The Mysterious Knight 🏹 🔞 |Harry Styles AU| COMPLETED ✔

Chapter 22

Harry stopped and took a deep breath.
All these emotions were making him feel uncomfortable...
He better light up the mood before he starts to cry like a babe.

“I’ve already told you that kindness isn’t a part of my nature, my dear.
And I wish you would not thank me.”
He smiled.
“I much prefer it when you rail at me and call me all those dreadful things.”

Rosaline wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.
She Just realised how much she was going to miss this man...

They both just looked at each other for a long moment in silence.

Finally Harry spread his fingers gently across her cheek and neck and lowered his head to kiss her.

It wasn't passionate, just warm, gentle and tender.

When Harry lifted his head, he stared deeply into Rosaline ’s eyes.
His heart hammering wildely in his chest.

“How strange,” he whispered, stroking his thumb across her temple.
“I will miss you, Rosaline.”

Her hand slid over his, pressing it against the side of her face.

“It is, Harry Styles, but I shall miss you too.”

A tiny light flickered in the depths of his green eyes.

“Rosaline,” he began with uncertainty,
“what would you think if…in a few months, when I’ve settled matters at Abbotsburry, how would you feel if I…
what I mean to say is,
I’ll have to go to London eventually,
for estate purposes, and while I’m there, what would you think if I…sought you out?”

He sounded so unsure of himself, yet so hopeful, that it nearly broke Rosaline ’s heart.

“Would you care to see me again?”

Rosaline swallowed with some difficulty and dropped her hand from his.

Taking a step away, trying her best to sound as distant as possible, she said,
“No. I wouldn’t.”

His eyes widened for the briefest of seconds, but long enough for Rosaline to see the pain she had put in them.

She wanted to cry out, to tell him that her words were false, but she couldn’t.

All she could do was stand there, steeling herself against the powerful desire to soothe him, and watch him as he mastered his emotions with the ease of years of practice.

It took only a few moments for him to retreat back behind his mask of indifference.

“You couldn’t speak more honestly than that,” he said, smiling.

“Harry I—”

“Let’s not speak of it,” he said without a hint of hurt or anger in his tone.

Placing her hand on his arm again, he began to stroll through the gardens.

“Tell me, instead, what it was that Justin was talking to you about when I found you together an hour ago.
He looked as if he were laying his heart at your feet.”

“In a manner of speaking, he was,”
Rosaline replied miserably, wishing that she could think of a good excuse to leave him so that she could go to her chamber and have a good cry.

“He was telling me of his many qualities, and explaining what he has to offer a bride and why he would make a good husband.”

Harry laughed harshly.

“So he too was blinded by your beauty and decided to win your heart, didn't  he?
How very foolish of him.

Alex and Lillis told me that he’s decided to wed as soon as he may, and you would do as well as any other woman, I suppose.

Better even, for in spite of your cold nature, Rosaline no-name, you do warm a bed nicely. More than that a man shouldn’t desire from a woman.
I never have, nor shall I ever.”

Rosaline winced at the sharpness of his tone but said nothing.

Instead she turned her head away and forced her watering, aching eyes to look at the rosebushes.

¤¤¤

“Why would you not let me tell Harry the truth about Lady Rosaline?”

the Lady of Dart asked her husband as they stood by the long windows of his working chamber, looking out over the gardens to where Harry and Rosaline were strolling together.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alexander Dart replied, lazily running a hand over his wife’s shapely back.

“The poor girl clearly wants to keep the truth a secret.

And who could blame her, with Stewards of Hemming  and her uncle searching everywhere for her?

That she and Harry even managed to arrive safely at Dart is a miracle, considering the small army that came here only a few days past asking about her.

I didn’t wish to make her feel foolish, I suppose?”

“But Harry is going to be furious when he is going to discover the truth.

He thinks her nothing but the daughter of a farmer and has treated her accordingly.

Can you imagine what he’ll think when he finds out she is Rosaline Sarrant, the heiress of Valmer?”

“Mmm. Another reason I didn’t wish to make such a revelation. Harry  probably would have strangled her, for it is certain he never would have offered her his aid if he’d known how valuable a property she is.

He despises the nobility. He would have run from her as fast as he could.
But—”
he motioned toward the gardens “—look at him now.
I’ve never seen Harry to be so happy in a woman’s company before, save when he’s had them in his bed.”
He grinned at his wife, who laughed.

“And what would you know of that, my lord?” she teased, before turning her attention back to the couple, who were so slowly making their way down yet another path in the gardens. “You speak the truth, my lord, for he does seem to enjoy her company.
Does he love her, do you think? It would be strange were Harry to become the next Earl of Valmer, though I should be happy for him, of course.”

“God forbid!”
Alexander declared, pulling his lovely wife closer.
“Can you imagine? We’d have to treat him like royalty, and I’ll not spend the rest of my life saying ‘my lord’ to Harry.”

“It’s impossible, I think,”
she said with a sigh.
“He hates the nobility. He’ll not even let himself be knighted, not even at the king’s command. Still, I should love to see Harry happily settled.”

“As would I, my love,”
her husband agreed.
“We must pray that he’ll meet a more suitable maiden who will appeal to him as much as the lady Rosaline does.”

“Yes,” said his wife, “though it is a shame. She is a lovely girl. Perfect for Harry. If only she weren’t so highborn.”

Alexander of Dart nodded but said, more practically and more grimly,
“If only she weren’t in so much danger.”