beneath that immaculate veneer. Whether the soul beneath the don's ruthless facade might not simply be another innocent life crushed beneath this deplorable legacy.

The thought soured in my mouth, tasting like ashes and self-recrimination for affording this man even a shred of misplaced sympathy. Hadn't the Salazars suffered enough beneath the Walshs' heavy-handed reign?

"Your sister comported herself as well as can be expected given her being kept under lock and key and inexperience with strangers that don't work for your father," I said at last, keeping my tone carefully neutral despite the currents of disgust eddying in my chest. "One can hardly fault her for that naivety, after all," I say with a little snark and sass in my tone.

One dark brow inched fractionally higher in a subtle tell of reaction before that mask of stony impassiveness reasserted itself seamlessly. Logan regarded me in silence for a long moment that seemed to stretch into a small eternity.

When he spoke again at last, his words carried undisguised weight. "yes maybe you are right Rosaline, but then again we don't raise our girls to be hooligans that can fight, but ladies that can compose themselves well." I tried up at him trying to rain in my anger at his blatant attempt at verbally attacking me, I let it slide as if I was one of those proper and prim girls and gave him a tight-lipped smile.

The words carried the undeniable ring of a oblique threat or perhaps a veiled appeal for understanding. With Logan Walsh, one could never be entirely certain which was which.

All I knew with ironclad certainty was that the game had shifted once more, the currents of this deadly little familial drama intensifying and converging with all the gathering force of a riptide...drawing me inexorably into its chaotic, destructive embrace.